Re: For the wish list
- Original Message - From: Michael Aivaliotis [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: David Ferster [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, February 15, 2004 9:05 PM Subject: RE: For the wish list On the issue of making an error cluster only visible on error. Do you do this on sub-vi's? If so, what is the point? If you do this on front panels, this seems very ugly to use the raw error cluster. Just wondering... Ugly in both cases, since when hidden there's a chunk of empty panel that looks like nobody could be bothered doing a decent layout. Unless it's in the foreground and there's some decoration there. I also don't see the point of this- if a quick and dirty approach is needed that should be invisible to the user, what's wrong with wiring the error to the general error handler VI and letting it pop up a message? -- Dr. Craig Graham, Software Engineer Advanced Analysis and Integration Limited, UK. http://www.aail.co.uk/
Re: For the wish list
David Ferster wrote: ...I must be a bad designer because I do just what you are saying is a no-no, which is to leave a small amount of real estate blank. The error indicators stay invisible until an error condition occurs, so that the panel is not cluttered with indicators for rarely occurring things. Sometimes I use ugly error indicators, and more often I use more elegant indicators, like a red or yellow square LED's with text... From the operator's point of view, I like to know what's coming and dislike having things pop out at me from nowhere. The Disabled and Grayed state is my favorite. The indicator is subdued until it is needed, but everyone knows it is there. Sometimes I'll stack infrequently used indicators on top of each other with one grayed and the others invisible. The user doesn't know what might pop up but at least knows something is there. For your more elegant design, I'd suggest that switching an LED indicator from off to on is nearly as attention getting as making it appear but not so startling. From the programmer's point of view, invisible indicators are more easily misplaced and hidden under others or off-screen than grayed-out ones when a program is upgraded, especially if the upgrade is done by someone other than the original author. Michael Aivaliotis wrote: ... I think in general, any input that accepts a boolean should accept the error cluster and operate based on the error logic. The Select primitive is one function that does accept the error cluster as an input. I often use it to choose between enabled and grayed constants. Showing labels for these constants neatly documents the diagram. -- EnWirementally, Paul F. Sullivan SULLutions (781)769-6869 when a single discipline is not enough visit http://www.SULLutions.com
Re: For the wish list
Goodness, I didn't mean to start a thread on the general issue of error display. I must be a bad designer because I do just what you are saying is a no-no, which is to leave a small amount of real estate blank. The error indicators stay invisible until an error condition occurs, so that the panel is not cluttered with indicators for rarely occurring things. Sometimes I use ugly error indicators, and more often I use more elegant indicators, like a red or yellow square LED's with text. I don't want to use popup windows in this case, since these are non-fatal warnings in programs that run unattended for long times. When fatal conditions occur, I often do use popups. But I'm always open to suggestions. David - Original Message - From: Michael Aivaliotis [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: David Ferster [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, February 15, 2004 9:05 PM Subject: RE: For the wish list On the issue of making an error cluster only visible on error. Do you do this on sub-vi's? If so, what is the point? If you do this on front panels, this seems very ugly to use the raw error cluster. Just wondering... Ugly in both cases, since when hidden there's a chunk of empty panel that looks like nobody could be bothered doing a decent layout. Unless it's in the foreground and there's some decoration there. I also don't see the point of this- if a quick and dirty approach is needed that should be invisible to the user, what's wrong with wiring the error to the general error handler VI and letting it pop up a message? -- Dr. Craig Graham, Software Engineer Advanced Analysis and Integration Limited, UK. http://www.aail.co.uk/ -- David Ferster Actimetrics, Inc. 1024 Austin St., Evanston, IL 60202 http://www.actimetrics.com 847/922-2643 Phone 847/589-8103 FAX
