labels on front panel not locked as desired

[Marcus_M]

Hello Juergen,

I did experience the same issues that you are having with the "Silver" controls pallet from the front panel.  This is an issue with the new edition of LabVIEW and it has been reported to R&D.  Unfortunately changing the settings to lock labels will have no effect on the silver controls.  The current solution is to manually lock each label even though I know this is time consuming and can be frustrating.  

Regards,

Marcus 

[JuergenNeubauer]

Hi Marcus,

I also work with a couple of VIs originally made with a previous version of LabView, probably even pre-2010. There, all elements I create ignore the label locking setting entirely and I have to lock every single label by hand. I hope that a bug-fix update in the near future will fix this.

Thanks,

Juergen

[RavensFan]

You can easily do this with scripting.

Run the attached VI.  Select your front panel then press the button on this VI.

[JuergenNeubauer]

Thanks for this tip. This is certainly helpful when I need to lock all existing labels. But while developing I also want to grab the elements to position them where I want them. And I feel I can do that most reliably when I grab the labels. So I need to lock them right after they appear on the front or back panel. Being more of a text-based person and used to the keyboard rather the mouse (labview-mode for emacs anybody? Never mind!) I want to minimize the number of mouse clicks and repetitive work with the mouse as much as possible (think about DRY: don't repeat yourself).

Juergen

[DFGray]

I would suggest you look at creating either a Quick-Drop or JKI Right Click Framework plug-in.  Either would probably work and either would be relatively simple.

LabVIEW is a graphical language, so needs a mouse.  But there is an awful lot you can do from the keyboard, especially if you are willing to customize it for yourself.

[JuergenNeubauer]

Thanks for your suggestions. I already use Quick-Drop as much as possible, but I can certainly still learn how to use it more effectively.

I was only partially serious about wanting to get rid of the mouse, but I could envision an interface design where both the mouse and the keyboard could be used to program VIs. Or where the mouse is being replaced with multi-finger touch gestures on a touch display similar to the ones on contemporary smart phones.

I think the next thing I want to do is move a lot of code to a scripting language, Python. Then I can test the Python modules in ipython and, when done, insert them into LabView. Or the next best thing would be LabWindows.

Thanks,

Juergen

[DFGray]

If you interface ideas are not already in the LabVIEW Idea Exchange, consider posting them.

[JuergenNeubauer]

What I would like to have would be similar to this Idea:

http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Idea-Exchange/Improved-interface-for-OO-programming/idi-p/1590226