LabVIEW Idea Exchange

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 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.

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.

Add an additional search scope in the scope dialog.  New scope will be <entire project>.  Right now the widest search scope <All VI's in Application Instance> will not reach VI's that are called by reference, but still in the project.  I have a few co-workers which are "call by reference" happy and it's a pain to track them down manually.

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.

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

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. 

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.

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

Regards.

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-...

Hi all,

in recent months I've been working on a huge pile of code that was written by someone else. This left me to do searches for places where TypeDef member values are written to the TypeDef'ed cluster, where Enum constants have a special value etc. It is a real pain in the butt being able only to either search for a text or a specific kind of Labview object. If there was a way to combine these two parameters, things would be much easier: Instead of browsing through hundreds of results of a text search where 99,8% are "Unbundle by Name", but I search for the "Bundle by Name" object to determine, where that darned value is put into the TypeDef I can simply define the search text, choose "Bundle by Name" as Labview object and receive the result list containing three entries.

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.

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.

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.

It would be nice if the Error Ring would accept enums.

So the Error Ring does not accept an enum (A). Format Into String does (B). So now we need the extra step of putting a Format Into String before the Error Ring (C).

This would be more convenient in for instance state machines (D) or functional globals with a function enum.

While on it %s on FIS also accepts Booleans. Nice to have the error ring accept them as well, just for completeness.

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".

Currently to AutoScale an axis once, you need to set the ScaleFitX/Y property to 1. However this is really just like calling a method since the value of the ScaleFit property remains whatever it was previously. As a result, I find this mechanism unintuitive and would prefer to use the invoke node to call a suitable method named ScaleFitX/Y since it is an operation that just happens at a moment in time rather than changing a property.

Current Method: Property NodeProposed Idea: Invoke Node

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: