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am-aumtech

Show Block Diagram image in Context Help in addition to the existing connectors

Status: Declined
Functionality would be hard to scale for larger block diagrams and would prove ineffective at those sizes.

The 'Context Help' window shows the use of each connection for a sub-vi, but in a multi-developer environment, opening a sub-vi is often necessary - especially for math & data analysis.

How about a button (selection like 'lock context help') in Context Help that enables the display of block diagram of the sub-vi below the connector pane?

Also, the author of sub-vi could pre-decide what part to include in this 'Context image' instead of complete diagram, thereby suppressing trivial parts. 

 

 

4 Comments
AristosQueue (NI)
NI Employee (retired)

That's a lot of info for a reasonable sized CH window. In my opinion, if a subroutine is so complex that it requires opening the block diagram to figure out how to wire it, it needs better documentation any way (and maybe refactoring). I don't think any of those hypercomplex block diagrams are going to be helped by showing only a portion of the diagram -- you'd probably need to see all of it anyway, at full scale. And I suspect that any author who didn't provide decent documentation in the first place isn't going to take time to highlight parts of the diagram to display.

G-Money
NI Employee (retired)

I agree with Aristos. It seems like a lot of work and space for something that probably won't help users with those large BDs. 

SteveChandler
Trusted Enthusiast

You should program to the interface and not the implementation. The interface is what belongs in the context help.

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LabVIEW 2012


G-Money
NI Employee (retired)
Status changed to: Declined
Functionality would be hard to scale for larger block diagrams and would prove ineffective at those sizes.