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LabVIEW Idea Exchange

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SteenSchmidt

Add ellipsis to long enum/text ring selection values

Status: New

Hi.

 

I suggest an ellipsis be added to long enum or text ring values if they don't fit in the control. As it is today long values are line-breaked at last fitting hyphen (for instance):

 

EnumLongSelect.png --> EnumSnippedSelect.png

 

Instead I'd like as much text as possible to be displayed with an ellipsis at the end. The above example would then become:

 

EnumEllipsisSelect.png

 

Cheers,

Steen

CLA, CTA, CLED & LabVIEW Champion
11 Comments
altenbach
Knight of NI
SteenSchmidt
Trusted Enthusiast

It's quite demotivating to so often just being pointed to a "similar" idea that is several years old and hasn't gotten any real attention from NI back then.

 

LV versions and abilities have changed, and my idea hasn't been discussed in the thread you're referring to. Of course I could have posted in the old thread, but usually in discussion boards threads are deemed dead when they haven't received any updates for 2 years. My hunch is that my post would have just drowned there, so wasn't worth the effort. Too much of that and I won't be posting anymore here. Enough of that, and LV Ideas will die eventually.

 

I suggest that NI somehow mark "interesting" threads so they can live a life outside of limbo. Not "Declined" nor "In development", but maybe "Noted, more input wanted"?. I think I'll post that as a new idea...

 

Cheers,

Steen

CLA, CTA, CLED & LabVIEW Champion
altenbach
Knight of NI

That's why I said "related" instead of "duplicate". 😄

SteenSchmidt
Trusted Enthusiast

Sure, I got it Smiley Wink Your comment was 100% appropriate, I'm just addressing the general problem of having dead threads "stealing" the limelight of fresh ideas due to the inclination of uncritically grouping similar ideas. If we could somehow be sure the fresh idea (or twist, or merely comment) didn't just wind up in a black hole because nobody pays attention to the old threads anymore, then the motivation could stay intact...

 

Cheers,

Steen

CLA, CTA, CLED & LabVIEW Champion
Ray.R
Knight of NI

For an "old" idea, you're gaining popularity.  😉

 

Old or new, I like it.

altenbach
Knight of NI

Should the ellipsis placement (head or tail of string (or even both)) depend on the text alignement choice of the control (left, center, right).

Sometimes the interesting part of the string is near the end and it would be preferable to truncate the early parts. If the text is right-aligned, I would prefer the ellipsis at the beginning. 

SteveP
Active Participant

Another placement option for the ellipsis position could be in the middle of the text so that the beginning and end can be seen.  Doesn't Windows display long paths that way ?

SteenSchmidt
Trusted Enthusiast

Those are good observations - where to place the ellipsis. I suggest it to be a configuration option by context menu on the control (as well as settable by property node):

 

EnumEllipsisMenu.png

 

The "No ellipsis" option isn't the same display mode as today, but instead simply the text continuing right to the last pixel column of the control display field without any linebreaks nor ellipsis to signal continuing text, possibly even cutting part of a character if that's how much of the text which will fit. In this mode whether to display the front, end or center of the long text could be dependent on the justification setting.

 

Cheers,

Steen

CLA, CTA, CLED & LabVIEW Champion
SteenSchmidt
Trusted Enthusiast

I just want to add that my reason for keeping the ellipsis and justification settings separate is to allow for left justification while showing the end of a long entry (if the ends of the entries are the significant parts). It can be hard by eye to search through a right alligned column if the entries are alphabetized for instance.

 

/Steen

CLA, CTA, CLED & LabVIEW Champion
X.
Trusted Enthusiast
Trusted Enthusiast

If this is studied seriously by NI, I would suggest offering this option for any string/path appearing in LV. Plot legends, Axis Name, Cursor Name, etc. In fact, one might argue that even for numbers that would be a useful thing, in order to know that an indicator is too small to show all digits in a number and the user needs to select the number and scroll back or forth to see it all. I guess this comment is lacking nice pictures, but I hope you get my point.

Instead of (or in addition to) having this as a property ot be set on an object by object basis, I would personally prefer to have this a general LV preference...

My 2 cts + kudo.