Feature suggestion: Window Loop for general numerical values

Feedback & Ideas
#1

Dear Knimers,

the “Window Loop Start” currently has two modes: row-based and time-based windows. I recently found myself converting a numerical column that has nothing to do with time to a “dummy” Date&Time column just to be able to perform a Window Loop on this column. This was a rather cumbersome process:

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(Also note that the Constant Value Column node as of Knime version 4.3.4 can only produce Legacy Date&Time. Not only that, it seems to ignore the “time” part of the Legacy Date&Time. I also don’t understand why the “Modify Date” node does not show any available columns even though there is Date&Time and a Duration column in the input).

I suggest a feature for the “Window Loop Start” node that takes a window of a regular numerical column. I know that I can do something similar with an “Interval Loop Start” followed by a “Row Filter”, but repeatedly applying a “Row Filter” on a table with a few million rows is extremely inefficient.

Examples where a feature like this might be convenient:

  • A frequency window for looping through a spectrum
  • A molecular fragment mass window for looping through the output of a mass spectrometer
  • A distance window for looping through space junk in low-earth orbit
    I am sure there are many more!

Best,
Aswin

KNIME_project23.knwf (28.9 KB)

2 Likes
#2

Hi Aswin,

Thanks a lot for your feedback.

I will create a feature request ticket to support regular numeric columns based windows for the Window Loop Start node.

There is an existing ticket for the Constant Value Column node to support new date&time types (AP-10333 for internal reference)

The “Modify Date” node does not show any available columns because you selected “Append Date” in the configuration. In such cases, you will only see only Time columns in the list. This is expected behavior. If you select Modify/Remove Date, you will see your date column.

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Best,
Temesgen

2 Likes
#3

I created the feature request ticket for Window Loop Start node feature for general numerical values (AP-18215 for internal use only)

1 Like
#4

Thank you @temesgen-dadi !

(I think I interpreted “append date” as “add date” (as in addition), which, in retrospect, does not make sense at all. Thanks for pointing this out.)