Any way to make the Tools Palette easier to find?

[mistercat]

I work with three large screens and one of my more common problems is trying to find the Tools Palette.  I know it's there somewhere, but there are a lot of other visually-distracting items on the screen - literally hundreds.  Is there any way to change the Tools Palette border or background color to something with higher visibility?  I have the same problem with dialog boxes:  small boxes, big screens.

[JÞB · Accepted solution]

Just Shift+Right-click on any LabVIEW panel and the tools palatte will come find you.

[Hooovahh]

Hold Shift and right click the block diagram or front panel and the tools palette will appear.  Also hitting Tab can cycle through tools if you have auto tool off.  Even with Auto Tool off there are some tools it doesn't cycle through (like paint tool) and you'll still need to shift right click some times.

[mistercat]

That will do the job.  It is disconcerting to see two Tool Palettes on the screen, even odder that this seems to "find me" for only one click before going back to wherever it was before.  I'm sure I'll get used to it.

Thanks.

[JÞB]

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@mistercat wrote:

That will do the job.  It is disconcerting to see two Tool Palettes on the screen, even odder that this seems to "find me" for only one click before going back to wherever it was before.  I'm sure I'll get used to it.

Thanks.

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To be honest with you.  I've managed to work with a fair number of LabVIEW developers.  I do not know any that keep the tools palatte floating.  Its fairly pointless for the "Autotoolers"  and for us tabbers my left hand is hovering over that area of the keyboard anyway 

I love my menu shortcuts so I practically wear out Ctrl Alt Tab and Shift (not to mention the caps lock from misses and the occasional free text comments of "``" that any true LabVIEW superstar leaves scattered around)

[Hooovahh]

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@JÞB wrote:

To be honest with you.  I've managed to work with a fair number of LabVIEW developers.  I do not know any that keep the tools palatte floating.  Its fairly pointless for the "Autotoolers"  and for us tabbers my left hand is hovering over that area of the keyboard anyway 

I love my menu shortcuts so I practically wear out Ctrl Alt Tab and Shift (not to mention the caps lock from misses and the occasional free text comments of "``" that any true LabVIEW superstar leaves scattered around)

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To be fair I have seen a few new developers that keep the tools palette floating, but only a few.

Also regarding accidentally hitting Caps Lock.  I disable mine using a registry file I have.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/disable-caps-lock-key-in-windows-vista/

There is likely one for the "`" key as well.  I've found that not having the Caps Lock doesn't bother me.  Maybe once a month I want to capitalize more then one letter in a row, and for that one hand just holds shift.  I almost think it should not be used, and have replace it with another utility key or something.  I knew one LabVIEW developer that actually put hot glue in his Caps Lock so he would never hit it.

[garrettmarsh]

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Hooovahh wrote

There is likely one for the "`" key as well.  I've found that not having the Caps Lock doesn't bother me.  Maybe once a month I want to capitalize more then one letter in a row, and for that one hand just holds shift.  I almost think it should not be used, and have replace it with another utility key or something.  I knew one LabVIEW developer that actually put hot glue in his Caps Lock so he would never hit it.

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Seems like this is a growing trend - Google's Chromebook laptops now feature a search key where Caps Lock used to be. I wonder if other hardware manufacuters will follow suit.

https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/1047364?hl=en