Community Nugget 01/22/2007 - First Issue

[tst]

This is a public service announcement:

For those who didn't manage to notice it, Darren decided to stop issuing his weekly nuggets. As a result, the community decided to step up to the task and fill in. The following is the result. Beware - continue at your own risk!

For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, check out the link at the end of the post.

And now... The Nugget:

Almost everyone using LabVIEW understands that a wire carries its data type as well as its data.

What many people do not seem to know is that there is an easy interface to view the data type (other than the color and shape of the wire, which are only indicative up to a certain level). This interface is the context help window, most easily opened by pressing Ctrl+H or clicking the yellow question mark near the VI's icon.

Look at the following image. See how hovering the cursor over different wires shows the information about the wire. This information includes the type and name of the wire. The name is determined by the source of the data.

Also, note how the 1D and 2D arrays are labeled as subarrays. This is because they are actually part of the original array and LV might not even create a buffer for them in memory.

One last thing about this behavior is that it can be used to look at arbitrarily complex structures, like the cluster in the top half of the image below.

The other thing shown in that image is how hovering over different portions of a broken wire will show you the exact details of the data type used by that portion of the wire.

For a list of past nuggets, see here.

Message Edited by tst on 01-22-2007 06:49 PM

[tbob]

Excellent first issue.  Very good information here.  I hope that the community continues in this new tradition.

[Darren]

Definitely a good nugget...I use this trick frequently during my development.  As I've started using LabVIEW Classes recently, it's also very helpful to see the name of the class corresponding to the wire I'm hovering over.

-D

[Ray.R]

Excellent work tst!

How do others participate?  Do they start their own thread on hop on this one?

RayR

[Former NI Employee MS]

Dear community,

This is what we call 'A thing to remind of' (please accept my uncertain english).

Regards,

[altenbach]

Great Nugget and vey useful to know. Probably 90% of my use of the context help is "On the wire". 🙂

(btw: this functionality was not always there. Anyone remember which LabVIEW version introduced this feature?)

[tst]

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@JoeLabView wrote:

How do others participate?  Do they start their own thread on hop on this one?

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There's a thread in the BP about this, so you can discuss it there, but in any case I say we use Darren's tried and true method of starting a new thread for each nugget.

[JQ]

thanks tst for the information  ... its a good start to start the ball rolling...

[devchander]

Good start, tst!

[tst]

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@altenbach wrote:

Anyone remember which LabVIEW version introduced this feature?

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I can say that it goes back at least as far as 6.1.