Things I expect of QuickDrop

[Jarrod_S.]

Here is a short list of things I expect QuickDrop to do intuitively. I am not sure how all of them could be satisfied, but it is usually my first instinct to try these things. Comments are welcome!

• Insert objects from QuickDrop. I really feel like I should be able to insert objects in an analogous way to the right click options on a wire. It might be weird to select a wire or node and then invoke QD to create or insert something context specific, but if someone could figure it out that would be amazing!
• Perform actions. The letter shortcuts in QD are a great start, but I feel they should be extended. For instance, maybe in addition to Shortcuts you can define Actions. This just invokes the VI tied to that action when typed in. Even better would be if these actions were context specific.

[Darren]

Good thread idea, Jarrod.  Here's what I think about the expectations you posted:

• I'd love to be able to do Insert operations with Quick Drop.  Same with Replace operations.  I'm investigating this for LV 2010, but I don't know if it's gonna happen.
• Are you saying that you'd like to define words that you can type, that are not necessarily palette object names, but call a plugin VI if they're typed in the Quick Drop object name box?  How is that necessarily better than the Ctrl keys?  Because you could certainly create a "macro engine", for lack of a better term, that takes whatever is typed in the box and processes it appropriately when Ctrl-M (or whatever other key combo you assign) is pressed?

As for things I expect from Quick Drop, I've pretty much added all the ones I can already.    But there's always the one that I can't fix myself:

• Elimination of the initial launch delay.  There's currently the "Load Palettes at Launch" workaround, but this is not a sufficient solution.  I want all LabVIEW users to have a good Quick Drop experience from the beginning, without having to go change settings.  I've posted an idea on the LabVIEW Idea Exchange for this...please vote for it if you haven't already.

-D

[CMal]

I really like Jarrod's idea of performing actions by typing a word/phrase.  One drawback to the Ctrl keys is that you have to remember what action each letter corresponds to.  It would be nice to be able to type in "align" when I want to align terminal labels in a VI, instead of having to remember that Ctrl-T performs the align action.

Jarrod, this might make a good suggestion in the Idea Exchange.  I would certainly vote for it.

-Chris

[Jarrod_S.]

I can see potentially huge differences between a simple Macro system launched by Ctrl-M and having integrated actions that one can invoke.

I own a Mac, and one of the absolute best things about it is the launcher program QuickSilver. It's actually much more than just a simple launcher. What's great about QuickSilver is its ability to string together various objects or actions to form a "sentence"-like operation.

For instance, I can invoke QuickSilver and type in a file to find and open it. But I can also type Email which then opens a second box where I can type in a contact, which opens a third box where I can type in that same filename. Now I've constructed an operation that will email my friend the file.

This is a powerful system. As soon as you have to leave QuickDrop to enter your custom Macro world, you lose all of QuickDrop's ability to navigate palette items or other related actions.

I would love the ability to type in operations like:

Replace >> Selection >> mySubVI.vi

Open >> mySubVI.vi

Insert >> Property Node >> Caption >> Text.

Create >> Unbundle by Name >> ParentCluster >> ChildItem1.

Here the ">>" symbols represent basic delimiters between the various action and object keywords, all of which should be matched by just a few keystrokes. The cool thing is this also allows us to drill into subitems. So you don't just have to add a blank property node or unbundle node, but you could populate it based on the originator's type information directly from QuickDrop.

And of course, if you could create custom plugin actions that understand this grammar system, that would be great. (You might have to work Saturdays ... )

[tst]

We discussed something along those lines about LVSpeak here. The basic concept is the same, but we didn't get into much detail.

[NJKirchner]

The basic difficulty with enabling this kind of idea is the sheer number of permutations.

The way to resolve this is to have an API that makes dealing with the permutations easy....which does not exist.

For example, what are all the things that you can do w/ the current plot of a plot legend or perhaps a Bundle by name BD node?      a lot.

Can you figure them out programmatically? Not really.

Therefore creating a dynamic architecture that can enable a great deal of automation would be terribly difficult.

Now you could make a static architecture to just handle a variety of common commands to enable what you need most that still operated hierarchically, and add to that list of commands as you need.

And this architecture could handle a more hierarchical command structure, but the underlying commands would have to be hard coded (because of the lack of ability to dynamically determine what is possible 'smartly')

This is the avenue that LVSpeak did indeed take. There are still no nested voice commands, but they are arranged in a grouped / hierarchical fashion that works quite well and would not benefit a ton by adding an arbitrary level or hierarchicalness....... yeah.. I just made up a word.

But in actuality, you could have a separate program floating off in the ether handling these things for you.... they just wouldn't be linked into QuickDrop (which is starting to become quite the junk drawer of abilities beyond just dropping nodes quickly)

[Darren]

NJKirchner wrote:

... QuickDrop (which is starting to become quite the junk drawer of abilities beyond just dropping nodes quickly)

...wait 'til you see what I've got planned for LV 2010...

-D