Share your favorite tips and shortcuts

[Michael Aivaliotis]

Vektrex has a good list of useful shortcuts & tips.

6065[/snapback]

Hmm, this is a neat trick from that site:

Look at the Analog Output of a DAQ E Series card without manually wiring it back into Analog In line by using channel 21230.

[WMassey]

I just remembered another tip that I have read someplace and now routinely use...

When inserting a two-input object (like AND or multiply) into an existing wire if you bias the mouse pointer just slightly below the wire before selecting "Insert -> (object)" then the object will be inserted with the incoming wire connected to the object's upper terminal.

If you bias the mouse pointer just slightly above the wire before selecting "Insert -> (object)" then the object will be inserted with the incoming wire connected to the object's lower terminal.

There really needs to be a master repository of all these tips!

[Anu Kalidas]

When inserting a two-input object (like AND or multiply) into an existing wire if you bias the mouse pointer just slightly below the wire before selecting "Insert -> (object)" then the object will be inserted with the incoming wire connected to the object's upper terminal.

If you bias the mouse pointer just slightly above the wire before selecting "Insert -> (object)" then the object will be inserted with the incoming wire connected to the object's lower terminal.

WoW!!!! :thumbup: That's cool.... Since I started using LV,I was wondering why sometimes it gets connected to the top terminal and sometimes to the bottom one... :laugh:

[m3nth]

WoW!!!! :thumbup: That's cool.... Since I started using LV,I was wondering why sometimes it gets connected to the top terminal and sometimes to the bottom one... :laugh:

I agree that is a GREAT observation :thumbup:

[Michael Aivaliotis]

I don't see this posted, if it is, oh well. Make your coercion dots stand out by making them bright red:

[Mikrobi]

I don't see this posted, if it is, oh well. Make your coercion dots stand out by making them bright red:

That's good

[aart-jan]

Took me a while to discover this one: merge vi's.

Have a chunk of code you seem to be making over and over again? Put it in a vi and place the vi in your user library. Then choose the menu "tools>advanced>edit palette views" and find the vi in the user library. Right click the vi and select "merge VI."

I often use it for subvi's combined with control references that can instantly add certain functions to programs.

Also useful to add frameworks to vi's that you create by "creat subvi" etc etc.

[PJM_labview]

Since I am too lazy to retype this entry, here is a link to my blog with 5 tricks (One is VERY cool).

PJM

[Phillip Brooks]

Speaking of which, a 'p' is used for SI notation... anybody know what 'p' is for?

The displayed value includes a character suffix that indicates magnitude; I believe 'p' indicates Positional.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positional_notation

[klessm1]

You can add <B> </B> around text in the vi description or control description to make that text bold. I haven't found any other flags for italics or underline. If anyone knows...?

Most users probably already know this, but you can add custom tools to the LabVIEW tool menu by adding vi's or an LLB with top level vi(s) into the LabVIEW\Project directory (if you have more than one top level then those vi's show up under a sub menu). One use of the project directory I find extremely useful is for a vi documentation tool. Instead of having to find another vi with a correct description template, copying that description and pasting it into the new vi's description window, I just use the tool in the project directory to automatically apply a template (with <B> </B> to denote fields). Makes documentation fast and easy for new vi's.

[aledain]

If you drop the numeric constant from the numeric palette it is automatically selected but is 'blue' because it is an I32. Type your number while it's selected but finish with a '.' and the type changes to DBL. It works for any I32 on the BD that has never had its representation changed. Once it's been changed it's broken wrt of this funtionality.

Only found this the other day after 7 years of RMB/Representation/DBL :headbang:

[m3nth]

If you drop the numeric constant from the numeric palette it is automatically selected but is 'blue' because it is an I32. Type your number while it's selected but finish with a '.' and the type changes to DBL. It works for any I32 on the BD that has never had its representation changed. Once it's been changed it's broken wrt of this funtionality.

That's awesome!!!! So was the one about holding down the shift key and dragging the icon. Won't find those anywhere in the manual

[Jim Kring]

If you drop the numeric constant from the numeric palette it is automatically selected but is 'blue' because it is an I32. Type your number while it's selected but finish with a '.' and the type changes to DBL. It works for any I32 on the BD that has never had its representation changed. Once it's been changed it's broken wrt of this funtionality.

Only found this the other day after 7 years of RMB/Representation/DBL :headbang:

This is because numeric constants dropped from the palette have their representation set to "Adapt To Source". This causes numeric constant to adapt their type to whatever you type (no pun intended) into it. For example, if you enter "-1" it will become an I16. If you enter "1" it will become a U16. If you enter "1.0" it will become a DBL. If you enter "1 +2 i" it will become a CDB.

[Michael Aivaliotis]

Ok, this one is more a personal preference but others might find it usefull. As I get older :thumbdown: I find I need more of these aids to keep my programming speed up to the same level as you young'ins. Change your Windows settings as shown in the first image. You will see a noticable difference in the grab handle colours (they turn red). Helps in other areas as well.

[m3nth]

If I ever managed to stumble across the ability to change my highlighting color, it probably would have been in a century or two. That's pretty cool :thumbup:

[PJS]

With LabVIEW closed, open the labview.ini file and add the line

'hideRootWindow=True' without the quotes to hide the extra button for LabVIEW in the windoze taskbar.

Works for LV 4.0+

Change the menu order by dropping in a text file in the menu subdirectory with the same name as the subdirectory. In the text file put the name of the VIs in the order that you want them displayed. A - adds a delimiter line.

If you have source code control, you can go into that sub-directory for a good example.

[Anu Kalidas]

With LabVIEW closed, open the labview.ini file and add the line

'hideRootWindow=True' without the quotes to hide the extra button for LabVIEW in the windoze taskbar.

Works for LV 4.0+

Well at last...Thanks Pana-man :thumbup: .I was searching for this ini setting for quite a long time. This will work with any exe running on windows

Change the menu order by dropping in a text file in the menu subdirectory with the same name as the subdirectory. In the text file put the name of the VIs in the order that you want them displayed. A - adds a delimiter line.

If you have source code control, you can go into that sub-directory for a good example.

Ummm... Didn't get that actually...Are you referring to the LabVIEW menu?

[PJS]

Well at last...Thanks Pana-man :thumbup: .I was searching for this ini setting for quite a long time. This will work with any exe running on windows

Yes, it works with EXEs as well

Ummm... Didn't get that actually...Are you referring to the LabVIEW menu?

Yes you can reorganize the tools menu in LabVIEW and put your own items in, or reorder existing items. The subdirectory in the LV folder is 'project' and not 'tools'.

I have attached what I am using for my SCC menu in LabVIEW 7.1.1. I have added my own items at the top of the menu. Actually the OpenG commander utilizes this as well.

[Mike King]

I have attached what I am using for my SCC menu in LabVIEW 7.1.1. I have added my own items at the top of the menu. Actually the OpenG commander utilizes this as well.

panaman, didn't see this attached, but would love to know how to do this. Please add details or pm it to me. Thanks.

My tip is for the icon editor. Anything in the clipboard (image, text, control) can be pasted intot he icon editor and automatically sized to fit if you have a cut rectangle already set. Perfect for scaling things into place without doing it in an image editor. not perfect, but very usefull.

[Mike King]

Thought of a couple more,

If you use the autowire tool, you can change the tool between the hand and text over many controls (such as enum types) by pressing shift and ctrl instead of just clicking it which usually just selects the items.

Also, ctrl-A will perform the last align that you did again. So, if you align some stuff on the left, select new items, ctrl-a will realign the new items again on the left.

ctrl-d does the same but for the distribute option. very handly.

[BChandler]

ctrl-A ctrl-d

Veeeery nice! Wish I had back all the time this could have saved me.

And this one's even in the on-line help under "Keyboard Shortcuts". Got to memorize that list someday.

Just noticed ctrl-0 (zero) opens the font dialog and ctrl-O (oh) Open VI dialog.(and thats right on the menu!)

does anyone use these?

-WDC

[tkr]

I don't know if someone else needs this ('cause everone uses sub vi's insted)

It's possible to drag and drop selected diagram fragments between different opened VIs (just like with copy and paste).

It works still like the CTRL- trick inside of one VI

This just works in the same instance of LV. between two instances a picture of the selected diagram fragment is copied instead

CTRL + Drag 'n' Drop of local variables just copies the variables itself

Copy and Paste of a variables also creates the corresponding controls/indicators with new names

[jpdrolet]

Write text in numeric controls: The FormatString property allows to include text in numeric controls. You can set the format to "%f ft" or even "Invalid %f" (if you put enough spaces after the text, the number is hidden.

To display percentage without explicit scaling, for example set the format to "%d %%" and the unit string to "cm/m". The controls stays unitless but the displayed number is multiplied by 100 (100cm in 1 meter).

Each of my projects has its own labview.ini file. I've created different file extensions for each LabVIEW version (.lv7ini, .lv71ini,...) so that when I double click on the ini file the right version of LabVIEW is opened for the project. The action associated with the ini file is <labview version dir>\labview.exe -pref "%l"

[B Chavez]

Each of my projects has its own labview.ini file. I've created different file extensions for each LabVIEW version (.lv7ini, .lv71ini,...) so that when I double click on the ini file the right version of LabVIEW is opened for the project. The action associated with the ini file is <labview version dir>\labview.exe -pref "%l"

I like this idea, is there a way have a VI open automatically when the project specific INI file is opened?

[Jim Kring]

I like this idea, is there a way have a VI open automatically when the project specific INI file is opened?

sure, just pass the VI path as command-line argument.

<labview version dir>\labview.exe -pref "%l" "VI1_Path" "VI2_Path" "VI3_Path"