I would like the URCaps Palletizing template to allow the use of an existing variable for the Item Counter. This would provide a more consistent user experience, compared to many other functions which allow or even require variables to exist before they can be assigned in the function.
Additionally, this feature would mitigate a nuisance issue in the existing URCaps interface: When you copy and paste a Palletizing node, a new variable is created for the Item Counter, which breaks the functionality of any other part of the program that references the original Item Counter variable.
In the current workflow, it is common to include a BeforeStart prompt to ask the operator for the number of the next item on the pallet. This prompt assigns a value to the Item Counter variable. If a program change requires the Palletizing node to be moved to a new location (e.g., nested in a new If statement), the programmer must first delete any references to the Item Counter variable, copy and paste the Palletizing node, rename of the Item Counter as the original variable name, and then re-assign that variable in any other parts of the program that need to reference it.
Hi there, I know your post is 5 years old at this point, but I’ve just discovered it while looking over some of the feature requests, and I find that it is still relevant. I have a program running 3 different pallets, 2 of which use operator input, and I run into this issue ALL THE TIME! If you copy, paste, or suppress a pallet, it will re-generate that counter variable, and creates all sorts of issues. As you said, you have to delete all mentions of the counter elsewhere if you want to return the counter to the original variable naming conventions - which then causes you to have to re-construct all the elements that you had to delete. It’s very very cumbersome!
To add to this feature request, I would say being able to re-name the reference point variables would also be very useful. There are times in my program where I use a actually want to move to that reference point, but have to inspect the pallet program to identify which “reference point” is the one I want. Similarly, other pallet variables in the background would be useful to be named something other than “Pallet_1_lcl_1” and the like, since that doesn’t tell me which pallet it goes to or what it does!