Real time wiring movement & cleanup

[Michael Aivaliotis]

Over the years i've gotten accustomed to living with certain rude behaviors in LabVIEW. For example, when you move an object around on the diagram with your mouse, you have to go back and cleanup the mess that LabVIEW left behind. It seems I'm constantly walking around with a virtual pooper scooper of sorts.

Here's what I mean. Below you can see a simple VI with a typical assortment of wires attached. This a simple example of the best case scenario - few wires.

If I then click and drag the VI to a different position on the diagram, I get multiple overlapping wires.

Yes, this is normal behavior but I think it can be done better. The next image is the proffered reaction to my move.

As you can see the wires have wrapped themselves to the proper position. Of course this would happen in real time. As you move the VI, you would see the wires wrapping and moving as you drag the mouse. I could best demonstrate with an animation but I am not a computer animator. Also, in combination with this feature, it would be nice if each object (VI, function etc.) had a no-fly zone. What I mean by this is shown in the next image.

The red border designates an area where the wires must come straight out of the VI. This means that no other wires can go behind the object or pass near the object's no-fly zone. This would force clean diagrams since it would be impossible to have objects overlapping wires. The next image shows an extreme object movement and how the wires would auto-wrap into position.

Also note that the terminal is also an object so would have a no-fly zone as well.

Yes, I'm dreaming... I can only hope. :thumbup:

[naruto]

On another note,

Is there a way of cleaning up all the wires in a vi at the click of a button?

As opposed to having to right click and "clean up" each wire individually?

Kinda like the ctrl+B function for broken wires?

A feature where you can clean up only the wires in a selected rectangular region would also be useful for that that do not wish to adjust the other wires in their program and risk having labview map some undesired paths.

I find that sometimes labview does not do a good job with "cleaning up" the wires, and at times, makes the wiring even more confusing than it should be.

just my two cents,

thanks for the help!

naruto

[Michael Aivaliotis]

Is there a way of cleaning up all the wires in a vi at the click of a button?

As opposed to having to right click and "clean up" each wire individually?

Kinda like the ctrl+B function for broken wires?

1146[/snapback]

There is nothing built-in to LabVIEW but check out this post. It can be done by running a custom VI. You can probably put this VI in the project menu to make it more accessible.

Clean up all block diagram wires.

[Phillip Brooks]

Clean up Block diagram! It took a while, but we have it.