Context help for Event Data Node terminals

[altenbach]

All events have optional event terminals on the left. Signaling events also have e.g. a "discard?" terminal on the right.

Hovering over them with the mouse does not generate any relevant context help, and maybe it should. (well, there is a tip string that simply duplicates what is already written on the terminal giving boring redundant information).

I suggest that hovering over an event terminal with the context help open should first of all tell us how these terminals are called in general ("Event Data Node", according to the help, but who knows that???), but also give specific information about each terminal under the cursor.

For example:

• if I hover over the "discard?" terminal, it could tell me that wiring a TRUE would ignore the event, etc.
• if I hover over the "Ctlref" terminal, it could tell me that it outputs a control reference of the control that fired the event
• if I hover over the "type" terminal, it could tell me a list of possible types and what they mean.
• etc.

 

IDEA: I suggest to add relevant context help to all event data nodes. Thanks!

(Note that e.g. the "timed loop" terminal already have context help. This should be similar)

[SteenSchmidt]

Love this idea. There's actually only quite sparse information about the event data nodes even when searching through the help files. The event structure as a whole, yes, but not really much about the different flavors of built-in event data nodes.

/Steen

[altenbach]

Yes, I was surprised that it took that long for this idea to appear.

I remember when the event structure first was introduced, I was constantly hovering over these terminals trying to get some useful information, but LabVIEW stayed mute. Since 2012, the event structure is even included in LabVIEW base, and making things clearer will promote more use of one of the greatest structures in LabVIEW. 😄

[FTI_Newton]

Yes indeed!. The node elements change depending on event types, and there is NO description of what all of those elements mean. I've figured a lot of them out over time with experimentation, but that is unacceptable for what is supposed to be a rapid development environment.

I  don't mean being told to RTFM, but you have to write the dang thing first!!! 

[crossrulz]

FTI_Newton, if you like these ideas, you need to give them Kudos.  Just comments will not get the idea's recognation.

[Darren]

National Instruments will not be implementing this idea.