Quick Drop Enthusiasts
Proposal: Ship QD Object Shortcuts in LabVIEW 2016
One of the most useful features of Quick Drop is the ability to assign object shortcuts to commonly-dropped objects, like 'cs' for Case Structure, 'nc' for Numeric Constant, etc. LabVIEW development is accelerated considerably when you can type QD object shortcuts with your left hand only, leaving your right hand on the mouse.
I've noticed over the years that many LabVIEW programmers are not using Quick Drop to its full potential, simply because they do not use object shortcuts. LabVIEW does not have any QD object shortcuts pre-installed by default. I have provided my own personal shortcuts as a download on the Quick Drop Enthusiasts group, but users must somehow know about this page in order to take advantage of the shortcuts I have already put together, and they must take the time to make appropriate edits to the LabVIEW INI file to get the shortcuts onto their systems.
So for LabVIEW 2016, I am proposing that we ship a default set of object shortcuts, that will be very similar to the ones already posted at the link given above. More specifically, I propose the following behavior:
1. The first time Quick Drop is ever launched (in LabVIEW 2016 or later), it will check to see if there are already *any* QD Object Shortcuts defined in the LabVIEW INI file. If there are, we will not install any, and we will never do this check again. This means that existing users who already have their own shortcuts (as a result of copying the INI file over to LabVIEW 2016) will see no change in behavior.
2. If there are no object shortcuts present in the INI file, we will place the default set in there. Again, this check will only ever happen the first time Quick Drop is launched. We will store another INI token indicating that this operation has already taken place, so we don't ever do it again.
3. We will add a button in the Quick Drop Configure dialog to clear all installed shortcuts, for users who, for whatever reason, do not like the fact that we installed object shortcuts on their system.
I feel this will be a great change to LabVIEW, and will help increase adoption of QD functionality that I personally rely on hundreds of times a day. The only visible impact this will have on existing users (that I can think of) is that the Quick Drop window will no longer display the first palette items alphabetically by default...it will display object shortcuts by default (since object shortcuts are always at the top of the list):
But once you start typing (which we all do immediately after we press Ctrl-Space anyway), the list will filter appropriately, as it always has.
So I have two questions:
1. Do you agree that this would be a good change for LabVIEW 2016?
2. Do you have any additions or changes you would like to suggest to my object shortcut list linked above?
I like this idea.
Suggestion for thought: A "merge/import" QD shortcuts between LV versions on the Quick Drop Configuration UI as well?
If we get good adoption, it should be painless to import a user's customized QD shortcuts into future LV versions. A typical LV user will update LV, but not be inclined to do the LabVIEW.ini copy/replace dance to import their previous QD shortcuts (this speaks to a larger problem of updating LV doesn''t automatically pull in the .ini settings from previous versions, but save that for another thread)
Here's the a little utility for fodder (snippet, needs VI analyzer for the "remove duplicate elements" .vi). It merges all QD shortcuts across all the LabVIEW.ini files listed on the front panel.
Man someone should really make a tool that imports quick drop shortcuts, without replacing any that already exist. And wouldn't it be neat if someone also made a tool that would remove these added shortcuts, but leave the ones that have been added or changed? Turns out someone did make this awesome utility and it has a total of 3 downloads....
https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-42226
But whatever it works great for for our team using VIPM to automate the install and uninstall of shortcuts. Making a more standard set of shortcuts is a good idea. Can you imagine if LabVIEW didn't ship with any of the shortcut commands for things like insert or remove?
This seem like a sensible improvment to me.
This is my only bugbear with QD at the moment.
Richard
Just to play Devil's Advocate here, but why include it?
I would surmise that not a significant number of people use quickdrops. They are too use to the palette layout. It seems like that's what people gravitate towards when they first open the software and are trained that way with classes.
A second group of users use quick drop.. only for the Ctrl-Key Shortcuts (which might now go away as they are replaced with Right-Click options). They still use the palette to find everything and use the Ctrl-Key shortcuts to speed up common operations. This is, from my experience, the one thing people pick up when given "fast programming" presentations. You might get some advance users here who will venture to the forum in hopes of more shortcuts and even after installing, will forget about them quickly.
Finally, you might get a couple people who will actually use quick drop as intended and type out the names to the object instead of just searching the palette. Getting someone trained to this level is an accomplishment. It actually requires them to unlearn using the palettes. Still, the trouble here is knowing what exists, and what the name is.
The amount of speed up you can get from these people isn't that much, we're talking a few keystrokes saved per operation? A second perhaps if person types slow? That's assuming these people learn a second name for the component and use it.
So, of the relatively small population that knows about quickdrop but doesn't use it. I would try to question why? Do they not visit the forums, or community to know these shortcuts exists? Do they not install it because they don't see potential? Is it perhaps installed but they have difficulty in remembering the abbreviations?
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If this were to be placed in 2016, I would expect that the documentation to be improved. The 3 sentences you have already doesn't do it justice and is hard for a person to read what's available.
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On a different note, if the reason for this being considered into 2016 is because it helps people program faster. I think there are significantly bigger fish to consider. For example, Adding OpenG, MGI Tools, or GPower, VIs to the standard code library will save minutes to hours of people recreating the wheel. Just a thought.
Personally, I love the idea of more standard features being added. However, I am weary of this unofficial poll. I assume that the vast majority of "Yes" people will be ones that have been in this community for months/years and have the Object shortcuts installed already and will not benefit from this change.
