Darren's Weekly Nugget 11/15/2010

I'm not a big fan of Auto Grow on structures:
I have deselected Tools > Options > Block Diagram > Place structures with Auto Grow enabled so none of my VIs have the option selected. But sometimes I inherit code, and I am perturbed when stuff starts moving around on the diagram because the original author liked auto grow. So I wrote this utility VI that will turn off Auto Grow on all structures in all VIs in a given folder:
Make sure to backup your VIs before running this utility.
Darren Nattinger, CLA
LabVIEW Artisan and Nugget Penman

Kudos for the great example that could act as a springboard for any type of VI batch processing! I must make two minor mods to the VI to make it more palatable to my own (and Ravens'?) taste:
a.lia-user-name-link[href="/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/88938"] {color: black;} a.lia-user-name-link[href="/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/88938"]:after {content: '';} .jrd-sig {height: 80px; overflow: visible;} .jrd-sig-deploy {float:left; opacity:0.2;} .jrd-sig-img {float:right; opacity:0.2;} .jrd-sig-img:hover {opacity:0.8;} .jrd-sig-deploy:hover {opacity:0.8;}

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Darren's Weekly Nugget 08/02/2010

Just in time for NI Week, LabVIEW 2010 has released! Over the next several weeks, my weekly nuggets will highlight some of my favorite features in LabVIEW 2010.
Cool LabVIEW 2010 Features Part I: Replace and Insert with Quick Drop
Soon after I released Quick Drop with LabVIEW 8.6, one of the first requests was the ability to do Replace and Insert operations with Quick Drop instead of the palettes. Well, it took a few releases, but we finally got it:
Replace with Quick Drop
Select one or more diagram objects, press Ctrl-Space to bring up Quick Drop, type a palette object name (or a project item if you have one or more LabVIEW projects open), press Ctrl-P, and all the objects you had selected on the diagram will be replaced with the object name you specified in Quick Drop. And yes, it does do the replace "correctly" with Compound Arithmetic...
Insert with Quick Drop
Select one or more diagram wires, press Ctrl-Space to bring up Quick Drop, type a palette object name (or a project item if you have one or more LabVIEW projects open), press Ctrl-I, and a separate instance of the object you specified in Quick Drop will be inserted on each wire. I also included special functionality when Ctrl-Shift-I is pressed. I call this "Smart Insert". With Smart Insert, a *single instance* of the object name you specify will be inserted on multiple wires. As an example, if you select a refnum wire and an error wire, press Ctrl-Space, type "Property Node", and press Ctrl-Shift-I, a *single* property node will be inserted on both the error wire and the refnum wire.
Darren Nattinger, CLA
LabVIEW Artisan and Nugget Penman

I would argue that the expected behavior for Ctrl-Space....Select....Ctrl-P for the 1/x function replaced by a Compound Arithmetic should be:
=====>
not what it currently is:
====>
This, BTW, is what the "Replace" menu does, so there is no benefit really in using the Ctrl-HyperSpace projection (at least to me).
And similarly for (-x) and x^2.

Darren's Weekly Nugget 11/08/2010

Cool LabVIEW 2010 Features Part XI: Export Data to Clipboard (or Excel or DIAdem)
I thought I was done with my "Cool LabVIEW 2010 features" series a few weeks ago, but then I stumbled across this one today:
These new Export Data options are available on Waveform Charts, Waveform Graphs, Tables, and Arrays (including constants!). Choosing the Export Data To Excel or Export Data To DIAdem options will launch those apps with a new document containing the data. Choosing Export Data To Clipboard will simply copy the data to the clipboard, at which point you can perform a Paste operation in whatever app you wish (Excel, DIAdem, Notepad, Word, LabVIEW, etc.). Here are a few things I discovered when exploring this new feature:
On Windows, the columns are tab (\t) delimited, and the rows are line feed (\n) delimited. I didn't check other platforms.
When using this feature with the Table control, it works best if you deselect Advanced > Show Selection on the table before exporting. Otherwise, you have to select (i.e. highlight) the data you want to export in the table. It seems to me that most of the time I'd want to export the entire contents of my table.
Darren Nattinger, CLA
LabVIEW Artisan and Nugget Penman

mysticfree wrote:
"Export Image" property? DO'H! Of course. In all my searching, I don't know how did I miss that one .... boy, is my face red.
Happens to the best of us!
Promise.
Paul <--Always Learning!!!
sense and simplicity.
Browse my sample VIs?

Darren's Weekly Nugget 06/15/2010

In today's nugget, I'm going to talk about .mnu files, which define the hierarchy for the Controls and Functions palettes in LabVIEW. There are three primary locations where you would find .mnu files on your machine:
[LabVIEW]\menus - This is the main location for almost all .mnu files. This folder contains .mnu files installed with core LabVIEW, modules/toolkits, and some 3rd-party LabVIEW add-ons.
[LabVIEW]\user.lib - Any .mnu files in this folder will be used to populate the contents of the User Controls subpalette of the Controls palette and the User Libraries subpalette of the Functions palette.
[My Documents]\LabVIEW Data\{version}(xx-bit)\Palettes\menus - If you ever change the contents of your palettes with the Tools > Advanced > Edit Palette Set utility, any changes you make will be stored in this location, and these changes will override the contents of [LabVIEW]\menus when the palettes are loaded.
In the past we have supported other locations for .mnu files, but support for locations other than the three mentioned above is mostly deprecated at this point.
So how do .mnu files work? The file format is an internal LabVIEW file type that stores all the information LabVIEW needs to construct a palette...the palette icon, the contents of the palette, the type of each palette object, and links to .mnu files that define any subpalettes on that palette. Paths to subpalette .mnu files are stored as relative paths within an owning .mnu file. Paths to VIs and CTLs in vi.lib are stored as relative to vi.lib. The palette API (Read Palette.vi and Write Palette.vi) provide programmatic access to all the information stored in .mnu files.
Finally, let's discuss a curious entity you might find when you start browsing around [LabVIEW]\menus...dozens of empty text files called 'readonly.txt'. The filename is a misnomer...it is a relic of some old palette editing functionality. At this point, these files really only serve one purpose. There are some hard-coded palette items within the core LabVIEW palette set. This is because we want to enforce an intuitive palette layout when you install modules and toolkits. So the positioning of some module and toolkit subpalettes are actually defined within the core LabVIEW .mnu files. So what happens if a particular module/toolkit is not installed? As a general rule, if something in a .mnu file cannot be found when LabVIEW is loading the palettes, a big "?" appears in its position in the palettes. The presence of the 'readonly.txt' file simply prevents these question marks from appearing. This behavior occurs within any palette defined by a .mnu file that has a 'readonly.txt' file sitting next to it on disk. If you delete all the 'readonly.txt' files from your [LabVIEW]\menus folder, a bunch of question marks will appear within your palettes where empty space used to be.
If you're interested in how you might plug in to the LabVIEW palettes for your own add-ons, check out the Creating a LabVIEW Palette article on the NI Community website.
Message Edited by Darren on 06-15-2010 06:50 PM
Darren Nattinger, CLA
LabVIEW Artisan and Nugget Penman

I feel an urge to reply since I find myself in a camp outside the rest of the LabVIEW tribe.
Customized menus are an issue for me because I don't have the luxury of using the same machine all of the time. Add to taht my projects can start on my machine, get completed by another and then deployed on yet another. This create a deployment nightmare. To avoid this issue when attempting to utilize "drivers" that are implemented using menus, I work to take them apart and put them back together in unique folders I can include with the rest of source code.
When you have a bunch of developers with as many as ten versions of LV and an even larger number of customer machines, the convienence of finding VI is the menu is over-taken by the nightmare or code control.
A change that would serve me well is a function in the project that would let me un-do the work of putting drivers VI in a palette and move them to my project folder so I can keep them under tight suorce control.
Just my 2 cents,
Ben
Ben Rayner
I am currently active on.. MainStream Preppers
Rayner's Ridge is under construction

Darren's Weekly Nugget 08/24/2010

Cool LabVIEW 2010 Features Part IV: VI Server Rename with Quick Drop
With Quick Drop in LabVIEW 2010, you can now change the class, property, or method of a class specifier constant, Property Node, or Invoke Node, without having to navigate the VI Server menus. Select one or more class specifier constants, property nodes, and invoke nodes, press Ctrl-Space to bring up Quick Drop, type a class name (like 'listbox'), press Ctrl-B, and the class for all the selected diagram objects will change to the class name you typed. If you select multiple property/invoke nodes, type the name of a specific property/method, and press Ctrl-Shift-B, that property/method name will be applied to the selected diagram objects.
Note 1 - When using the Ctrl-Shift-B feature, dotted properties (like 'Label.Text') are not supported.
Note 2 - Last year I posted the VI Server Rename shortcut on the NI Community here. If you were using that shortcut in LabVIEW 2009, you do not need to copy it over to LabVIEW 2010 since this shortcut is now a built-in feature.
Note 3 - This feature also allows you to change the class name of LabVIEW Class property nodes in LabVIEW 2010.
Darren Nattinger, CLA
LabVIEW Artisan and Nugget Penman

Then if the things new LabVIEW can do doesn't make you warm or fuzzy, then there is no reason for you to read this thread.
This thread isn't a sales job to try to force anyone to upgrade to LV 2010. It is about teaching some new features added to the new version so people can use them if they want. If someone decides to upgrade, but hadn't heard about a new feature, then the new feature isn't helping them at all.
I can completely understand why you or others would resist upgrading your LV version for the reasons you have given. But, Jemin's post was unnecessary and had nothing at all to do with this thread. If he felt he had a complaint that needed to be heard, then he should have started a new thread. Perhaps even add a kudo to this Idea LTS Long-term support version of LabVIEW.
Even if you don't have any current plans to upgrade your version, there probably will come a time where you need to. And by reading this thread, others like it, and threads about versions yet to come, that knowledge will help you to determine when is the right time to invest in upgrading and to know what issues to look out for when you do.

Darren's Weekly Nugget 08/09/2010

Cool LabVIEW 2010 Features Part II: Fast Connector Pane Terminal Switching
This is my favorite non-Quick Drop-related feature in LabVIEW 2010. It is now very easy to swap two terminals on the connector pane of a VI. What previously took eight clicks and a lot of mouse moving (right-click, disconnect, right-click, disconnect, click control, click terminal, click control, click terminal) now only takes two! If you click a terminal in the connector pane, then ctrl-click another terminal, the assigned controls on those terminals are switched. This also works for assigning a control to an empty terminal. When you hold Ctrl and prepare for the second click, you'll see the good ol' switcheroo tool, so you have a visual indication that you're about to perform the swap:
This is one of many features in LabVIEW 2010 that was a direct result of customer feedback in the LabVIEW Idea Exchange. So if you haven't already, make sure to go vote for the feature ideas that you'd like to see in future LabVIEW versions.
Darren Nattinger, CLA
LabVIEW Artisan and Nugget Penman

for(imstuck) wrote:
Darren wrote:
When you hold Ctrl and prepare for the second click, you'll see the good ol' switcheroo tool, so you have a visual indication that you're about to perform the swap:
Technical Term?
Yes, it's an official technical term. Here's the nugget where I first mentioned it.
Darren Nattinger, CLA
LabVIEW Artisan and Nugget Penman

Darren's Weekly Nugget 08/17/2010

Cool LabVIEW 2010 Features Part III: Built-in Merge Errors Function
In LabVIEW 2010, the Merge Errors VI has been replaced with a built-in native growable function:
This is a great improvement over the Merge Errors VI, which only had 3 scalar error inputs, requiring a Build Array function for 4 or more errors. Also, the Merge Errrors VI had some performance issues that are no longer a concern with the native function.
The new Merge Errors function will take both scalar errors and 1D array errors for its inputs. Another cool thing is that any instances of the old Merge Errors VI in your code will automatically be replaced with the new Merge Errors function when you open VIs in LabVIEW 2010.
Darren Nattinger, CLA
LabVIEW Artisan and Nugget Penman

I really like this new feature - scalability & performance, its win-win for everyone
Certified LabVIEW Architect * LabVIEW Champion

Darren's Weekly Nugget 02/08/2010

If you are interested in adding custom glyphs to your listboxes, multicolumn listboxes, and tree controls, there is a great library of nicely-sized images that ships with LabVIEW here:
[LabVIEW]\resource\framework\providers\icons
These images are widely used within LabVIEW dialogs (you've probably seen many of them in the Project Window). There are a few 48x48 and 128x128 images in there, but the majority are 16x16, which makes them perfect for use within list-based controls on the front panel, as seen here:
And a mini-nugget from the screenshot: notice that you can assign the image data for a particular glyph index *after* you've assigned that glyph index to a particular item in the tree/MCL/listbox.
Darren Nattinger, CLA
LabVIEW Artisan and Nugget Penman

One additional thing:
I once created an 'upgrade tool' that would show the contents of a folder and subfolders in a tree control.
I wanted to display the system icon for each registered file type that was displayed in the tool. I used a private method of LabVIEW (Get Shell Icon of File) to retrieve the glyph, then loaded this into the symbols array of the tree.
I've attached the low level VI that retrieves the shell icon, but the VI is password protected. ( vi in LabVIEW 8.6)
This type of VI might be a nice addition to the standard LabVIEW libs, or may even already exist (I couldn't find it).
Now is the right time to use %^<%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%3uZ>T
If you don't hate time zones, you're not a real programmer.
"You are what you don't automate"
Inplaceness is synonymous with insidiousness
Attachments:
Retrieve Shell Icon.vi ‏16 KB

Darren's Weekly Nugget 03/08/2010

A quick nugget today, since I've only got a few minutes between CLA Summit events. During my presentation this afternoon, I found that several of the CLAs in the room had never heard of the Heap Peek window. This is an internal LabVIEW feature that allows you to gain access to very detailed information having to do with how VIs are stored in memory. The most common use for the Heap Peak window is to identify and correct insane objects in your VIs.
To learn more about how to use the Heap Peek window, check out Bob Young's informative post here. One small correction to his information...if you are on Mac or Linux, you must use the INI token LVdebugKeys=True (note the capitalization). A little mini-nugget: capitalization does not matter for LabVIEW INI tokens on Windows, but it does on Mac and Linux.
Darren Nattinger, CLA
LabVIEW Artisan and Nugget Penman

Darin.K wrote:
Darren wrote:
The most common use for the Heap Peak window is to identify and correct insane objects in your VIs.
What can we do about the insane objects that operate our VIs?
Have you tried off loading them to a different customer support officer?

Darren's Weekly Nugget 02/15/2010

Did you know there is a programmatic interface to Application Builder? In LabVIEW 2009 and later, you can programmatically build EXEs, DLLs, and Source Distributions with the VIs in the following location:
[LabVIEW]\vi.lib\AppBuilder\AB_API
These VIs contain a subset of the functionality provided in the App Builder UI for creating, editing, and building these three build specification types. Note that there is no shipping documentation for these VIs, nor are there any shipping examples. The example attached below demonstrates some basic functionality:
Unzip the contents of the ZIP file below to a single folder.
Open API_EXE.vi.
Run the VI. It will open a LabVIEW Project, create an EXE build specification, build the EXE, and save the project.
Right-click the newly-created EXE build specification and choose 'Run' to run the EXE you just programmatically built.
Note that the App Builder API shipped with LabVIEW 8.6 as well, but only with the DLL and Source Dist build types. EXEs were added to the App Builder API in LabVIEW 2009.
Darren Nattinger, CLA
LabVIEW Artisan and Nugget Penman
Attachments:
App Builder API Example.zip ‏17 KB

I was actually talking to a collegue about this kind of thing this morning so very good timing Darren!
One of the things I was interested in doing was retrieving a build's version number programatically (for a number of reasons). One such use case is shown in the snippet below. My question, as shown in the snippet, is "Is there an easy way to do this using the AB API?"
(I know I have used the EXE for the installer, but I couldn't see any installer VIs in the folder you suggested, and this image is more as an illustration than an actual use-case)
This would be really great as we could then tie un a whole bunch of things such as SVN manipulations (update X, commit Y), set installer version to match EXEs, before sending build to target destination (e.g. ftp server, etc).

Darren's Weekly Nugget 09/13/2010

Whenever I select some code and choose Edit > Create SubVI, I always have to spend a few extra minutes doing the following with the new subVI that was created:
Change the connector pane pattern (usually to 4x2x2x4)
Move terminals around (putting errors in bottom corners, refnums in top corners, etc.)
Rearranging the front panel to look nice
Renaming controls (i.e. 'error out 2' to 'error in')
Wrapping the subVI diagram in an error case
Running Clean Up Diagram
Editing the VI icon
Wouldn't it be great if some (or all) of these actions could be done automatically? I've always thought so. And so has Aristos Queue. In fact, he has some code ready that, whenever Edit > Create SubVI is invoked, would call a plugin VI (that I have written) that would use VI Scripting to perform those tedious cleanup operations that we must currently do manually.
We would love to add this feature to LabVIEW 2011. But before we can, we've been told by our project managers that the Create SubVI Improvements idea on the Idea Exchange needs more kudos. You can read more details about this arrangement here.
So if you want to see Edit > Create SubVI actually create a decent subVI, please spend a few seconds and do the following:
Go to this link.
Click the "Kudos" button (the up arrow with a + next to it) on the left side of the screen.
If we can get over 160 kudos, we should be able to get a green light on adding this feature to LabVIEW 2011. So if you want this feature as much as I do, please go kudo that idea if you haven't already.
Darren Nattinger, CLA
LabVIEW Artisan and Nugget Penman

Is there a reason this couldn't be in the next service pack instead of waiting until 2011 comes out? (and yes, I kudo that idea a almost as soon as it was posted)
There are only two ways to tell somebody thanks: Kudos and Marked Solutions
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Darren's Weekly Nugget 08/08/2006

As of this morning, LabVIEW 8.20 was officially announced at NI Week 2006. I am going to use the next few Darren's Weekly Nuggets to describe some features I personally added to LabVIEW 8.20. These are the kind of features that (hopefully) make people say, "Whoa, cool!", yet aren't quite big enough to make it as bullet points on marketing material.
For starters, I'll mention the Remove Breakpoints from Hierarchy utility that you will find in the Edit pull-down menu of any open VI. Selecting this menu option will remove any breakpoints you have set in the current VI (i.e., the VI from which you selected Edit > Remove Breakpoints from Hierarchy), along with any breakpoints in the current VI's subVIs. A summary dialog then comes up and indicates how many breakpoints were removed from each VI in the hierarchy.
I've seen this feature request a number of times on the NI Discussion Forums, so I hope the word gets out to everybody who has wanted this feature in the past.
-D
P.S. - Check out past nuggets here.
Darren Nattinger, CLA
LabVIEW Artisan and Nugget Penman

hallelujah! thanks to NI for listening! I've been wanting that feature for sometime now.
2006 Ultimate LabVIEW G-eek.

Darren's Weekly Nugget 01/16/2007

Hi all,
Did you realize that exactly one year ago today, I posted my first weekly nugget? Well, I've decided one year is a good stopping point...this is going to be my last weekly nugget. It's been a lot of fun helping you guys out with little tips and tricks I've come across in my 8 years of LabVIEW development (this week I also celebrate my 8th anniversary at NI). For my final nugget, I just have some simple advice. One of the coolest things about LabVIEW is the ease with which we can come up with solutions to problems. On the other hand, there are very complicated approaches to problems that are often warranted, depending on the complexity of the desired application. I really admire my LabVIEW colleagues who are able to come up with extremely creative, extremely complicated ways to solve problems that I never could have thought of. However, I think we should always devote a little time in the beginning to trying to discover the *simplest* solution to a problem. You may come up with some corner cases that your simple solution doesn't cover, but don't forget to weigh the added time and effort you have to put in to address the corner cases, and also don't forget the added risk of new bugs you'll get when implementing the complicated solution. It may sound kinda silly to mention this as a nugget, but I have definitely seen my share of apps that took a *way* too complicated approach to solve a fairly simple problem, when the most cost-effective, robust solution would have been quite a bit simpler. Anyway, it's general advice, and some may not agree, but it's served me well so far in my LabVIEW career.
So that's all folks. But don't worry, I'll still be around...
-D
P.S. - Check out past nuggets here.
Darren Nattinger, CLA
LabVIEW Artisan and Nugget Penman

We Want Nuggets!! We Want Nuggets!!
Join the movement...
Message Edited by altenbach on 01-16-2007 02:08 PM
LabVIEW Champion . Do more with less code and in less time .
Attachments:
arnoldsays.jpg ‏18 KB
churchsign1.jpg ‏16 KB

Darren's Weekly Nugget 06/15/2009

One of my favorite features of LabVIEW 8.6 is Linked Tunnels. I can't believe I haven't written a nugget about these yet! In case you haven't heard, wiring tunnels in multi-frame structures is a lot easier in LabVIEW 8.6:
See those tiny white triangles on outer edges of the string tunnels? Those indicate the input/output tunnels are "linked". There are two equally awesome use cases for linked tunnels:
You are adding a new pass-through wire on an existing case or event
structure that already has a bunch of frames. When you pass the wire
through one of the diagrams, if you right-click the output tunnel you just created and choose Linked Input Tunnel > Create & Wire Unwired Cases
to link the input and output tunnels that bookend that wire, it will
automatically wire up those tunnels in every other frame of the
structure.
You are adding a new frame to an existing case or event structure that already has linked tunnels. When you add the new frame, all linked tunnels will already be wired together on the new diagram.
I like this feature so much, I tried to figure out a way to show it off in my NI Week 2008 keynote demo. But since Tim only gave me 10 seconds to write my VI, I wasn't quite able to squeeze it in.
Message Edited by Darren on 06-15-2009 04:54 PM
Darren Nattinger, CLA
LabVIEW Artisan and Nugget Penman

Fantastic!
This is a great feature that I was not aware of. Thanks Darren.
Using this feature when creating State Machines or Event Structures will be very useful and highly appreciated.
You should definitely show this during NI Week. This is a feature that has been long awaited.... (by me)
RayR

Darren's Weekly Nugget 08/03/2009

One helpful LabVIEW feature that add-on developers frequently utilize is the fact that you can place VIs in the [LabVIEW]\project folder to create new entries in the Tools menu. Did you know that you can also place VIs in the [LabVIEW]\help folder to have them appear in the Help menu? Or the even less well-known [LabVIEW]\wizard folder to have them appear in the File menu?
This functionality has been around for a long time, and there are even some private VI Server properties that help you determine the VI from which the menu option was selected. In LabVIEW 2009, I added a VI to vi.lib that will give you this information (it basically just wraps the private properties). Check out [LabVIEW]\vi.lib\VIServer\Menu Launch VI Information.vi. This VI will return the App reference of the owning app for the VI from which the menu item was selected, along with the VI name. You can then wire these items to an Open VI Reference function to gain access to the VI from which the menu item was selected.
Darren Nattinger, CLA
LabVIEW Artisan and Nugget Penman

I will reply myself
Checked/works in LabVIEW 8.6:
File and Help - menu: Tools>Options> Menu Shortcuts
There is no such option for Tools menu
And observed behaviour: defined this way shortcut is active only in this session LabVIEW - shortcut disappear after LabVIEW restarting, item in menu still existing
Message Edited by Zbigniew StS on 01-07-2010 03:16 PM
Regards
Mikrobi (Zbigniew St. Sobków)____________________________________________________________
"You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float on his back you've got something."

Darren's Weekly Nugget 11/15/2010

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