Adaptive wire label text color defaults

[altenbach]

I wonder if newly created wire labels should inherit the wire color for better clarity. Labels on array wires (and other thick wire thingies, clusters, objects, etc) could go bold for the same reasons.

(Of course the programmer can later freely change these label text properties)

[tst]

This is interesting, but might need some tweaks to make certain data types (such as a single floating point or boolean) easier to read.

[Mr.Mike]

I think the label color should adapt, but I also think the background color should be transparent / semitransparent so you can clearly see the wire.

[altenbach]

If the label background is (semi) transparent, the label color must have a contrasting color with respect to the wire, else we cannot easily read it. You cannot have both. 😄

[AristosQueue (NI)]

> but I also think the background color should be transparent / semitransparent so you can clearly see the wire.

You can put a box aroud the text and make the wire look like it is temporarily wide enough. There are pictures of this in the original thread where wire labels were suggested, and I always liked that appearance best.

[wired]

I'd say your example provides more clarity only because of the names 😉

One could argue that the wire labels stand out more if they aren't the same color as the wire.

Personally, I would rather see effort be put into making the wire labelling feature a bit more intelligent.  For instance, if the vertical portion of a wire is labelled, I think it should automatically default to clockwise or counter-clockwise.  If the destination of the wire is in the downward direction from the label position, it should be clockwise.  If the destination is upward, it should be counter-clockwise.  The text should flow toward the destination (this would also punish those programmers who have right-to-left data flow - the text would be upside-down :)).

I also don't like the way the label doesn't retain its relative position to the wire when the wire is moved.  For instance, adding a label to a horizontal wire initially sets the label to the center of the wire.  If the wire is moved up, the label drops below the wire.  If the wire moves down, the label moves above the wire.  Perhaps a wire labelling system that is more similar to schematic entry net labels would be better. Always keep the label on the wire (will always result in the least diagram space) and have a direction (if a box around the label is an enabled feature, one end could be pointed to the destination).

[johnsold]

I oppose this because for those of use who are color blind, some color combinations are very hard to read or nearly invisible.

If this obviously popular idea gets adopted, please offer some means of globally resetting all labels to black.

Lynn

[GJMABerends]

What I do not like about this idea is:

The type of wire is indicated by color and size. You will only understand the type of data if you know this. If you don't know this, the color and size of text are meaning less and will generate confusion.Furthermore giving more freedom to the text will generate an even bigger problem, how is an programmer suposed to identify the data by lable as the lables are changed. 

What I do like about this Idea is: 

Generate a bigger diference between data value wires and give programmers more freedom in lables.

[Manzolli]

The current label color "breaks" the wire's color flow. I like the idea, but not all the time. I thing the adaptive color takes place until mouse hover the text label. Then the default color (like black/white, plain text) takes place to make easy read and edit. If the user choose another color it would be that color all the time.

[EricR]

While this is an interesting idea, it has a low return on investment for the work required to do it correctly and therefore will not be one of the things addressed in LabVIEW.

[Newt]

Let's revisit this.

Make the DEFAULT label match the wire color, not adaptive. Once the label is placed, one is freeto format it anyway they wish just as it is today.

Change this behavior with a LabVIEW.ini key, e.g.,

DefaultWireLabelColorMatch=True

False would make the default remain black. 


I document my code heavily, and color is very clear visual differentiator, colorblindness notwithstanding :). I am constantly changing the colors for wire labels, comments and even structure frames when it seems appropriate.