Connector pane: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 11:14, 13 May 2020

The Connector Pane is used to pass data to and from a SubVI. The Connector Pane is available in the Front Panel window's upper right corner next to the VI Icon.

Patterns

Right-click on the Connector Pane to choose a pattern.

It is considered good practice to choose a pattern that has more inputs/outputs than you need when writing the VI so that new inputs or outputs can be added without changing the connector pane and causing the VI's that link to your subVI to recompile. The 4x2x2x4 pattern highlighted above is the most commonly used for NI primitives. In LabVIEW 8 and above the connector pane is defaulted to the 4x2x2x4 pattern. To customize the default connector pane used for new VIs, set the defaultConPane variable in your LabVIEW configuration file (see Miscellaneous>defaultConPane).

Increase/Decrease Terminals

Right-clicking the Connector Pane and selecting Add Terminal or Remove Terminal effectively moves the pattern up or down one.

Rotate 90 Degrees, Flip Horizontal, Flip Vertical

Right-clicking the Connector Pane and selecting Rotate 90 Degrees, Flip Horizontal, or Flip Vertical keeps the same pattern but changes the orientation.

Connecting Controls and Indicators

To connect a control or an indicator to a terminal on the Connector Pane:

Select the control or indicator
Click on the desired terminal on the Connector Pane

Switching Terminal Positions

To switch or move a control or indicator to a different terminal:

Click on the terminal to move on the Connector Pane
Hold-down Ctrl and click on a different terminal. This will switch the two terminals, whether connected to something or empty.

Disconnecting a Terminal

Right-click on the Connector Pane and select either:

Disconnect All Terminals - to disconnect all terminals
Disconnet This Terminal - to disconnect just the terminal that was clicked on

Requierment Level

Right-clicking a terminal and selection This Connection Is presents four different options. The terminals can be set to:

Required - sets the input as required. If the input is not wired, the program will not run, see Broken Run Arrow.
Recommended - sets the input as recommended. If the input is not wired, the program will still run and the default value for control is used.
Optional - sets the input as optional which is the same as recommended but the terminal will not appear in the Context Help.
Dynamic Dispatch Input (Required) or Dynamic Dispatch Output (Recommended) - Greyed out except for class inputs and outputs. Sets the VI as Dynamic dispatch.

Index of Terminals

When using VI Scripting to access a Connector Pane (for example: ConnectorPane class/Controls[] property), the terminals by defaultare ordered from Right to Left, Bottom to Top. This changes if the patter is rotated or flipped. Therefore, for a standard 4x2x2x4 pattern the terminals are indexed as follows:

To see the other patterns and orientations, find the Connector Pane Pattern Reference.vi located in the NI Example Finder.

Best Practices

Terminal Organization

Use the 4x2x2x4 pattern even if it leaves empty spaces. Only go to patterns with more terminals if necessary. However, before switching to more terminals, consider bundling inputs or outputs into Clusters.
Put inputs on the left side of the Connector Pane and outputs on the right.
Use the bottom corners for error in and error out.
If the VI is a method in a class, use the top corners as the class object input and output.

Require by Default

Turn the flag in the Options dialog on which will require all inputs by default, except the error in. This makes it so inputs to SubVIs don't get accidentally forgotten.

History

Version	Change(s)
	In LabVIEW 2011 the Connector Pane was changed to always be visible on the Front Panel window next to the VI Icon. LabVIEW 2010 and earlier only the Connector Pane or the VI Icon was visible at a time and they were toggled between via a right-click menu (Show Connector or Show Icon).

@@ Line 52: / Line 52: @@
 * Put inputs on the left side of the Connector Pane and outputs on the right.
 * Use the bottom corners for ''[[Error Cluster data type|error in]]'' and ''[[Error Cluster data type|error out]]''.
-* If the [[VI]] is a [[Method|method]] in a [[Class (object-oriented programming)|class]], use the top corners as the class object input and output.
+* If the [[VI]] is a [[Method (object-oriented programming)|method]] in a [[Class (object-oriented programming)|class]], use the top corners as the class object input and output.
 === Require by Default ===