Many of us using graphical programming for scientific applications, where we dealing with numbers, measurements, etc.
How often we grab to Windows Calculator to compute simple equations?
What about ability to enter something like 3,75*2,8 into any constant or control (in principle everywhere where we can put numbers) and then get computation result in this place:
![Screenshot 2024-03-06 09.16.22.png Screenshot 2024-03-06 09.16.22.png](https://forums.ni.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/329523iC43B1F5004BE44EE/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999)
In the past I've worked in desktop publishing industry and using the software called "Macromedia Freehand MX", and that was really "killer feature", which saves huge amount of time.
This is how it works:
![resize.gif resize.gif](https://forums.ni.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/329524iC3070B421C69A1D3/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999)
Or for example, 5 rotated copies:
![rotate.gif rotate.gif](https://forums.ni.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/329525iA2072DAEC6EDE5B3/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999)
Even in Color mixer simple computations are allowed:
![mixer.gif mixer.gif](https://forums.ni.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/329526i18C2508BFC65D3C8/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999)
Everywhere where I can put some numbers, in any dialog:
![guides.gif guides.gif](https://forums.ni.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/329527iF98B4C47C9362287/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999)
So, my suggestion to have the same in every numeric control or constant.
This is what I mean:
![numeric1.gif numeric1.gif](https://forums.ni.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/329528i36ED3D60E9E1FEC6/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999)
So, it should be allowed to enter here something like "3*5" or "42+3*5"
As MVP suggested to have the only (at least) base operations *, /, +, -, also combined as shown above, but may be "advanced" support (like fully offered by Formula String) is also not so bad, why not:
![numeric2.gif numeric2.gif](https://forums.ni.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/329529i5E5ED7B307576869/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999)
Anyway it should work everywhere, including constants on the Block Diagrams:
![numeric3.gif numeric3.gif](https://forums.ni.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/329530iB8FDC6ADF395000F/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999)
Also, for example, on Resize Objects Dialog:
![Screenshot 2024-03-06 11.20.04.png Screenshot 2024-03-06 11.20.04.png](https://forums.ni.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/329531iA04AB9E5499129AD/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999)
Or even in the Settings (in general everywhere for any numeric field across whole LabVIEW):
![options.png options.png](https://forums.ni.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/329532iE7F3F2C2F1BA9BED/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999)
And also in Run-Time, of course, not only in Development Environment.
If you think that "always enabled" feature will be annoying, then I can suggest to make this optionally per Control/Constant Option:
![Screenshot 2024-03-06 11.31.54.png Screenshot 2024-03-06 11.31.54.png](https://forums.ni.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/329533iBB0EBCCFA2E12210/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999)
Or may be as global setting in the Options.