Bloack diagram clean up style settings in ni?

[ehrlich]

Using BD Auto Clean Up, I sometimes encounter the problem described in this post:

http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/BUG-Block-diagram-cleanup-fails-completely-Generates-very-bad/m-p/23...

Namely, that Auto Clean Up inserts a lot of unnecessary horizontal space, especially when working with case structures. It sometimes seems that it tries not to overlap elements of the different cases (but maybe that is just me).

In another post, which I can't find anymore, someone mentioned to have played with some style settings in the LabView ini to improve the output of the Auto Clean Up.

So is there a list of available style settings in the ini file or could someone give me a few hints about this?

[MangeshD]

I can't help much on it..!

But you can play with the options available in in Tools >> Options>>Block Diagram there is a section called 'Block Diagram Cleanup' at the bottom

[ehrlich]

I tried this but it didn't have much effect. Which is why I was hoping that there might be some (hidden) settings in the ini file that are not exposed in the Options dialog.

I am using LV2014 by the way.

[ijustlovemath]

If your BD is big enough that this effect exists, you should strongly consider making some subVIs. Don't want to end up with a block diagram that looks like this:

[ehrlich]

Nice example 🙂

Of course I am trying to use Sub VIs but this problem appears for me when a case structure has more than let's say 5 cases (e.g. for a queued message handler). Even if these cases are of low complexity, the spacing is introduced and blows up the code size.

[ijustlovemath]

Ah I see what you mean. Yes, I've experienced the same thing. Although if the rest of your diagram is uncomplicated and you have minimal/no free labels (comments), it should perform well. Here's an example:

Base diagram, case width set by hand, all cases have at most 2 subVIs and/or two multiply's:

When I use these cleanup settings:

I get this as a result:

which is significantly wider. If I move the free label into the subdiagram label, it looks better:

In fact, it doesn't increase in width at all, at least not perceptibly. So that's what I'd look for if I were you. Free labels are the enemy of block diagram cleanup.

[ehrlich]

Interesting. I anyway prefer the subdiagram labels but this is good to know.

I attached an example that I am currently working on that shows the problem. And of course this would be a candidate for a Sub VI but I still don't get why LabView introduces so much horizontal space. Note that all the other cases have much less code.