Make the default behavior of opening a VI open ONLY the block diagram

[CaseyM]

The following code will essentially do what I want, but I want this to be natively incorporated into the IDE as an option.

90%+ of the VIs that I write have a front panel that doesn't get shown to the end user, and yet, whenever you open a VI what does it show you? The front panel. I think the default behavior of opening a VI should be to show the block diagram ONLY. This would have several advantages for the developer:

1. Fewer windows to manage - Even if you minimize the front panel, you can still accidentally restore the FP when you Alt-Tab or click in the taskbar which brings me to...
2. Less clutter in the taskbar - Once you open more than a couple VIs, navigating to the block diagram of the VI you want in the taskbar becomes very unwieldy.
3. You could more easily get to the BD of VIs running in a subpanel.
4. It would be possible to get to the BD of a VI that has a custom run-time menu where Ctrl-E is disabled.

Ideally this would be an option in the Tools --> Options dialog (that I would always turn on).

This idea is similar to one posted almost 15 years ago, but I don't consider this a duplicate because this takes things a step further by not opening the FP at all.

[Yamaeda]

I agree, often you just need 1 window, but minimized or not you have 2 windows in the windows listing?

Most times one would be enough, so i continued the idea in this: https://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Idea-Exchange/quot-Flip-quot-windows-between-front-panel-diagram/id...

[fefepeto_kb]

It seams like we all want the same thing but in little different ways. Based on NI's approach of the customers defining the problem instead of delivering their preferred solution, I think we shall put it like this: we would like only one window and task bar icon per VI. The implementation would be up to the LabVIEW UX team.

[CaseyM]

Just to be clear, what I want is for the opening behavior of the FP and BD to be switched.

Essential:

I want the BD to open by default in a single window. The developer should be able to also open FP in a separate window.

Nice to have/Needs discussion:

Closing the FP should not close the BD. Closing the BD perhaps should close the FP as well or just leave it open. Maybe it's OK for the FP and BD to be completely independent windows while still being able to navigate from one to the other via Ctrl-E or the menu navigation.

[fefepeto_kb]

Where I was going with my previous comment is: There are multiple design options to achieve what You want, and what the general public would like. There might be the option Yamaeda brought up, the option you want, a tabbed design, a split window etc.

The common point is, that we would like less icons on the task bar and less windows.

I think the "not opening" of the front panel is a minor part of the feature, and shall be optional.

I think we can also agree, that in most cases the block diagram should be shown/opened by default. But, to me at least, it seams like a smaller effort, than having just one window per VI.

[Petru_Tarabuta]

+1. I have just posted a related idea: Block-Diagram-Only VIs (VIs without a Front Panel) 

[bhpowell]

Unrelated to the merits of this idea, have some things that should be considered...

As we all know from LabVIEW Performance presentations and courses,

1. Front panel and block diagram data structures are lazily loaded
2. Those data structures may be loaded even without a window to either open
3. The presence of the front panel data structure and/or its window have an impact on runtime performance.

So, I would want NI to be very clear about the performance ramifications of what happens when only a VI's diagram window is open.

I would expect the best way to implement a block diagram-only window would be to load the front panel data structure, then the block diagram data structure, and then open the block diagram window.

Even still, there are probably places in the block diagram editor code that assume that if there's a block diagram window, there is also a front panel window. The millions of lines of LabVIEW source code have to be scoured looking for those places.

(There are even more places where the block diagram editor assumes that the front panel data structures are loaded. Rather than change those, I think it'd be easiest just to continue loading the front panel data structures before the block diagram data structures.)

As to the merits of the idea itself, I don't really oppose it--but I'm not really for it, either. I guess I'm so used to the current behavior that I would not easily get used to this change. I like that closing the panel closes the diagram, for example. To me this feature could just as likely reduce my productivity as improve it, so I'd rather spend R&D resources on surer things.