Prevent LabVIEW 2017 Or Later From Automatically Rewiring Objects When Moving Them Outside a Structure

Updated Nov 21, 2023

Reported In

Software

  • LabVIEW 2017 Full
  • LabVIEW 2017 Base
  • LabVIEW 2017 Professional
  • LabVIEW 2017 SP1 Full
  • LabVIEW 2017 SP1 Base
  • LabVIEW 2017 SP1 Professional

Issue Details

If I place a control or indicator inside a block diagram structure (such as a case structure, a while loop, a sequence structure etc.) and wire it to any block diagram node/function, if I then move the corresponding terminal outside the structure, I obtain a different behaviour in LabVIEW 2017 with respect to previous LabVIEW versions:
  • in LabVIEW 2016 or previous, when moving a terminal outside a structure, the previously-created wire is broken, as displayed below:
  • in LabVIEW 2017, when moving a terminal outside the structure, the terminal is automatically re-wired to the function, i.e. a wire is automatically recreated, as displayed below:


This behavior is annoying since I do not need a wire to be created, since I had placed the terminal inside the structure by mistake and I need to rewire the terminal outside the structure to other functions.

How can I disable this behavior in LabVIEW 2017?

I tried to uncheck options Enable automatic wire routing and Enable auto wiring in Tools » Options » Block Diagram » Wiring with no effect.
 

Solution

The behavior you observed is a documented new feature of LabVIEW 2017 , referred as Maintaining Wire Connections When Moving Objects.

 In order to disable automatic wire connectivity when moving objects, you should:
  1. select the object to be moved with the mouse cursor without releasing it
  2. press the <W> key and release it
  3. move the object outside the structure
In this way, you will get the same behavior as LabVIEW 2016 or previous versions and a wire will not be automatically created (you may get a broken wire).

You can deactivate the behavior entirely by adding the following token to the LabVIEW.ini which can be found in your LabVIEW installation directory
DragAutoWire = false


 

Additional Information

You can find explanation of the W shortcut as well as other useful LabVIEW keyboard shortcut in the related page of LabVIEW help.

Enable automatic wire routing and Enable auto wiring options in Tools » Options » Block Diagram » Wiring are not related to this behaviour but to LabVIEW ability to automatically create or route wires in certain conditions while you are wiring objects.
 

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