Graphical context menu at mouse pointer, super-duper quick drop

[otto__]

For anyone that has used CAD software, you know how much of a timesaver this feature is. It is very similar to quick drop but relies more on graphical selection than keyboard input (although, these shortcuts often allow text entry as well and have a configurable menu).

For example, pressing the "S" key in SolidWorks pops up a contextual, configurable menu at the current cursor position that allows you to rapidly click on common operations as well as customized shortcuts.

I have my own janky extension to quickdrop that makes a graphical menu present after pressing multiple buttons (ctrl+space, ctrl+q, then one of WASD or a mouse click on the popup .vi front panel), but it would be nice if I didn't have to go through multiple shortcut selections to hit my toolbar-of-target. Said another way, a more extensible quickdrop-like shortcut bar would be nice. Something like the right click and shortcut keypresses for Autodesk Fusion and Solidworks are the inspiration.

[fefepeto_kb]

I never used Solidworks, but used Solid Edge briefly during the university. I guess you are referring to the radial menu of Solidworks, which was a neat feature in Solid Edge. It is something like a gesture interface. For Solid Edge you had to hold the right click and then from the menu you could select the function you needed, weather it was an action to do something with the object or another shape you could drop to connect to the object you had selected. And also, the menu was context dependent.

It would be a neat feature for LabView, although the actual time improvement compared to the quick drop might be negligible. But, it would be a great improvement in my opinion, because it felt like a hybrid of the quick drop and the context menu on steroids. You have my kudo for this.

[wiebe@CARYA]

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@otto__ wrote:

I have my own janky extension to quickdrop that makes a graphical menu present after pressing multiple buttons (ctrl+space, ctrl+q, then one of WASD or a mouse click on the popup .vi front panel), but it would be nice if I didn't have to go through multiple shortcut selections to hit my toolbar-of-target. 

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I don't think you don't have to go over QD.

You can add a VI to LabVIEW's project directory, and (after a restart) assign a shortcut to it.

Use Application:Menu Launch VI property to get a VI reference...

[otto__]

Made a quick video of my minimum working example to help clarify, I may also dig up some footage from common CAD software for those unfamiliar. The grand idea is to make the shortcut menu hot-edit-able --- in terms of what buttons map to what functions or .vi's, the button layout, and which hotkey activates which button/action (once the context menu is activated).

https://youtu.be/9zaX5PYmdtY

I hadn't considered assigning a shortcut to a .vi within a project to bypass quickdrop. I'll look into that a bit.

I frequently feel the need for something graphical/contextual/has hotkeys that is a blend between the stock function palette, IDE actions, quickdrop, and the right-click-on-a-class-wire context aware navigation to all the methods belonging to a class/library. As an example, say I click on a class wire (or a method belonging to a class), press the "s" key, and immediately get a function palette at the cursor corresponding to all the methods belonging to that class, you select the method, it mostly gets wired up automatically (at least the error and class terminals), and off you go.

[wiebe@CARYA]

Inserted 😁:

[video]