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Replace and Insert With Select a VI

Has anyone thought about implementing the feature, where you can insert, or replace a node on the block diagram, with one from a browse dialog?

So lets say I select a subVI on my palette, and I want to replace it with another subVI on disk, but not in my palette.  Right now the only option is to right click >> Replace >> All Palettes >> Select a VI... then browse to the file on disk.  What would speed this up is CTRL + P type "Select a VI..." (or "sav") then pick the file.

I would hope insert could work the same way.  And this could be used to replace multiple subVIs, or insert multiple subVIs, just like CTRL + I and CTRL + P supports on normal functions on the palette.

And if someone hasn't done this and wants a challenge, I recommend the starting point be these improved Replace from Clipboard and, Insert from Clipboard

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I would virtually kill for this feature. Even just moving the Select a VI menu to just under the Replace menu would be awesome.

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Ctrl-I and Ctrl-Shift-I already work with 'Select a VI...'. I've often wanted Ctrl-P to work with it as well, I'll take a look this afternoon and see what it would take.

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I've posted a prototype of the Replace shortcut with this functionality here. Please try it out and let me know what you think. I'd like to include this functionality in LabVIEW 2015.

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I love it - and humbly request inclusion in 2015. Also default object short-cuts wouldn't go amiss - saves from configuring them again with every installation.

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Awesome Darren.  Few comments.  So the replace QD you posted works great, but I'm going to mention again how much I love the replace from Clipboard and how I'm going to have to try to merge these two, but I understand why you might not want to post an improvement on someone elses code.  Being a representative of NI, I suspect you can't just take someone elses code, change it and then recommend using it.  Still I love both of these features and want them together.

Secondly I noticed the insert doesn't work quite as expected for CTRL + I, when multiple wires are selected.  Not sure where to best voice the issue I saw.  Lets say you have two error wires selected, and you want to insert a subVI on each of them.  If the function is in the palette you can type it and press CTRL + I and a copy will be inserted on each wire.  But if you have both wires selected, then type "sav" and CTRL + I and pick the file, it will insert it on the first wire, then prompt you again for another file to insert on the other wire.  I'd expect it to work like the normal insert, where the same VI is inserted on each wire and only be prompted once for my file selection.

Note that this is how the improved replace function you posted earlier works, where it replaces the selected nodes with a copy of the VI selected from the dialog.

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Re: replace/insert from clipboard...I really like Dany's shortcuts. Being able to do replace/insert with the clipboard contents is something I've always wanted to do. But there are some problems with his approach that make me hesitant to use it in the shipping product. For example, the Replace won't work if the clipboard contains anything other than a subVI, or something represented in the Style Ring. And if the clipboard contains more than one item, or maybe one item but with wires hanging off of it, what do we do then? I'm not saying these problems are impossible to solve, but I envision quite a bit more complexity in a solution that I'm comfortable shipping with LabVIEW.

Re: use of community-posted QD plugins in shipping LabVIEW code...I have, on occasion, used content posted to the Quick Drop community to improve the shipping product. In each case, I first asked the author if it was ok to include the code, and each time, the author has (enthusiastically) approved.

Re: Insert with 'Select a VI'...Ah, yes, when I tried it earlier today, I tried Ctrl-I with only a single wire selected. Yes, I think I can make the same change to Ctrl-I that I made to Ctrl-P. I'll post an Insert prototype next week after Thanksgiving.

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All you have to do to configure those is to copy some lines from the (then "old") LabVIEW.ini under the INI-keys "QuickDropDiagramShortcuts" and "QuickDropPanelShortcuts" into the ini of the new LabVIEW installation. Mind the localisation issues though...

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I've posted a prototype of the Insert shortcut with this functionality here. Please try it out and let me know what you think. I'd like to include this functionality in LabVIEW 2015.

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Message 9 of 9
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