Allow removal of Event Structure event property nodes with "Delete" key.

[carls__]

LabVIEW 2020 allows you to remove the event property nodes shown here:

It's a nice feature because these nodes are often not used and can get in the way.  However -- the process for removing them is a bit tedious: you have to either remove them all individually or size the cluster down to one and then remove through a menu.  I find that I rarely use this because, well, it just takes too long.

However...if you could just click on the node (it's already selectable) and then click the "delete" button on your keyboard, this process would be near-instantaneous, and I know I'd be much more likely to use it.

[AristosQueue (NI)]

It is my opinion that this would be a bad feature. It would lead users to accidentally delete a node with no knowledge of how to bring it back. People who did not know about the right-click option would suddenly have an unusable case frame. Yes, they have "undo", but they may have done other work between clearing the frame and realizing that they now had a problem. I would bet the usual recovery would be to search the palettes to find a node to re-drop.

There are some significant changes we could make to UI interaction -- some sort of grab handle on the border of the structure to restore the node -- that would make this more viable, but I do not think the return on investment for just hiding a node is worth it. That's my personal opinion. I have not discussed this with anyone else in LV R&D, and I'm open to further comments.

[carls__]

The other way to remove this is from this menu on the border:

There are already (at least) 3 ways for users to get it back if they accidentally delete it:

- ctrl+z

- Toggle it back to visible through the frame menu

- remove and re-add the event case

If I was unfamiliar with the feature and had accidentally deleted it, the first place I would look would be on the menu of the event structure frame, not the palettes.  That said, I admittedly overlooked that it was in the "Visible Items" section of that menu when I first made this post.  Perhaps having a "Show Event Data Node for This Case" in the same section as "Show Dynamic Event Terminals" would make it more immediately apparent to a user?

(Which also raises the question: "Why is 'Show Dynamic Event Terminals' its own item in the top-level menu as opposed to being under Visible Items?")

[AristosQueue (NI)]

> (Which also raises the question: "Why is 'Show Dynamic Event Terminals'

> its own item in the top-level menu as opposed to being under Visible

> Items?")

A historical mistake which we came *this close* to changing this release while adding this feature. We just didn't have time and decided to let the current behavior stand.

[wiebe@CARYA]

Just to elaborate on the idea, regardless if it's a good or bad thing...

 'Show Dynamic Event Terminals' can't be removed with delete.

So iff the property nodes should be removable with delete, so should  'Show Dynamic Event Terminals'?

[carls__]

 > 'Show Dynamic Event Terminals' can't be removed with delete.
> So iff the property nodes should be removable with delete, so should  'Show Dynamic Event Terminals'?

I don't disagree.  Although I'd argue this is more analogous to nodes in 'In Place Element Structures' which can be deleted with the delete key:

And another thought on the menu options... I found the menu placement for the option to hide the event data nodes un-intuitive.  When I first read about this feature, I looked for it as a menu option directly on the node itself (which led to the 'tedious' behavior I described in the original post).  However, the option to hide all data nodes is available, it's just that it's available on the border of the event structure itself (rather than on the nodes).  Would it make sense to provide the ability to hide all event nodes from the event node menu too (or instead)?

[wiebe@CARYA]

>Would it make sense to provide the ability to hide all event nodes from the event node menu too (or instead)?

That would be pretty easy to DIY with a right click menu plug in.