Darren's Weekly Nugget 10/02/2006

[Darren]

Did you know there were a lot of famous people born on October 2nd?  Mahatma Gandhi, Groucho Marx, Johnnie Cochran, Sting, to name a few.  Well, it also happens that, 29 years ago today, in Corpus Christi, TX, your favorite nugget master was born.  That's right, today is my birthday, too!  So for today's nugget, I'm going to make some birthday wishes...LabVIEW wishes, that is.  You see, I may work at NI on the LabVIEW R&D team, but at the end of the day, I'm a LabVIEW developer just like all of you, and I have to make feature requests just like everybody else...sure, I can write some of the features I want myself (check these out), but for others, sometimes all I can do is just submit a feature request.  So maybe, since it's my birthday, if you feel so inclined, and if you think you could benefit from some of these, you could visit the Product Suggestion Center too and tell LabVIEW R&D how much you'd like to see some of the following features (these are in no particular order, just things I've encountered while doing some pretty intense LabVIEW programming the past few weeks):

• "Edit > Create SubVI" creates a subVI with a 4x2x2x4 connector pane and the error I/O already wired in the bottom corners.  I guess more generally, it could use a template VI.  Ooh, yeah, that would be cool, because then I could have a custom icon assigned for my new subVIs, too.
• Right-clicking on a VI in the project and choosing "Add to Source Control" happens automatically with no dialogs.  Currently I see two dialogs, one to confirm the add, and one to indicate the add was successful.  I only want to see a dialog if an error occurs.
• When dragging a VI into a folder in the project, I want to be able to place it at the end of the list...currently you can only place it next-to-last, then drag the current last item up one space.
• When I "copy" a control terminal from a diagram, I can't "paste" on the front panel of another VI...I have to paste on the diagram.  I figure I should be allowed to paste the control (represented by the terminal in the clipboard) on the panel or the diagram.
• While setting up connector pane connections, I'd like to drag a connected terminal to another location instead of having to disconnect, select new terminal, reconnect, and re-set the required/optional setting.
• Indicate somewhere (Tools > Options, maybe?) that I want all new input connections on subVIs to be required instead of recommended.
• Adjust the terminal location on To More Specific Class ever-so-slightly so that its input reference and error I/O line up exactly with those terminals on Property/Invoke nodes.
• A block diagram comment should word-wrap if it's being typed inside a structure, and the comment bound approaches the edge of the structure.  Actually, it would be nice if a comment typed anywhere on the diagram would word-wrap if its bound approaches any diagram object.

I could probably keep going, but I'll stop here.  And hey, if you don't care about any of these things, visit the Product Suggestion Center anyway and request things that you do want!  We do look at and prioritize every feature suggestion that comes in.  I know that personally, when I am planning out the next revision of a product that I own (VI Analyzer or Report Generation Toolkit come to mind), one of the first things I do to get feature ideas is check all the product suggestions I've received from customers and internal users at NI.  So fear not...your requests are being heard!  Hopefully mine will too... 🙂

Happy birthday to me,
-D

P.S. - Check out past nuggets here.

[TiTou]

Happy birthday Darren and thanks for your tasty nuggets !

Keep goin' !

[altenbach]

Happy Birthday Darren! I hope all your wishes come true, especially the well formulated suggestions above. 😄

One addition to your last wish. Word-wrap should also occur for object labels. Sometimes I get annoyed if I "enhance" a label on the FP for documantation and clarity and later notice that it "pushed" the borders of a structure, making a mess of my well layed out diagram. 😞

[TCPlomp]

Happy Birthday (yours is almost over at this side of the water)

Look what I found? A can of worms

I love that NI takes these things in to account.

What am I waiting on?
LVOOP by Ref (it's a pity that methods and events have to be in the same VI...)

What am i hoping for?

whitepapers about all the new technologies.
Understand me right I like help files but I LOVE manuals, technical info
For instance, I am looking for a good manual on Xcontrols (not a getting started), a white paper on TDMS files(something like  LabVIEW Data Storage), good info on mixed signal graphs, how does a picture control work (I think even Ben knows it for sure). And specifically the technical background, what do I have to put into it, how can it be faster....

maybe next year the 5th of may!

Ton

[Will.D]

Happy Birthday Darren!

Always nice to know that the people behind the product you're using are so in tune with the customer.  Keep it up!

[ohiofudu]

Happy Birthday Darren,

We say here in Germany "Herzlich Glück Wunsch zu Geburtstag"
Keep the Good work.

Ohiofudu
CLAD

[tbob]

Happy Birthday, Darren.  Your nuggets are far better than the McDonalds or KFC variety.

[Ben]

Tbob wrote "Your nuggets are far better than the McDonalds or KFC variety. "

Well at least we know what is in them!

Ben

[bogdani]

Happy Birthday

We are quite similar: I also have 29 years old and I also use and like LabVIEW 🙂

Keep going and I will watch how we could improve our wolrd with LV

bogdani

[Joe_H]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DARREN.

Thanks for the best nuggets in the world of LV. Keep 'em coming.