ViBox - Quick Drop datasheet

[MountainClimber]

VIBox Quick Drop toolkit is a set of NI LabVIEW Quick Drop plugins that will help you boost your productivity.

This toolkit includes SAPHIR made plugins and also free plugins developped by the community.

Want to learn more about Quick Drop? Follow the links:

http://www.ni.com/white-paper/7423/en

https://decibel.ni.com/content/groups/quick-drop-enthusiasts

Features

VIBox Quick Drop toolkit will provide you the following SAPHIR Quick Drop shortcuts. You may also find a documentation of these plugins in LabVIEW menu Help/SAPHIR/Documentation/ViBox - Quick Drop help.

Shortcut	Name	Comment
Ctrl(-shift)-E	Set Connector PanE	Connect controls to the connector pane according to their front panel position, and a smart readable scheme. Can handle a VI with up to 4 inputs and 4 outputs. Options : No shift : already connected controls will not be moved Shift : disconnect already connected terminals
Ctrl+K	Connect Tunnels	Connect tunnels in a multiple frame case structure
Ctrl(-shift)-M	Add coMMent	Add a pre-formatted comment on your VI. The formatting instructions are located on <LabVIEW>\resource\dialog\QuickDrop\plugins directory, Comment*Text.txt files Options : No shift : Comment  formatted according to the CommentText.txt file Shift :  Comment  formatted according to the CommentShiftText.txt file Text file options : {LV} : LabVIEW version {user} : LabVIEW user name {time} : time the comment was generated {date} : date the comment was generated {rev} : revision of the VI
Ctrl(-shift)-N	CoNtrol to iNdicator	Switch between controls, indicators and constants. Options : No shift : Control to indicator Shift : Control/Indicator to Constant If Selection is a Contant : No shift : Change to Control Shift : Change to Indicator
Ctrl(-shift)-S	Remove Structure	Options : No shift : Remove the selected structure, keeping the visible case Shift : open a window which allow to select one or multiple frames to delete
Ctrl(-shift)-Y	Disable code	Put a Diagram Disable Structure on the selected part of code Options : No shift : The selected code resides on enabled case Shift : Direct wiring on enabled case
Ctrl-Z	Resize structure	Resize the selected structure or the block diagram if selection is empty

VIBox Quick Drop toolkit will also provide you the following community plugins, for easiest installation. You can find more informations on these plugins on https://decibel.ni.com/content/groups/quick-drop-enthusiasts

Shortcut	Name	Comment
Ctrl(-shift)-A	Array to constant	Change a constant to an array and vice versa
Ctrl(-shift)-B	Selective wire cleanup
Ctrl(-shift)-C	Clone control	Duplicate selected controls "in" to indicators "out" and vice versa
Ctrl-G	AliGn & Connect	Wire selected VIs Shift : also perform a code clean up
Ctrl-L	ALign controls to pane pattern	Align controls/indicators according to their connector pane position
Ctrl-O	Reset to Origin	Move the block diagram or the front panel to the origin
Ctrl(-shift)-U	Fetch snippet	Transform an url towards a snippet to code
Ctrl(-shift)-V	Better moVe	Move selected code to remove wire bend. Use arrow to set direction
Ctrl(-shift)-W	Insert or replace
Ctrl-X	Show radiX
Ctrl-/	Rewire error case struct
Ctrl-$	Alphabetize case structure

Requirement

• LabVIEW version : 2010 and later
• Operating System : Windows
• VI Package Manager from JKI - Community Edition For installation process

Thanks

Many special thanks to every Quick drop enthusiasts community contributors who allowed us to include and distribute their great job!

[MPLundsgaard]

Have just put the QD plugins through a simple test, and they are just great. 🙂

These are more or less going to be an essential part of my QD toolbox.

Have just 2 small comments:

1. With regards to "Set Connector PanE", I don´t seem to be able to use the SHIFT-addition of the QD. Might be using it wrong.
2. With regards to "Disable code", it would seem the comment should say, hence when I use no shift the original code resides on the enabled case:
   

          No shift: The selected code is copied onto disabled case

Keep up the good work.

[crossrulz]

If only I could use these in LabVIEW 2011 (where I do most of my developement)...

[MountainClimber]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your comments, they encourage us to do more ! 😉

- Concerning the use of Set Connector Pane : if one or more connectors are already connected to the pane (at the wrong place for example), and you want to clear everything,  you can use the shift option. This is working here with simple examples, but if you have a not working example, you can send us it so that we fix it

- Concerning DisableCode : OK I just fix the comment...

If we have some time available, we may publish some video to show how to use our QD plugins...

[MountainClimber]

Hi crossrulz,

The next step for us will be to convert them to previous versions of LV.

But if you own a license of LV2012, I think you just have to save for previous version the 6 VIs named SAPHIR_* in the resource\dialog\QuickDrop\plugins folder of LV2012, and place them in the same folder of LV2011.

Concerning others versions of LV (2009 and 2010), I'm not sure it will be so easy ...

[MountainClimber]

Just updated our tool to be used with LabVIEW 2010 and later.

Enjoy ! 😉

[DavidZ.]

Hello Saphir people, I just played around with your new QD shortcuts (in LV2011SP1) and like some very much. I'm not the most experienced QD user yet, only familiar to the standard 5-6 QD commands.

Comments to your shortcuts:

- I think it would help to have the explanation of a Shortcut also in the "Selected Plugin Description", after installing them i have there a wrong description for all SAPHIR shortcuts, the one from the "Replace" shortcut.

- The Ctrl-Y to disable code would be nice. But when i try it, it duplicates code and in the disabled case the code doesn't keep its position, jumps to the upper left corner and wires going to the boarders are removed. Is this what you want?

- Is the Ctrl-G something Darren makes with his Ctrl+W? Or was he inspired by yours?

[MountainClimber]

Hi David,

In reply to your comments :

• Indeed, we missed that 😞 … Seems to be a copy/paste error. Will be modified in next “release”
• Ctrl+Y QD behavior is not thoroughly what we wanted at the beginning, but due to VI scripting limitations we could not do it exactly. Our need was to comment a part of code, keep it in both enabled and disabled cases (disabled case : as a reminder ; enabled case :  add modifications to the old code) 
• Darren’s ctrl+W and our ctrl+G reply to the same need. I’ve just tested it a bit, and Darren’s tool seem to be more elaborated…

Thanks for your feedbacks!

[MountainClimber]

Just updated version v1.2.1 which includes some community plugins

[Eric_BOB]

Great job Saphir can i suggest to creat and add Quick drop plugin who list all shortcut of your plugins. it's not really easy to remember all of them and what they do. Perhapse "Crtl- H" for control help... Regards Eric Bobillier