LabVIEW Idea Exchange

My goal is to reduce palette bloat!

Let's look at the conversion palette. Certainly looks impressive, but why do we need so many different bullets??? They are basically all the same function: A universal input and an output type.

I suggest that the 16 marked bullets on the image, plus some others (e.g. "to variant"), be combined into a single universal bullet where we can select the desired output type by a simple right-click. Whatever we select will determine the actual icon, so once things are in place, everything will look exactly as before.

When we first drop the universal icon on the diagram (or insert it into a wire), the context menu appears and we must select the desired output.

View All (4)

When I try to select a word or more words I currently have two options. The first one is to hold down shift and select on letter by letter basis which is slow. The second one is to select with help of mouse, which is error prone.

Normally all text editors have options to move for 1 word left or right by ctrl + left arrow or ctrl + right arrow. The same goes for selecting a word (ctrl + shift + arrow). I would like this functionality to be supported by LabVIEW at least on block diagram, VI documentation, enum editing.

View All (1)

When creating a SubVI by selecting a piece of code from your block diagram, the "error out" indicator created is not the standard indicator with grey background as available in the controls palette.

On the contrary, it is similar to the standard "error in" control with white background controls.

To me it results on a poor style and readability, and I use to replace it manually with the palette indicator.

I suggest using the default error indicator when creating a new subVI (and anywhere else if possible).

View All (2)

The front panel below contains a modern-style string control and a classic-style string control.

3 (edited).png

We may want to replace the modern-style control with a classic-style control (for example if the team style guidelines recommend classic-style controls for non-user-facing front panels, or just for consistency).

The problem is that after right-clicking the modern-style control and selecting Replace >> Classic >> String Control, the control is replaced with something that looks different from an original, genuine classic string control. This is shown below. The new control looks like a hybrid between classic and modern. The same behaviour occurs when using QuickDrop to replace the control (Ctrl+Space, Ctrl+P).

4 (edited).png

My suggestion is: Controls and indicators should be replaced by genuine-looking items, not by hybrids that preserve some attributes of the old style, and some of the new.

Thanks

View All (2)

We've all seen it: The annoying 1-pixel bend when wiring between VIs with mismatched connector panes. Many ideas have been proposed to address this on a small scale... But I think it can easily be improved on a much larger scale.

IDEA:

Modify the way the 5335 connector pane is rendered so that the top and bottom terminals line up with those of the standard 4224 connector pane.

In case the image doesn't say it all, all I'm proposing is that the top-left terminal of the 5335 connector is made 1-pixel larger by stealing 1-pixel from the terminal below. Likewise for the top-right, bottom-left and bottom-right.

The obvious benefit is that it becomes much neater to wire errors and references between mismatched VIs. Goodbye OCD!

View All (2)

For reasons outlined in detail in this idea, the the expression node should be redesigned. These vertical lines are too thick and the end arrows are pointless and too busy.

After all, the expression node is basically a [single line|single variable] formula node and for this reason it should look more similar to a formula node.

Here is my suggestion for the redesigned expression node (on the right). The current design is shown on the left for comparison.

Note that the grey left and right borders are exactly matched to the border design of the formula node, making things consistent and intuitive. (Top and bottom should remain single pixel to save diagram space).

View All (1)

I work with large projects. And I often need to move items around in my projects. However... while you're dragging an item in the Project Explorer, if the cursor is at the top or bottom of the visible area, the window does not scroll. This means that the item you're moving, and its destination, must both be visible at the same time in order to drag and drop it.

I regularly have to un-expand items in order to be able to simply move a file. This is time consuming and forces me to un-expand tree items that I would prefer to keep expanded.

While I have many, one of my major gripes with LabVIEW is that it's very easy to have dozens of open windows. This would normally not be a terrible burden, but LabVIEW has a bad habit of raising ALL open LabVIEW Windows when any single one is given focus.

For example, if I have both the front panel and block diagram windows of 3 VIs, a project window, the VI palettes, and a ctrl+h help window open, then clicking any one brings all 10 windows to the front. This is a problem if, for example, I'm trying to draw an icon based on some source image from Google image search. I am forced to maneuver all LabVIEW windows and the browser window such that the two things I actually want are both visible at the same time.

To get around this, and other difficulties introduced by the huge numbers of windows that labview is fond of creating, I propose this idea based on the relatively recent addition of a "Single Window Mode" to the open source photo editor Gimp (http://www.gimp.org).

In the original Gimp UI, each open image occupies a unique window. Additionally, the toolbox and other dialog windows (layers, brushes, etc.) occupy unique windows as well. This, to me, is remarkably similar to the LabVIEW UI.

In Gimp's Single Window Mode, the toolbox and any open dialogs can be locked to one side of the screen and each open image is in a tab. (Note that this is strongly influenced by Photoshop's UI.)

I would like to see something very similar to this for labview. In this concept, each open VI would occupy a tab (perhaps split vertically into front panel and block diagram) and open dialogs (such as VI palette, ctrl+h help window, navigation window, project explorer, etc.) could be docked to the screen edges. Here is a rendering of such a concept.

I would note that most text IDEs (such as Eclipse, Visual Studio, etc.) use a very similar paradigm (ie lots of source files open in tabs, project viewer, find+replace, etc locked to screen edges). Clearly more thought would have to be given to how front panels are displayed, e.g. outside of a labview development environment, but I feel that this concept would be a dramatic improvement for the development task.

View All (2)

1. Allow for "Tabbed Browsing" of VI's to better manage windows.

2. Allow for the BD to be open independent of the FP.

3. Allow dockable palettes... dock to either the edge of the screen, or to the top bar (pictured below) of LabVIEW.

4. As a bonus, consider being able to open PDF's, txt's, and html's in tabs also for Help and documentation.

5. Finally, allow the project tree to be docked into the IDE.

Please, add your own IDE upgrade ideas in this discussion - illustrations will be especially helpful here. If it's a major enough idea, create a new idea!

View All (13)

View All (1)

Edit >> Create SubVI: I almost never use this function... but it could be so nice!

Imagine being able to develop code on some diagram, check functionality in line, and quickly generate a subVI. We're so close with "Create SubVI", but in 7+ years, I've never really used it.

Suggested Tweaks:

1) Use default connector pane (12 terminals)
2) If there are error clusters, wire them to the bottom terminals.
3) If there are error clusters, auto create a case structure and put the code in the No Error case. Wire the error cluster through the Error case.
4) If there are in and out references (e.g. File In, File Out), wire these to the top terminals.
5) Run Clean Up Diagram.

View All (6)

View All (3)

The Timing palatte is looking bad with all thes gaps. A simple fix would be to fill these holes with useful functions. I'm proposing 3 and attaching 2 from my re-use code. (I may re-create the third later)

Time to XL.vi (Attached): and its inverse, XL to Time.vi

12:00:00.0 AM Jan 0, 1900 is a pretty common epoch (Base Date) for external programs and converting from LabVIEW epoch shows up several times a year on the forums. and Time to excel has a few solutions to threads under its belt. Moreover for analisys against external data from other enviornments you are often using Access, Excel, Lotus... All share the same epoch (and Leap year bug) in their date/time formats. These vi.s have been pretty useful to me although the names may change to avoid (tm) infringements

Time to Time of Day.vi (Attached) has also been in my arsenal and proves both valuable and get on a few threads per year on the forum.

The gaps in the palatte make it a perfect fit

Download All

I would love it if the Call By Reference node had a "don't wait until done" option, so that we can stop using the inconvenient and inelegant Set Ctl Val method or other inconvenient ways to pass arguments to dynamically called processes.

I believe the main issue with this is what to do with the outputs from the subVI (since you won't be able to use them) and I can think of two options:

1. This option would be settable at edit time and would break the caller if you wire any of the outputs.

2. This option would be settable at run-time and you would get default data from the outputs and an error or warning from the error out terminal of the node if you wire any of the outputs.

View All (4)

I find the Example Finder to be a terrible eyesore. Really. It's to the point that I don't even like to open it up--I'd rather type in search terms on the NI Community and hope someone has posted the code there, or some similar code.

My major beefs with Example Finder:

1. Line spacing is inconsistent. Some examples have long titles that extend onto a second line, some don't. (See green in image.) I would prefer to use the horizontal space on my monitor by resizing the window horizontally, so that everything fits on one line.

It's nice the word order is consistent among examples. However, it's not that helpful because we can't make use of this consistency by resizing the window. For instance--your eyes will dance around trying to find the differences between these next four DAQmx examples:

Cont Acq&Graph Voltage- Int Config

Filter- SCXI114x.vi

Cont Acq&Graph Voltage- Ext Clk- Dig

Start.vi

Cont Acq&Graph Voltage- Ext Clk.vi

Cont Acq&Graph Voltage- Int Clk-

Accessory Status-PXIe-4300.vi

Now, watch how it all becomes much more clear when you allow the window to stretch out, so there's one example per line:

Cont Acq&Graph Voltage- Int Config Filter- SCXI114x.vi

Cont Acq&Graph Voltage- Ext Clk- Dig Start.vi

Cont Acq&Graph Voltage- Ext Clk.vi

Cont Acq&Graph Voltage- Int Clk- Accessory Status-PXIe-4300.vi

2. Lots of scrolling to compensate. Before I open an example, I try to glean some information from it by reading the "Information" section--but it's hard to keep track of things with all the scrolling (see red in the above image).

To minimize scrolling, we should have flexible sub-windows within the main Example Finder window. Maybe I would want to give the majority of the window room to example VI titles, and less room to that huge "LabVIEW Zone" image I never click on. Or maybe I'd minimize the extensive list of hardware the examples pertain to, and give more horizontal room to the "Information" column in the upper-right. The point is, however I resize the Example Finder for my use, it should stay that way every time I load it up.

Here's hoping! Please let me know what y'all think.

This is a very simple improvement, since the features are almost there. I want the block diagrams look like an electric diagram, that is: Controls aligned to the left, with the labels on the left of the control and the indicators moved to the right with the labels on the right, like this:

The problem is that in current LV versions the alignments occurs on the labels as well, making look the diagrams like this:

Normally you should: 1) align labels relative to the object and 2) align the objects (without the labels) relative to the block diagram. This kind of cleaning up saves a lot of space and clutter.

Now I am pushing my luck, but it would even be better if I could have these settings on SubVI's only, because I usually don't want this in my main.

Good luck

What do you need our team of experts to assist you with?

Request a quote Find the right product Place an order Get support on a product

How can we help?

Please enter your information below and we'll be intouch soon.

This field is required

Preferred communication method

Email Phone call

What do you need our team of experts to assist you with?

Request a quote Find the right product Place an order Get support on a product

LabVIEW Idea Exchange

A universal conversion bullet.

Change the Clear Error primative's icon to reduce block diagram clutter

Text editing with ctrl + arrow keys

Use standard "error out" indicator when creating a SubVI

Add "LstEvt" (Last Event) to the event data node

Front panel controls and indicators should be genuine after being replaced with control or indicator of different style

Improve alignment for VIs with 5335 connector pane

Expression Node Redesign

LabVIEW Scripting Recorder / Generator

Allow scrolling while dragging item in Project Explorer

Single Window Mode

LabVIEW IDE Overhaul

Mark selected Connector pattern

Edit >> Create SubVI: Tweaks

Color Comment Text Inside Formula Nodes

Promote Functions on Timing palatte

Adding a "(don't) wait until done" option to the Call By Reference node

Make Example Finder Resizable!

Labview installer resizable

Very simple improvement on Block diagram clean up (oh no, not again...)