ZOOM

[diegonet]

There's nobody that believe that Labview lacks of a ZOOM function??? Sometime is impossible to see all input's/output's in a function.

I will be wait for replies, because, I never see a post about this, so, there's two options: Labview has a zoom and I'm an idiot...or all people has a 29" monitors...

[mikeporter]

LabVIEW doesn't have a zoom. LabVIEW doesn't need a zoom. If you think you need a zoom, you need to rethink how you write applications. If you write programs with proper modularzation a zoom function is unnecessary.

Mike...

[LV_Pro]

There is, in LabVIEW 7.1 a "Navigation window" that shows, in a smaller window the whole Front panel or diagram in a smaller window. It isn't available in the "Base Package". As Mike points out, FP's or diagrams that stretch across multiple screen widths are poorly designed. You can of course get really big screens, and very high resolution video cards, but that is the wrong direction.

P.M.

[altenbach]

See the second LabVIEW Proverb© in this post. 🙂

Message Edited by altenbach on 08-30-2005 09:27 PM

[LV_Pro]

Concise Christian

[Antony_K]

Hi,

I e-mailed the following to my local NI sales engineer, and he suggested I post this on the forum for the LV dev. guys to read.

I asked one of the tech support guys if there was a ‘zoom’ function for the graphic editor, and he said there was not. I find the graphic editor to be quite fiddly to use. I often find it (relatively) difficult to pick up wires which are part of the block diagram, and to make conections to an object's terminals when there are many terminals if "View as icon" is not checked (ticked). I have been unable to find a setting for the object (wire) snap tolerance (i.e. how close you have to be to select an object when you click near it). I have used other graphic editors such as Protel (Schematic/PCB) and Quartus (Altera PLD design), and have found them to be easier to use. I think a zoom in/out function would make it much easier to manipulate/tidy small sections of LabVIEW block diagrams, as bigger objects (wires/terminals)  are easier to select. There does not appear to be a ‘pan’ keyboard shortcut (or middle mouse button option to do this) either.

Protel allows zoom in / zoom out using the Page Up / Page Down keys respectively. The home key performs a static pan. I have a 5 button MS mouse, so two of the buttons are configured to zoom in/out and the middle button (activated by pressing the scroll wheel) pans. This makes it very quick and easy to navigate pages, and zoom in to make fine adjustments to the graphic object. Another feature that I miss is the ability to turn the snap to grid function off temporarily by holding the ALT key when placing/moving an object. Word does this (when moving graphic objects), and it is very handy.

It is surprising (to me) that something like LabVIEW lacks these features. Another engineer, (who has also used Protel extensively, and other packages), watched me using the graphic editor also, and was not impressed (with the graphic editor!).

I have read other people's comments which suggest that "you don't need a zoom (if you're programming LabVIEW properly)". Admittedly I'm a LabVIEW newbie, and I may find in the future that I don't need it, but if it were there, I'd be using it now! That is, if the functionality exists, the user has the choice as to whether they use it or not. For a package that I'm led to believe started out many years ago as a graphic programming language, I'd expect the graphic editor to be the 'gold standard'.

Thanks,
  Antony.

[LV_Pro]

   For the "sensitivity" of the auto wiring connection go to the "Tools" pull down, "Block Diagram" and look for "Enable auto wiring", which has min and max distance settings. What is being said about not needing the Zoom feature, and possibly other "drawing" niceties is that you shouldn't really need a Zoom or Pan type action if you are "drawing" concise labview diagrams. In the past there was the case where a User Interface vi could get really ugly, very complicated, on the diagram side, if the front panel had a number of controls/indicators and the program was doing a lot of interesting things with these controls (changing various properties, etc.). That was because you had to do these things "locally", on the diagram of the vi that contained the control. But with control references even that can be placed into sub-vis, allowing us to have even fairly complicated UI vi's have relatively concise diagrams.

   Many of the companies that I have done work for (I do, among many things, consultanting) have mandated style guides that among other things define the level of complexity allowed in a vi and how big diagrams are allowed to be. It can occasionally make life very difficult to try and live within these restrictions, but it almost invariably results in programs that are designed well and are maintainable by others. Would it be nice to have those features, yes, but it would also tend to encourage some bad programming habits. I have worked on programs where the programmer made diagrams that were multiple screens wide and tall. They are very difficult to modify/troubleshoot, with having to scroll back and forth, etc. Is the answer giving better scrolling and zooming, no, it is teaching the programmer to encapsulate, modularize, if for the reason that it is usually easier to debug the smaller modules than one gargantuan one.

P.M.

The graphical addition I would like is to allow relatively easy creation/modification of control's graphics in a native LabVIEW environment.

[altenbach]

Antony,

One of the problems is the fact that LabVIEW is currently very "pixel-oriented", most lines are exactly one, two, or three pixels wide. This makes arbitrary zooming relatively complicated, because halftones would be needed to keep e.g. the relative line thickness to appear in correct proportion at fractional zoom levels. You cannot have a line that is 0.5 or 1.3 pixels wide. 😉

You do have a valid point, though. In recent years the displays for laptops have become very high resolution while maintaining a small overall size (I'm currently ruinning on a 14" with 1400 horizontal pixels!). This can make mouse control on a pixel level tricky, especially with aging eyesight and coffeinated fingers. 🙂

So, YES, there should be a zoom-in feature (maybe only for integer 2x and 4x levels) so these crowded connector panes can be hooked up easier! (BTW, some crude zoom-in functionality is available using the magnifier in the accessibilty features of windows. Have you tried it?)

A zoom-out is a bit more controversial, because current high-resolution screens already allow diagrams that are probably too big to be practical. 😮 So what of you're out in the field to do some code maintenance and all you have is a 600x800 ultraportable? It might be useful to temporarily go to 0.5x (with the 0.5 pixel wide lines properly lightened to give the correct proporional appearance, etc.), maybe just to get a quick diagram overview or to place that last big while loop around the current code. 🙂

I am sure that a zoom feature request has been submitted many times to the suggestion center. Just submit another one to reinforce the wish. :D. A few versions ago, we got the navigation window. Unfortunately, it does not address the mentioned functional requirements (direct editing in the zoomed window, etc.). I agree with you that a zoom function can be useful!

BTW, the grid alignment can be temporarily disabled by pressing "g" while moving items. Works well. 🙂

[LV_Pro]

Your comment "(I'm currently ruinning on a 14" with 1400 horizontal pixels!). " is all too correct! I attribute my increasing eyeglass prescription to endless hours staring at the increasingly higher resolution screens (aging having nothing to do with it!   )

P.M.

[tst]

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@altenbach wrote:

So what of you're out in the field to do some code maintenance and all you have is a 600x800 ultraportable?

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Well, as one piece of advice, don't get LV8. The minimal resolution for it is 1024*768 (which is what I normally use on my laptop). I find this a bit troubling. As for the magnifier, unfortunately, it always takes a big portion of the screen, but seems to be too small.