LabVIEW Idea Exchange

There are cases where a variant constant / control needs to have a data value. This can be done by right-clicking a control / constant, selecting Data Operations -> Copy Data, then right-clicking the variant and selecting Data Operations -> Paste Data. This can be time consuming for many variants.

The idea is to allow dragging and dropping of a control or constant onto a variant, and have the data copied to the variant:

CTRL+Click on an input is a great little tool to switch the input.

However, it only works when both inputs are wired. Often (, I or QD connected a wire wrong,) I feel like switching the input, before wire-ing the 2nd. Only to find it doesn't work...

Having to connect the 2nd wire just seems to disrupt the flow, being focused on the first input. Being forced to make things worse (connect two wrong wires) before being able to make it right just feels itchy to me.

It's a minor thing, but I never understood why it would be limited to 2 wires.

Panel Actors provide a very extensible UI tool.  There is simply nothing better than panel actors to build composite UIs, but we are still limited in that we can only insert UI elements into existing sub-panels or new windows.  What if there was a simple function called Create SubPanel.vi with inputs of size and position, and an output of the reference to the created subpanel?  What if closing the subpanel reference removed it from the front panel.  Now we could create an infinitely complex UI at runtime.  It should be a simple matter to build special support for this into the runtime environment. (I actually have no idea how hard it would be)

Use case: an acquisition UI with pre-defined display elements (graphs, gauges, numeric boxes, etc, etc), all created as individual panel actors.  The user asks for a new graph element display during runtime.  We programmatically drop a subpanel and then spawn the requested graph actor into it.  User wants it moved, and we can do that with mouse events.  Same for resize.  User wants it gone and we can do that too.  User wants 10 elements or 10,000.  We can do that with no problem.  Give us this and we can create literally any UI of any complexity, fully configurable by the user. 

The "Convert Instance VI to Standard VI" right-click option on malleable VIs made me think if this technology could be used for debugging otherwise inlined VIs (and therefore also malleable VIs)?

VIs are obviously inlined without their block diagrams, so my suggestion would require two changes:

1) 'Allow debugging' must be settable in combination with inlining in VI Properties >> Execution.

2) LabVIEW IDE and RTE would have to call inlined VIs in different ways, depending on this setting. Suggestion follows:

Running in the IDE

The IDE would now create a temporary unique instance for each running inlined subVI that has debugging enabled. This would allow us to double-click on an "inlined" subVI while it's running, and have that temporary instance open up ready for probing. Settings like the 'SubVI Node Setup' dialog would now also be available for inlined VIs, if they have 'Allow debugging' on. Set 'Allow debugging' off and inlined VIs will behave as today (so no change for any existing code).

Running in the RTE

Executables are built with 'Enable debugging' either on or off (Advanced page of the Application Builder). I suggest that Application Builder builds in unique instances in place of debug-enabled inlined VIs when 'Enable debugging' is on, and bakes in ordinary inlined code when 'Enable debugging' is off. This would allow us to debug into inlined (and thus also malleable) VIs inside executables with remote debugging. Loose VIs called with the RTE would have had their inlined callees compiled with either debug capability or not, depending on their 'Allow debugging' setting as discussed above in "Running in the IDE".

What do you think - would it be nice to be able to debug inlined VIs?

When you use Quick Drop to insert a division operation onto a wire: you almost always want the numerator to be automatically wired, and the divisor to be unwired.  Yet, Quick Drop always wires up the denominator.

If there are multiple projects with the same name listed in the Recent Projects list, there's no way to determine which is which:

The idea is to display a tooltip showing the full path of the project when hovering over an entry.

When I print a front panel containing a graph (who ever does that?) I get a stunningly beautiful publication-quality render of my data (overlooking the poorly done vertical y-axis label). However, all the many options of directly exporting a graph image (detailed here) ultimately provide only a screen-resolution image. See the contrast in image quality below:

Printed front panel vs exported graph image.

This idea has been discussed ad infinitum on the forum (see, for example, here, here, here, here, and here), but has never been adequately resolved. (Enlarging the graph for export does not work since graph elements do not scale, so lines, points and labels end up being far too small.) High time to implement a feature that has been in demand since (at least) 2002!

<bakground>So i just had a silly thing happen to me, i compiled a program and deployed it to the target computer, just like i did yesterday. Then it started complaining about a missing LV 2017 Runtime ... How? Why?

I reinstalled, repaired and it didn't help, both program and RT, several times and it didn't help.

I tested another program which started just fine, so what's missing? Is it some sub-package that my custom RT-installer didn't include?

I called NI and the support technician couldn't see anything wrong either, so with him on the phone i went to the development computer to look at some installer settings he had dug up. That's when i noticed i was in LV2017 64 bit! The messages said nothing about that! </background>

Suggestion:

Improve error messaging when missing RunTime. Include the bitness that's missing, now it only said "Missing LabVIEW RunTime 2017", if it had said "Missing LabVIEW RunTime 2017 (64 bit)" i would have reacted and understood directly, now it cost way too much time to admit. :/

Also, isn't it time to scrap the 32 bit version and go only 64?

/Y

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!)

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

Say I have a VI with an arithmetic function: add, subtract, negate, etc...

I would like the ability to programmatically change the output configuration of the function through scripting. Right now (as I understand) you can only read the datatype of the output terminal but not set it. I specifically want to be able to control the fixed-point configuration of the output of these functions through VI Scripting.

[admin edit]: I added an attachment to this post pertaining to the first comment on the thread (since comments cannot contain attachments).

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

Regards.

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.

For all of us not running an english OS but want to install plain english versions of NI products:

Please give us an option or a documented method to install LabVIEW and  MAX and driver, etc. in plain english.

While it is possible to install LabVIEW in ENG, the MAX and the driver installer lookup the OS language and install the localized versions   (just tried with a new PC, W10 and LV2018 full dev suite, even set my language setting to ENG, however I have to install the localized W10)  That is not helpfull if you want to look up the big commuinty help or knowledge base entries and can result in 'funny' error messages.

For the driver DVD I think I found a hack in the setup.ini

[Localization]
Languages=9,7,12,17,18,2052
#ForceLanguage = 9
CustomRes0009=SupportFiles\resourceEng.dll
CustomRes0007=SupportFiles\resourceDeu.dll
CustomRes0012=SupportFiles\resourceFra.dll
CustomRes0017=SupportFiles\resourceJpn.dll
CustomRes0018=SupportFiles\resourceKor.dll
CustomRes2052=SupportFiles\resourceChs.dll
StandardRes0007=SupportFiles\niresdeu.dll
...

by uncommenting the red part. But editing the setup.ini ??

OK, in this case the hint was there (or forgotten to remove )

The actual suite installer comes with a .xml  configuration file where that hint was missing or overseen.

I suggest something like:

Installer found local language version: <OsLang> ,

Install (where possible) in language: <ListOfSupportedLanguages>

That setting is hopefully stored for future automatic updates

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.

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.

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.

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".