Darren's Weekly Nugget 12/11/2006

[Darren]

Quick nugget this week...whenever I first install LabVIEW, one of the many default settings I change is the number of steps in the Undo history.  It defaults to 8, but I always change it to the maximum allowable value, 99.  With computers as fast and full of memory as they are these days, you shouldn't see any performance hits from increasing your Undo history.  You can find the Undo steps setting (in LabVIEW 8.2) at Tools > Options > Environment > Maximum undo steps per VI.

-D

P.S. - Check out past nuggets here.

[DFGray]

That sounds familiar.  I also do the following (most of which is a personal preference):

1. Set label backgrounds on the block diagram to transparent
2. Turn on the auto-tool (this has been discussed ad nauseam in an earlier post, but I have been doing it since its introduction)
3. Turn off the block diagram grid (can be confused with wires - yes, I know I can change its color, but that didn't solve the problem)
4. Turn off snap to grid
5. On older versions, change the color of the coercion dot to something a bit more noticeable - usually a shade of orange.  This is now the default
6. Turn on all the secret private stuff that NI does not release because it is too buggy.

Does anyone else have a list they are willing to share?

[Socratis]

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@Darren wrote:

Quick nugget this week...whenever I first install LabVIEW, one of the many default settings I change is the number of steps in the Undo history.  It defaults to 8, but I always change it to the maximum allowable value, 99.

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One tip that I got from one of the older LV R&D developers (but have not tried personally) is that the maximum allowed number of 99 undo steps is only due a limitation to the preferences dialog numeric input for the undo steps. You could manually change the undo steps in the preferences file to a higher number (not sure if it's a U16, I32 or something different). Just don't try to change it through the preferences interface again...

BTW, here are some of the other options that I change in a default installation of LabVIEW (directly from the preferences file, I'm lazy to translate them on the actual preferences):

• defaultControlStyle: 1
  
• defaultErrorHandlingForNewVIs: False
  
• EnableAutomaticErrorHandling: False
  
• autoRouteWires: False
  
• autoInsertFeedbackNode: False
  
• history.promptAtSave: True
  
• maxUndoSteps: 99
  
• SnapGridShowsOnFrontPanel: False
  
• StructuresAutoSizeByDefault: False
  
• ShowRedXOnWire: False
  
• skipNavigatorDialog: True
  
• requireAutoTool: False
  
• showWireGuides: False
  
• autoerr: 2
  
• doubleClickToEditControl: True
  
• CustomShortcuts: ";APP_SAVEAS, Shift+S;APP_SAVEALL,;APP_REINIT_ALL_TO_DEFAULT, Shift+R;APP_SC_DISTRIBUTE_ITEMS, Shift+D"
  
• ShowConstantFolding: False
  
• ShowConstantFoldStructs: False
  
• FancyFPTerms: False
  

Socratis