LabVIEW Idea Exchange

cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
falkpl

Optional maximum block diagram size

Status: Declined

Any idea that has received less than 9 kudos within 9 years after posting will be automatically declined.

Why does the block diagram span 1000's of pixels.  I would like to allow a block diagram size maximum to be specified on a vi basis.  This way I could set my vi to limit the block diagram from 0,0 to 1200,800 for example.  This not only forces good style but also prevents the inadvertent placing of functions off the screen (have you ever dropped a functional global call by mistake off the field of view by mistake and tried to debug the vi?).  This feature would be optional so use it if you like (or impose it on your new programmers).  If set on an existing vi, the code would be moved into the field of view with a warning message if position coerrsion is needed.

Paul Falkenstein
Coleman Technologies Inc.
CLA, CPI, AIA-Vision
Labview 4.0- 2013, RT, Vision, FPGA
6 Comments
Knight of NI
I would be against this idea. It's so highly dependent on monitor size and resolutions as well as the kind of code you're writing (i.e., ActiveX and .NET property nodes and methods can be HUGE), that there's better ways to handle an issue related to a design practice.
falkpl
Trusted Enthusiast

I agree that limiting vi bd size  globaly is bad but this is why I would suggest it a an option per vi just like minimuym panel size and can always be changed.  I have an issue where I make nice clean code and have someone else decide to edit it starting with a ctrl drag the keep adding to it, just looking for a way to limit the crazy sizes or a block diagram (5000+ x 5000+ is totally useless to me but I have seen it many times).

 

 

 

Paul Falkenstein
Coleman Technologies Inc.
CLA, CPI, AIA-Vision
Labview 4.0- 2013, RT, Vision, FPGA
Jochen
Trusted Enthusiast

Maybe the block diagram doesn't need to be limitied, but if the size of a block diagram exceeds a certain size (maybe 3000 x 3000 pixels or so), the user should get informed in some way, that  he might be doing something wrong.

 

E. g. the block diagram could contain a white area of a certain size surrounded by a light grey area. Programming should happen within the white area and the user should get a warning if his code starts to exceed the white area. The size of the white area could be changed in the LabVIEW settings.

 

I have seen so many huge block diagrams without any reasonable code architecture and limiting the size of the block diagram could be one step to improve the general LabVIEW code quality.

 

Jochen

sdsfas
Member

Hi everybody,


How  can I set automatcally block diagram size 1024*768.


Thank you in advance.

AristosQueue (NI)
NI Employee (retired)

> How  can I set automatcally block diagram size 1024*768.

 

If you want to resize existing VIs to be a particular size, open a reference to your VI and then write to the "Block Diagram Window >> Window Bounds" property. To see that property in the property node, turn on scripting in Tools >> Options >>VI Server.

 

For new VIs, no such mechanism exists. The closest you can come is to set your monitor to a particular resolution. I don't remember the percentage, but new VIs have diagrams created as a scale factor of monitor resolution.

 

Darren
Proven Zealot
Status changed to: Declined

Any idea that has received less than 9 kudos within 9 years after posting will be automatically declined.