Visual Aides - Numeric Separators

[Minions]

Why not create the option to change how the data is viewed on screen, similar to formatting in Excel or the Calculator function?

This could also be used for a hex display (I.E. FFFF FFFF), octal or even binary.  Options could be expanded to include how many characters before separation and what to use as a separator.

[Intaris]

The characters used would have to be configurable as it's not the same all over the world but I like the idea.

Shane

[RavensFan]

Yes, definitely.  It could be similar to cell formatting in Excel.  Many times I would prefer to see numeric values with the thousands separator included for easy readability.  For an indicator, you can easily make a string of the number and set some format codes.  But you wouldn't want to use a string control to have formatting in place of a numeric control.  You would have to do a lot of event structures, update while typing, etc. to check that the resulting typed string is a valid number.  Having that built into a numeric control would be much preferred.

[altenbach]

Basically, all we need are a few more formatting codes that support these things. Then all we need is change the advanced formatting of the control or indicator.

(see also my nugget as presented by Darren :D)

I would also hope there re some industry standard formatting codes for these things,... 😉

.

Message Edited by altenbach on 07-10-2009 01:35 PM

[Chris_in_Colorado]

i like it!

[CrystalTech]

Very good Front Panel option.

[Herbert]

As a scientist and educator I oppose the idea. Too often people are presenting results with 8, 10, 12 digits of precison whereas only 3 to 4 are real or in other way - where these 10 digits are scientifically nonsense.

Considering LabVIEW to be a platform for engineering applications I enjoy that it forces programmers to think about the reality of their results and seek for a suitable representation.

[RavensFan]

While I appreciate your comments, they really have nothing to do with the suggestion that is proposed.  If I want to see a number such as 1.2 million shown, I want to see it as 1,200,000 not 1200000, a much less readable number.  Either way it is only 2 significant digits.  You argument about significant digits is a completely separate issue and can be used properly or improperly with any possible display format. 

[X.]

Altenbach's approach would be the most natural for a PROGRAMMER, but I could see that a user may want to change display style at run time, so the original suggestion seems preferable in this respect.

PS: I have just submitted a duplicate of this idea after an initial probing on the LabVIEW forum. Hopefully this will provide exposure to this easy feature.

[PhillipBrooks]

In metrology, calibration values can often extend out to 12 digits for reference standards.

Our practice was to place a space every three digits in the fractional part for readability.

a 1 uF standard capacitor might be reported as

1.000 000 021 07

I had to write my own format functions for this; a built in ability would have been nice...

[jj2]

Ability to scan comma seperated numbers text as well as display comma seperated numbers is extremely useful and would save development time for users for example in RF applications where large numbers are common and become hard to interpret without the comma or spaces.