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gsussman

Prompt operator when closing project window

Status: Declined

Any idea that has received less than 7 kudos within 7 years after posting will be automatically declined.

Here is the scenario:

 

I have the top level vi of a large project open and am in the middle of debugging.

Searching for the source of an error I drill down through several layers of VIs, littering my desktop with open FP and BD windows as I chase the source of the error deep down in the VI hierarchy.

 

Having found and corrected the error I now start backing out.....CTRL+W, CTRL+W, CTRL+W, closing all of the FPs and BDs I have opened, when it happens....In my sort of autonomous string of CTRL+W actions, the project window became highlighted, (I must have looked at it sometime during debugging and changed it's z-position), and now I just closed it, taking with it all of my other opened VIs and the initialized state of the program.

 

I find that this occurs more often when I am using a 2 monitor setup as my project window is often positioned on the 2nd monitor out of direct line of sight. 

 

A simple soution might be to prompt the operator with an "are you sure" type dialog if the project window is closed via a shortcut keystroke when there are other VI windows open.

Discretely closing the project window by clicking on the close window button would not need the prompt as the window would have focus already and the operator would be discretely performing the operation on that window.

 

Another solution would be to exclude the Project window from the shortcut for a close window event.

 

5 Comments
dthor
Active Participant

It sounds like there were no changes made to the code, otherwise you would get the save/discard/cancel popup. Do you mean you lost work because of this?

 

I love spamming CTRL-W to get back to my toplevel VI, but I've never lost work because of it.

gsussman
Active Participant

Like you said, if there are changes to be made, you get a prompt to save, however if no changes are pending, the project will close.

 

I haven't lost work in the sense lost changes that were pending, however I have lost the status of my test system a number of times, requiring a restart from the beginning. For small systems it is not really a huge issue, but when you have a large test system that takes many steps to reproduce a particular behavior it can be time consuming to get back to where you were.

dthor
Active Participant

Oh I see, you lost the data that was currently in the VIs in memory, thus loosing something that might tell you where the bug occurs.

 

Yeah, I'd be OK with an "Are you sure?" Dialog when closing the Project Window (only. Not for every window, that would get annoying Smiley Tongue).

fabric
Active Participant

I have experienced the same annoyance many times, but I have since learned a simple trick:

 

If I want to close a large number of VIs, I first switch to the project and minimise it. Then I can CTRL + W to my hearts content! Smiley Happy

Darren
Proven Zealot
Status changed to: Declined

Any idea that has received less than 7 kudos within 7 years after posting will be automatically declined.