Selectively Editing Terminals on a crowded VI

[reesl]

I'm having issues trying to add/rewire terminals with my already crowded VI-

I would like to add a terminal to the left side, but when I click "Add Terminal" it fills all space around the edges with more terminals:

I'm not particularly upset with having all these terminals (the VI is already overpopulated so even being able to add one more in is all I need) but the problem comes if I need to edit one of the terminals on the right. When the terminals are displayed that small the entire wire head is a black border which cannot be wired or selected.

Is there a way to either:

a: only add a terminal to the left side

          or

b: open a larger picture of the terminal block so that it isn't so tiny

Thanks!

[BertMcMahan]

I'd recommend c: bundle your inputs together or split your vi into multiple smaller VI's.

(AFAIK there's no way to do what you're asking, but VI scripting would be where I'd look)

[proland1121]

Only advice I can give is "don't do this..."  A crowded sub VI terminal only means that your calling VI will look like a pile of spaghetti due to all of the wires.... or you run out of terminals....

Where you can, I highly recommended putting controls/indicators in clusters.  (12 controls in a cluster = 1 wire).  Group them by similar purpose (ie. controls for Device 1, controls for device 2, software configuration...)

If you think in terms of cleaning up your block diagram, your sub VI terminals are cleaner as a result.

[reesl]

I get that this is pretty much amateur hour LabVIEW programming... Currently all of these wires are clusters. Is it possible to cluster-clusters?

[altenbach]

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@reesl wrote:

Is it possible to cluster-clusters?

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Yes, of course.

[BertMcMahan]

Having a crowded connector pane is a sure sign you're trying to do too much with one VI, especially if all of those wires are already clusters.

Try to have all of your subVI's use the standard 4-2-2-4 pattern, and try to keep your block diagrams to no more than one "screen" in size. If you think you need more screen space, take something big and break it into a subVI. It will be FAR easier to debug and work on this way.