Maintain wiring when dragging an object through a structure boundary

[SercoSteveB]

I think it would speed up BD development/modification time if it were possible maintain BD wiring as you drag and drop nodes/terminals/constants/sub vis etc. across structure boundaries. 

A simple example is that if you have a correctly wired Terminal inside a Case Structure and you drag and drop that Terminal outside of the structure, the wire becomes broken.  In my opinion; most of the time you are then required to wire the Terminal back up to the original place through the boundary.  This is not so bad if it is just a single wire but for sub vis with multiple connections it is a hassle.

If LabVIEW automatically re-created the wires and associated tunnels during the drag and drop operation, it would save me alot of time. 

Not sure if this functionality is something you would want on all of the time, maybe something that is switched on when required.

Apologies to the original author if this is a duplicate suggestion.

Steve

[rgvdh@rdf]

There are times I would want it to do that, and times I would want the current behavior.

"Shift-drag" to maintain wiring?

[SercoSteveB]

I agree, not something you would want all the time.  Shift-drag seems ideal for this.

[M_Peeker]

Think it's a great idea, but also agree that at times I'd want the current behaviour. However, I like the way shift+drag works today (move in one direction), so a new (?) idea came into my head. Shake the wire off the terminal!

[SercoSteveB]

Thanks for the comment, I had no idea that "shift-drag" was already used.  I am also struggling how the 'Shake the wire off the terminal!' could be used?

[Mr.Mike]

I think Alt+Drag is still available?  Not sure how multi-platform friendly that is.  There's also a right mouse button drag or middle (both for you old timers ;)) mouse button drag.  If you only have one mouse button, well, then I don't know what to do with you.

[SercoSteveB]

All good ideas guys, I like the idea of having a single key drag type operation it seems to fit in with the other drag operations nicely.

[M_Peeker]

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@SercoSteveB wrote:

Thanks for the comment, I had no idea that "shift-drag" was already used.  I am also struggling how the 'Shake the wire off the terminal!' could be used?

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The idea would be to maintain wiring as suggested as the default case. When you want to move the node out of the structure without maintaining wiring, grab it and give it a little "jiggle". My idea is that this would disconnect the node from its wires, allowing you to move it out of the structure without maintaining wiring.

[SercoSteveB]

Like shaking the wires off, I like that. Brilliant ideas fellas, thanks for your time.

[GregR]

The LabVIEW Web UI Builder already maintains wires when dragging into or out of structures. It attempts to support the other use case by showing a "Disconnect Selection" button in the "Properties" ribbon any time you have more than one object selected. This is not shown when you one have a single node selected and almost always requires switching to a new ribbon tab. Perhaps we can try out the "shake" gesture there and see how it feels.

[SercoSteveB]

I haven't used the LabVIEW Web UI Builder, but it sounds like the exisiting functionality could do with a bit of streamlining. 

The "shake" is my favourite so far.