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Can't see LabVIEW Colour Picker (Evaluation 2014 for Mac)

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Hi all,

 

I am new to LabVIEW, and am trying to make a chart I made appear transparent.  According to http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Using-LabView-s-Color-Picker/m-p/575619/highlight/true#M269839, the colour picker is available as one of the numeric controls, however I can't see it in there, nor by shift and right mouse click, nor within the tools menu.  I have attached a screenshot of what I see.  Is anyone able to help me please?

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From the last post in that thread download the VI pcardinale posted. Show the color box control.  Context-click on it and check "Allow Transparent" in the pop-up dialog. Add a Stop button so you do not have to use Abort to stop that VI. Then that VI will allow you to make the chart background color transparent. Note that the chart frame is not transparent. 

 

LV 2014 64-bit on OS X 10.10.2

 

Lynn

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i have attached what my VI looks like.

 

You said to show the color box control and context-click on it.  How do I do this?  When I go to Visible items it just says Label and Terminals. Also I can't see any input or output terminals, therefore how do I just connect the Waveform graph of the section to the Pop-Up_Color_Dialog.vi?

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"Context-clicking" is the generic, non-platform-specific term used to describe how to get a contextual menu to pop up on a node. On Windows this is commonly called right-clicking. On the Mac it can be accomplished by control-click. I am not sure what Linux uses.

 

After you have run the VI the color box control is no longer visible. From the block diagram context-click on the terminal. In the menu which pops up choose "Show Control" which will be about 1/3 down the menu. This will bring the front panel forward with the color box control positon (probably behind the chart) shown by dashed lines. If you cannot move it by clicking on it with the arrow cursor, then use the keyboard arrow keys to slide it out from behind the chart. Once is is exposed on the front panel, context click on the control and choose "Allow Transparent" from the pop-up menu (near the bottom of the list). Then the next time you run the VI the "T" box in the upper right corner of the color picker box should be available.

 

The Pop-Up_Color_Dialog.vi was written to be a simple demonstration of how to get access to the color picker. If you want to make is usable as a subVI, you need to associate the indicators or controls on the front panel with terminals on the connector pane. You do that by clicking on the conpane with the wiring tool cursor and then clicking on the control/indicator you want connected to that terminal. You will also need to find a way to stop that subVI. As long-time Forum particpant Ed Pickens has said, "Using the Abort button to stop a running VI is like using a tree to stop a car. It works but may have undesired consequences." I am not sure how you want to use that subVI (or whether you even really want a subVI), so I cannot tell you what changes to make.

 

That subVI has a chart but it appears that you probably want a graph.  You might be better learning how the subVI works and applying the process to the graphs you already have.

 

Lynn

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https://www.ni.com/docs/en-US/bundle/labview/page/creating-transparent-objects.html says I can make the color picker appear by shift and right click on the graph, which would be a way to make an object transparent.  However, this never works on my machine.  Is this a bug with LabVIEW?  I can never get the color picker itself to display.

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All I'm trying to do is make one of the graphs transparent.

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Solution
Accepted by topic author michaelnares

I did not know about that trick.  I usually have the tools palette visible in a corner of my screen so I would rarely use it. When I try it, the tools palette shows up but I cannot get the color picker to open. 

 

[Edit: I tried again. I can get it to work but the context click with the paint brush tool must be on the border - within one or two pixels. ]

 

To make a graph transparent at edit time (as opposed to run time) go to the View menu and select Tools Palette. Don't ask why the tools palette is under the View menu but not the Tools menu! The bottom section of the Tools palette has a paint brush and two overlapping boxes. Clicking on the boxes brings up the color picker. One bx is for foreground color and the other is for background color. Once you have selected the color, you apply it by clicking the tip of the paint brush on the object whose color you want to change.   Graphs have multiple colors: Frame, plot area, scales, cursors, annotations, and perhaps others. You can also change these via property nodes.

 

You may need to experiment to get the display you want. For example both the plot area and the frame must be transparent to see an object which is behind the graph.

 

Lynn

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Many thanks for that, going to mark this as resolved.

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