LabVIEW Idea Exchange

TDMS files generally come in pairs.  There is the TDMS file itself which contains all the data and meta data stored in the file.  And there is usually a tdms_index file.  This is the file with the meta data in it, but not the actual data.  The idea being that this index file is created from the original file, but since it doesn't contain all the extra data, it is faster to search through for a particular offset in the file to find something.

If a TDMS file exists in a folder without a tdms_index file, it will generally be created when calling the TDMS Open function.  This means when DIAdem indexes it, or when Excel Importer opens it, or when Scout opens it, this index file is created.  Often a useful way of looking at a folder of logs is to look at the Date Modified or Date Created and look at the newest.  But if we are viewing a folder of TDMS files which don't have the indexes, as soon as we open one to view it, the index file will be created with the modified and creation date being set to right now.  This suggestion is to have it be set to the same value as the original TDMS file.  As always pictures are useful.  Here is a folder of TDMS files sorted by the date modified.

After double clicking that file the TDMS editor of choice opens it and the directory looks like this:

The index file is created, but since it has a newer mod date it moves to the top of the list.  My suggestion is to have the index file have the creation and mod date set to the TDMS file so the directory will look like this after it is created:

Yes I realize you can write code to set this but I can't think of a reason why I would ever want to know what the date and time that the index file was created.  I'm only interested in the data, not the index file.  If this is implemented on the TDMS API side of things, then all tools that get made from that point forward will have the file modification set automatically.

With the advent of the IoT and the growing need to synchronize automation applications  and other TSN (Time Sensitive Networking) use cases UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) is becoming more and more problematic.  Currently, there are 37 seconds not accounted for in the TimeStamp Which is stored in UTC.  The current I64 portion of the timestamp datatype that holds number of seconds elapsed since 0:00:00 Dec 31, 1900 GMT is simply ignoring Leap Seconds.  This is consistent with most modern programming languages and is not a flaw of LabVIEW per se but isn't quite good enough for where the future is heading   In fact, there is a joint IERS/IEEE working group on TSN 

Enter TAI or International Atomic Time: TAI has the advantage of being contiguous and is based on the SI second making it ideal for IA applications.  Unfortunately, a LabVIEW Timestamp cannot be formated in TAI.   Entering a time of 23:59:60 31 Dec 2016, a real second that did ocurr, is not allowed.  Currently IERS Bulletin C is published to Give the current UTC-TAI offset but, required extensive code to implement the lookup and well, the text.text just won't display properly in a %<>T or %^<>T (local abs time container and UTC Abs time container)  We need a %#<>T TAI time container format specifier. (Or soon will!)

Add a new button to the search results dialog called "Set Aside" so I can have multiple search results open at the same time.  Put it near the bottom just below the search results.  When you click it, it changes the title of the window to "Search Results - Set Aside 1".  If you click "Set Aside" again when #1 is open, it will open "Search Results - Set Aside 2" ... and so on.  This way you can have several different search results open simultaneously.  I love the check mark feature in the search results, but it resets every time the search windows is closed or overwritten by a new search.  Thus I lose my place if I want to make sure to check every instance of something but need to search again while looking at one item.

If I create abstract messages for the calling actor, I often have to write a wrapper function so the child classes can use the abstract message.

This is a repetitive task that would be a prime candidate for scripting. Images below is an example of the type of wrapper I'm referring to.

Send Abstract Message Wrapper

One of the most over-looked LabVIEW VI Properties, mentioned in all of the "Good LabVIEW Coding Practices", is the one called "Documentation", where you describe what the VI does, and its Inputs and Outputs (at a minimum).  [NI Examples are certainly guilty of this].

I've been trying (and mostly succeeding) to ensure that every VI I write has such Documentation.  Sometimes I make a mis-type, highlight "bad" parts, and hit the "Delete" (or backspace), then say "Oops, erased too much, let's undo that with ^Z".  Except there is no Undo, or at least it isn't bound to ^Z here.

I can find no other place in LabVIEW that doesn't allow ^Z to replace deleted text.  It works in String Constants, in Labels (whether Free Labels or names for Controls/Indicators), and other places.

To encourage LabVIEW Developers to use the Documentation property, can you please allow us to "undo a boo-boo" with ^Z?

Bob "Imperfect" Schor

The proposal consists in being able to format the content of a string control, to allow to read more easily: INI, XML, HTML, ...

Regards.

I am not happy when I inherit legacy code where VIs have inconsistent alignment grid options, as shown in the image below.

My team has coding standards we follow, and those standards include alignment grid options. It is labor-intensive to change alignment grid options on legacy VIs because you have to do it by hand, and clicks quickly add up. I wish I could automate such changes.

I’d like to see a few new properties to expose settings available in the editor, as shown below.

These properties need to support both read and write.

The NI SMTP library is good at making e-mailing simple. But now and then I will get error 363513 (an error occurred on the network).

There are multiple known causes for this error that one can prevent, but also some unknown. The error does not specify them. I am therefore still struggling to get my e-mailing routines impervious to this error. The library should return more specific errors.

There are multiple other known issues with this library, making it quite unreliable for automation purposes. A shame, as there are few alternatives available.

A few suggested VIs for beefing up this library could be:

• check if server is online
• set popular SMTP header values (I don't know them, like most of us I assume)
• check if e-mail was successfully sent to recipients
• meta data returned: unknown recipient, attachment size exceeds limit of xMB etc

I search the idea forum and I see many Labview Upgrade suggestions as "DECLINED".  

I know there are others out there like me, I HATE upgrading Labview.  All the time required to update your custom configuration takes weeks.  Heck, Labview upgrade isn't even smart enough to know all the software you're entitled to install...instead you have to force Labview to download and install your paid software individually.

Here's the deal, most of us don't have the time to upgrade because of all the maintenance we do to support our software.  For instance, I have a paid Maintenance Agreement (as I do every year), I have been working in LV2015 and now it's time for me to upgrade my computer and I'm installing LV2018.

My wish, Have National instruments create a tool that would allow you to export all your custom settings, device drivers, and software requirements, etc..., so you could import these settings into a new version of LV.  Making the upgrade process easier with a single tool.

Since it's so difficult to upgrade, I often wait 3 years or more before I try to upgrade.  If it was more seamless to upgrade, I'd probably upgrade every release!  

Anyway, we are all so busy we don't have the time to search these forums, so this request will be DECLINED too.

Perhaps NI should accumulate all of these requests to Upgrade and total them as one.  Each individual request dies in a year because so many people are sticking with what works...often older versions of LV.

Sure, NI has a few upgrade tools, but, nothing that leaves you upgraded to the latest version of Labview without missing a step.

Title basically says it all but I'll elaborate.  With increasing monitor resolution, a 16x16 glyph on a listbox doesn't work very well.  On a 4K monitor this is awful tiny.  This idea is to support larger glyphs in Listboxes, Multi-column Listboxes, and Trees.  Glyphs are used in several places but on favorite of mine is to have item selection with checkboxes, example here.  Allowing for these glyphs to grow with the row height would make them appear more cohesive.  There is a thread discussing this topic, and a work around involving an array of picture rings that is placed over the listbox control.  Here is a demo from that thread:

This work around is fine for simple things but doesn't scale well, and doesn't support trees easily.  I for instance want to have two trees, where a user can drag and drop from one to the other with the larger glyphs coming along with the drop.  Having to handle where the user dropped, and then dynamically building the glyphs to overlay on top of the tree, with indentation, and hiding when a tree's leaf is closed is a major pain.  Please NI add a feature allowing for larger glyphs, and I would be so happy.

Wouldn't it be great if you could list only the recent files opened while in a particular project? I often bounce from one project to another, closing the projects in between.  Thus, I often would like to be able to view only the file recently opened from within a

the project I am working on. Adding a "Recent Files (by project)" to the Getting Started window would be valuable as well.

Create User Event function

Output of Create User Event function should be name of the input instead of "user event out"

This will save time to rename each output indicator as input. 

When I want to find a specific item via the "Find" dialog, I sometimes want to limit the search to a specific loop or portion of my code.

I think it would be useful to be able to specify where to search on a more granular level than per VI, similarly to how the scripting VIs work for traversing objects.

The error ring is a great and simple tool to define errors, especially when selecting "Custom Error Message" and supplying parameters from outside of the error ring.

The fact that the text search doesn't look inside the error ring makes it hard to find hard-coded error codes. 

Idea: I would love to see the search in LabVIEW also find strings inside error rings. 

PS: This idea (or inspiration for it) comes from Stefan Lemmens.

Change the Path Type function output from a signed 16-bit integer to a text ring or enum to aid immediate readability of code and save having to look at the help file:

The Path Type function returns a signed 16-bit integer indicating the following 3 types of paths.

0: Absolute path

1: Relative path

2: <Not A Path>

Unhelpful context help.

Text ring would have the least impact on existing primatives: https://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Idea-Exchange/Path-Type-Function-needs-another-return-for-an-empty-...

I just ran into a situation today where I had a case structure with approximately 64 frames in it, 48 of which I wanted to remove.

The method of right-click the selector, select "Remove Case" (This step is right beside the "Insert Case" which is frustrating), repeat 48 times while the mouse is wandering all over the screen between the case selector and the menu selection..... cue carpal tunnel problems.

I really wished I could just either use the "delete" and "insert" buttons to mimic the appropriate menu selections

-OR-

Be able to select multiple cases from the "Rearrange cases" window and select "Delete".

If creating a reference to a .Net control you will observe that is reference type of ActiveXContainer is created which is sometimes confusing at a first sight.

Please introduce a .NetContainer (at least cosmetically at block diagram) for a better overview. If you are doing so, you could change as well the color of the ActiveX container with respect to the .Net container on the block diagram. If you have to change the programming interface, it would be much easier to spot where you have to do so.

So when it comes to using a queue, there is a somewhat common design pattern used by NI examples, which makes a producer consumer loop, where the consumer uses a dequeue function with a timeout of -1.  This means the function will wait forever until an event comes in.  But a neat feature of this function is it also returns when the queue reference becomes invalid, which can happen if the queue reference is closed, or if the VI that created that reference stops running.

This idea is to have similar functionality when it comes to user events.  I have a common design pattern with a publisher subscriber design where a user event is created and multiple loops register for it.  If for some reason the main VI stops, that reference becomes invalid but my other asynchronous loops will continue running.  In the past I've added a timeout case, where I check to see if the user event is still valid once every 5 seconds or so, and if it isn't then I go through my shutdown process.

What I am thinking is that there could be another event to register for, which gets generated when that user event which is registered for, becomes invalid so that polling for the validity of the user event isn't necessary.

before:

after: