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Super Quick Drop Fails Me

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I've seen this happen many times, on multiple versions of LabVIEW, but I have yet to capture this issue on film until now.  Below is a video of LabVIEW 2013 SP1, where I am in a new blank VI.  No other VIs are open.  I open quick drop.  Then find the bundle by name (bbn shortcut).  I can then double click on the item to use it, or hit the enter key.  These are the first two drops.  But if I just type "bbn" then click on the block diagram nothing happens.  This was cointed the term Super Quick Drop in Darren's post a while ago.

 

This is so frustrating.  It totally breaks my development process, and slows me down to the point sometimes where I would rather navigate the palette sometimes.  Now I need to call quick drop again, type my command again, and then remember to not use Super Quick Drop.  Most the time I will forget the last step and keep trying what doesn't work.  

 

I've tried closing all VIs, and opening a new VI.  That doesn't fix it.  I've also closed and re-opened LabVIEW and that doesn't fix it.  Is there something I can do or some VIs I can probe to figure out why this isn't working?  Thanks.

 

http://screencast.com/t/MNh5v9Eg

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Little more information in the hopes someone at NI sees this.  In my case the information looks like it is right.  The QuickDrop Process Drop Information gets my bbn command and does figure out the function name "Bundle By Name" with Super Quick Drop, or double clicking the item.  Then the UI.PlacePaletteObjOnCursor returns no error and a True as the output.

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I've heard of Super Quick Drop having problems when some 3rd party software is installed that has to do with multi-monitor displays...it's called UltraMon I think. I think I've also heard of people having intermittent problems with it when connected over Remote Desktop or Parallels. Do any of these scenarios apply to you?

 

Another thing to try, there's an INI token that I don't *think* affects Quick Drop, but it wouldn't hurt to try. Try specifying dropThroughClicks=True in your INI file and restarting LabVIEW. If that doesn't help, try dropThroughClicks=False. I'm just grasping at straws here, I'm hoping one of these suggestions gets us on the right track for figuring out the problem.

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Thanks Darren, I don't have UltraMon but I do have Displayfusion.  Which is a very similar multi-monitor program.  It's actually one of the few pieces of software I paid for and think is worth it, so I'd rather find a work around then go back.

 

After a fresh reboot the issue goes away, and now that I know this interaction is the cause I will try to close and restart Displayfusion next time it happens to see that it does temporarily fix it.  I'll also try out the keys you provided when it happens again.  

 

Do you have any more information about a potential work around?  This must be a problem that affects developers right?  I mean how many LabVIEW developers have more then one monitor?  How many of them choose to have better work flow with software to support multiple monitors better?

 

I now see that this is a problem at the Invoke node I mentioned in my previous post.  When this last happened last night, I make an invoke node and had the Place Palette Object On Cursor with a constant of "Bundle By Name".  Before this I had a 2 second delay to give me enough time to place my cursor in a non-running VI.  When I ran it nothing happened but I didn't know if this was working or not.  This morning I now see that this function does work properly.  So what I'm saying is, this issue has to do with that invoke node, and the interaction of multi-monitor applications, which you may have already known.

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@Hooovahh wrote:

 

I mean how many LabVIEW developers have more then one monitor?  How many of them choose to have better work flow with software to support multiple monitors better?


I have 6 monitors. 🙂 So far I've been very happy with the multi-monitor support Windows 7 natively provides (I've been told to avoid Windows 8 though).

 

I read through CAR 312499, which is the CAR we have about Quick Drop having problems on UltraMon. The CAR was closed as 3rd Party, because some versions of UltraMon exhibited the problem and others did not, and from what we could tell, the techniques UltraMon was using to manipulate the windowing system of the OS were less than ideal. I will add a note to the closed CAR including a link to this thread, since this is the first time anybody has reported similar problems with DisplayFusion.

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Thanks again for your support.  I will post back if I have any useful results.

 

Not to derail the topic, but with your 6 monitors (I knew you had several) you only have one taskbar.  So how do you know what item in the taskbar corresponds to what window?  Isn't it a hunt and peck kind of thing?  In my setup the window I have open, is in the taskbar for that monitor.

 

Also how do you quickly move a window to a different monitor?  For me it is CTLR + Space cycles a window between monitors.  Windows + CTRL + Right also works but takes my right hand off of my mouse.

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Here's what my 6 monitor setup looks like:

 

6.png

 

The contents on the two side monitors and the two bottom monitors are very static. I always have 3 explorer windows open on the left. I always have music, chat, and sticky notes open on the right. And my web browser and email client are always on the bottom. Since those windows never move, I always know where they are.

 

Now the top two monitors have all sorts of stuff going on. LabVIEW, Paint (for screenshots), PowerPoint, Word, etc...but it's never felt like a chore to me to manage two monitor's worth of windows. One of the only times where things spew onto the other monitors is when I'm debugging some hairy LabVIEW bug, and I have the probe window and tons of paused VIs spread out all over the place. But that's not an everyday situation, so it doesn't feel particularly burdensome to have to manage all those windows when hairy bugs occasionally come up. Any pain associated with window management is quickly overshadowed with the euphoria of having found the cause of the bug. 😉

 

As for taskbar use, it's kind of a non-issue when I know where almost all the windows are all the time. One trick I do use is the Window-1, Window-2, Window-3, etc. keyboard shortcuts for giving focus to the 1st app, 2nd app, 3rd app, etc. in the taskbar, respectively.

 

I guess to look at things more generally, I use so many monitors specifically so I *don't* have to manage anything, because almost everything is visible (i.e. not hiding behind some other window) all the time.

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I used to think you had a cool setup, but now I realize you are more or less gravitating twords a monitor for every window, and that just seems silly.  Windows can be hidden behind each other but the taskbar is where I am able to find the stuff I want.  I haven't had a program with less then 2000 VIs in a while.  And while I don't open all 2000 at a time, I'd say having more then 10 open at once is quite common. Making 20 open windows for BD and FP, probes, the project, breakpoint manager etc.  And that's just for one version of LabVIEW, plenty of times I have 2 open at once.  I also generally have 5-10 explorer windows open at once.  I'm glad your setup works for you but it feels very under utilized, and it would drive me crazy.

 

Back on topic a little I found the issue and was able to fix it.  Turns out it wasn't Displayfusion at all, it was TeamViewer.  I thought it might have something to do with the extra buttons that are put next to the Close, Minimize, and Maximize buttons of each window.  Both Displayfusion and TeamViewer add little buttons that can have special functionality.  Displayfusion defaults with span across all monitors, and move to the next monitor.  I didn't like these buttons so I disabled them.  But TeamViewer also added one for their Quick Connect.  Basically it allows you to share a window quickly with another machine.  I never used the feature but clicking on the button gives you the dialog attached.

 

TeamViewer Quick Drop Bug.png

 

Here I tried the to just disable it for labview.exe and all of the sudden my Super Quick Drop worked again.  This feature can also be disabled in the options.  After making this change all versions of LabVIEW now are working.

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Cool Darren.

 

I use two monitors for work since long. Now at home I have started using LCD TV as monitor too. We are trying to use 6 monitors on one computer, and for that we have got 2 graphics cards on the mother board. But still waiting to get the HDMI and mini HDMI converters to attach 6 monitors on the same computer.

 

How have you done that?

 

And thanks to Hooovahh for the solution to TeamViewer buggy button. I was dumbfounded on why LabVIEW 2013 SP1 can drag and drop and select a VI on one computer (Windows 7) but not on the new computer (Windows 8).

Vaibhav
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On my system, I have three dual video cards...two NVIDIA NVS 300, and one NVIDIA Quadro FX 570. All of them use DVI connectors.

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