Check out my new LabVIEW plugin, BundleMagic!

[littlesphaeroid]

I spent some time building a LabVIEW shortcut menu plugin that I think is truly useful. it also happens to be the most complex and feature-rich plugin offered on the shortcut plugin forum.

The plugin allows dropping bundle and unbundle nodes, property nodes, methods, and classes by (searchable) dialog. Dialogs are also used for adding, removing, and rearranging node elements.

The plugin is installed using VI Package Manager.  Download and try it out!

https://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Shortcut-Menu-Plug-Ins/BundleMagic-llb/ta-p/4063956

I've provided a video demonstrating most of the plugin functions.

Here's an example of what the plugin can do:

Please give it a try and let me know what you think. I'm very interested in receiving bug reports!

[ypi]

This looks pretty cool!

Sadly I can not find the plug in in the VI Package Manager 2020.

Andrés.

[billko · Accepted solution]

Just navigate to where you downloaded it and double-click on it.  It should open with VIPM.

[Worle]

I have just downloaded this. Looks like a really useful plugin!!

Well done. Thanks for making it.

[littlesphaeroid]

Here are a few more examples of what the BundleMagic! Plugin does:

[Bob_Schor]

@littlesphaeroid:

     I would strongly urge you to submit your Package to the NI Tools Network and go through their "vetting" Process, rather than "self-marketing" it on the Forum.  You have already had one responder saying "Sadly I can not find the plug in in the VI Package Manager 2020".

     In this day and age, asking people to download something with a cool name that might do interesting things is, as I'm sure you will understand, puts the downloader at some risk, which could be mitigated by going through a review/vetting process.

     Or are you asking "early adopters" to be alpha- or beta-testers?

Bob Schor

[littlesphaeroid]

Hi Bob, tanks for your comment.

I have submitted this plugin through the shortcut plugin forum exactly according to NI's instructions. Feel free to head over there and check out the user-supplied plugins, if you haven't already. Some are pretty useful, all the downloads are available there, and the plugin introductory material offers all the usual warnings about the risks of running unknown software.

I have to assume the the person who could not find the plugin did not go to the linked page where the download is found, and was confused by the fact that the plugin is distributed as a VIPM package, rather than as an llb, as most others are. It's understandable. As I mention in the instructions, the plugin requires a patch to the plugin engine in order to work, so I have supplied an installer in order to make sure the patch is applied and the plugin works as expected. I will try to see if I can make the plugin automatically accessible directly in VIPM, something I still need to figure out.

I'm not asking for beta users, by the way. I'm just letting people know that this plugin exists, since the plug-in page is fairly obscure and I figured most users of the forums would be checking the main forum primarily. 

[DoctorAutomatic]

any chance it could be made to be optionally configured to not show the dialog at all and just immediately insert the bundle/unbundle on the wire (basically exactly like the result of click class/cluster wire, ctrl-space, U-B-N/B-B-N, ctrl-i)? 

Also, I don't know the details of the right click framework, but is it possible to the location in the right click menu user selectable? Asking because I'd probably have it as the top two options in the menu if it were up to me.

[littlesphaeroid]

Hi DoctorAutomatic, thanks for the feedback!

The existing shortcuts and menu items for placing the bundlers on the wire are still there, so you can still do that. The only time that BundleMagic automatically drops a cluster node is if it's a single-element cluster. I don't know if this plugin should reproduce existing behavior, though the shortcut menu steps to insert a node is a bit long. To do this, we would need to add two more shortcut items, "Insert Bundle Node", "Insert Unbundle Node", and by extension "Insert Invoke Node" and "Inset Property Node". Of course I often want to insert an unbundle/bundle pair... that could be useful as well. You can see how the menu can get crowded.

Allowing the user to decide where to place the contextual menu items appear may be a heavy lift. The placement of menu items is specified relative to other menu items, and the default menu items have somewhat arcane codes associated with them. I have attempted to place the BundleMagic menu items where you would expect them based on existing menu items, but I could see allowing the option to place them at the top, followed by a spacer.

I have considered providing a setup configuration, which might allow the normal bundle shortcut menu items to be hidden, and to select which menu items are exposed. So for example, if the four or five new menu items named above were to be added, a user could elect to hide those. 

I'll make a note of these suggestions, and feel free to request features through the Github page!

[OdneOksavik]

Hi,

Thank you for the plugin, which is very helpful.

I have an issue, which I haven't seen mentioned, so I assume it must be on my end.

It takes a very long time to bring up the dialog window.

I make a simple cluster, and right-click -> Unbundle. It takes 30 seconds for the dialog to pop up.

I have the following two lines in my labview.ini:

server.viscripting.showScriptingOperationsInEditor=True
SuperPrivateSpecialStuff=TRUE

Are these necessary? Any other that should be there?

Hope you or someone can help me. I want to use the plugin, but at the moment it's slower than doing it the normal way. 🙂

Regards