Control transparency

[WayneS1324]

 I need a button (or image, or decoration) that I can fade in and out programmatically.

So far all I can do is fade the front panel. I just need a control or indicator that I can do this with.

Is this possible?

Thanks.

[vt92]

I don't think it is possible with a control, but you can might be able to do this with a picture control and the mask function.

Search the examples for "Mask example" as a starting point.

[WayneS1324]

Thanks for the reply.

Thats not what I need to do though. From what I can see, this will make certain colors invisible.

I need to be able to fade a control or indicator in and out.

I could even use an image and fade a color in and out. that would work too.

What I'm trying to do is this...

I have a background image (that never changes) on my fp. I need to highlight certain places on the image. The places that are highlighted will

change every 12 hours. I need something that I can place over the image that is semi-transparent.

Any more ideas?

Edit: The hilight color vi wont work. There are many colors on the background image.

[WayneS1324 · Accepted solution]

Found the answer. Draw Grayed Out Rect.vi.

Right in front of me the whole time.

[VI_RA]

Hi may i know how you used it. Like can you share a example code

Thank you

[AristosQueue (NI)]

VI_RA: I came here looking for the same info. Odd how the zombie thread comes back at the same time. 🙂 I figured out what WayneS was doing. Here's my front panel. By setting a picture control with a transparent background (and border) the picture control itself cannot be seen. In the places where I use the regular draw commands (i.e. the circle), the image is opaque. But in the places where I use Draw Greyed Out Rect.vi, the image is translucent. When placed over the Numeric control, you can see it become dimmed. Draw with white if you want the typical "ghost control" effect. Attachment saved in LV2020.

Honestly, this isn't what I want for my UI... I want to be able to fade the control away entirely as an animation, so I'm still looking around for a solution. But maybe this works for you.

[VI_RA]

We are in the same page actually i too need it that be completely transparent. Hope either of us find way and will share the same. 

[rolfk]

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@AristosQueue (NI) wrote:

Honestly, this isn't what I want for my UI... I want to be able to fade the control away entirely as an animation, so I'm still looking around for a solution. But maybe this works for you.

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I don't really think there is a way currently to do that. Without inherent support of a Transparancy property of controls, the entire functionality of transparency is exactly working opposed to what you can do in LabVIEW nowadays. You can make windows partially transparent, even sub-panels but that will control how a control underneath will be covered or not, not the opposite.

Basically time to kudo this Idea Exchange suggestion: https://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Idea-Exchange/Opacity-Semi-Transparency-appearance-settings-for-att...

It could be a two front approach. Currently the color in LabVIEW is encoded as RGB with the upper byte indicating special predefined color indices including fully transparent and the lower 3 bytes are unused in that case. It could use one of them as a an indication of the actual transparency value and allow changing that in the color tool as the intensity. That would require a redesign of the color tool palette. The second would be to add a new property Translucency or Opacity that controls this value programmatically and preferably on sub parts of controls too, not just the control itself.

[AristosQueue (NI)]

I found a solution that worked well enough for my needs. It won't help all of you, but it may work for some of you: https://lavag.org/topic/18252-create-pictures-with-different-opacity-levels/?do=findComment&comment=...