Darren's Weekly Nugget 03/16/2010

[Darren]

The VI Hierarchy Window got a nice facelift in LabVIEW 2009.  In addition to looking nicer, there's also a great search feature that isn't immediately obvious:

If you just start typing while the VI Hierarchy Window is open, it will search for the VI name that most closely matches what you have typed, and scroll the window to that VI.  Notice that I typed 'test config' (it's in the tip strip at the upper-left), and the window was scrolled to "VIAnCtl Test Config Data.ctl".  Also, I just discovered while playing with it that if you press Ctrl-Left Arrow or Ctrl-Right Arrow after typing a search term, it will cycle through all VIs that match the search string.  Extra cool!

[JÞB]

Nice Tip.

I had read about it in the NEW FEATURES but had not got around to testing it (yet).  Although it is a cool look, I'd like just a bit more control

Find>Items not in Source control? (filter> byPath?)

But still- great feature-

How have you used it and how much time did it save you?

[Robbin_NI]

Hey Darren

Nice tips , and I am your nugget fan from China and cannot miss one of it !

Recently I've planned to produce a series of your nuggets in Pretz  , so that audience can learn your nuggets more easily and intuitively . I started it from your 2009/01 nuggets , so , please have a look at it and any suggestions are welcomed . 

Darren's Nuggets 090202 on Prezi

Darren's Nugget 09/02/02

[Robbin_NI]

Nugget 09/01/19

Darren's Nuggets 090119 on Prezi

More Nuggets in Pretz , you can access it in this link : http://bbs.gsdzone.net/showtopic-1670.aspx , but it's a LabVIEW Community in China , so all in Chineses. 

[jperch]

Darren,

This is a really nice feature. I could REALLY have used this in LV8.5! Hopefully, we will upgrade soon.

I would also like to see the ability to search with path filters, etc.

Joe

[Ben]

Being dyslexic, typing and spelling are tools I reach for only when I have too. SO that feature does not help me but the Hierarchy screen is one of my most useful tools Since I "See" my applications as displayed in the hierarchy screen and I can spot icons fast.

So let me hightlight some of the features that serve the visually oriented types.

FIrst we now have an option of how we want teh lines drawn. Here is the old

Same app but with new style lines.

I find these easier to follow and I can still use "highlight connections" if I have to.

Grouped libraries is a really nice feature. The display is redrawn based on teh libraries rather then file path.

Once displayed as libraries the one you don't care about can be collapsed (see box to left of Visability.lvlib) (suggestion to NI Use Class icon for colpased libraries).

The libraies display really helps when you drill down into the app.

Fit to screen is next to useless for anything but trivial apps.

And if you have not seen how Over-ride VIs show up, here is an example.

 

I still want the bug that prevents us from selectining a VI from the hiarchy screen so we can paste it or search on it to be fixed but aside from that, 

I love the new hierachy screen!

Ben

Message Edited by Ben on 03-17-2010 07:53 AM