LabVIEW Idea Exchange
I find often the need of creating array indicators with many elements, and of labelling them is a way which allows easy identification of the element index.
Normally the labels of the elements can be made visible, like in the left example shown:
One way of doing it, if the array has a fixed size, and all of the array is shown at once, is to juxtapose a set of text labels identifying the elements. Tedious to build.
If the array changes size, if it is larger than shown, if it is supposed to be scrolled on the FP, static labels are useless. Currently the label of the element can be made visible, but all elements share the same label. The index display of the array can be shown, but it relates to a single element, which makes cumbersome to identify elements of long arrays.
I usually resort to more sophisticate contraptions, like arrays of clusters, each composed of the element in question and of a numeric indicator; or to two parallel array indicators, one for the elements itself and one for the indices. Both solutions are more cumbersome to build and to size and align equally; the index content has to be prefilled and maintained in sync when array elements are added or deleted (programmatically or via contextual menu); in the second case, a lot of events have to be trapped programmatically, for instance to maintain synchronism when the main array is scrolled.
What I would like to have is an additional label natively visible, showing the element index, like on the right.
The labels could be made optionally visible with a contextual menu ---- left click->visible items->index label.
Options (perhaps properties) in order to set the value of the first element (e.g. 0 or 1 or any other value) and the step value if different than 1 would also be useful. Standard options about location and orientation of the label with respect to the array element would apply.
