Gray out front panel

[AttilaZ]

Hi Everyone,

Simple question: We can disable and grey out a control, that’s easy. How can I grey out the whole front panel?

Any ideas?

Thanx

Attila

[MikeS81]

Hi Atilla,

you can use a function to get all control refereces and go through a for loop to disable all controls. Another way is to place all your controls into a tab control or a cluster and disable this.

Hope it helps.

Mike

[AttilaZ]

Mike,

Yes I could do that, I just though there is a better alternative, because I have lots of different controls and decorations as well and I have do it quite often in my program so I do not want to slow it down with this...

[Hillman]

 Hi AttilaZ,

I found another forum post with some handy solutions to this.

However, there isn't just a property node which could do this im afraid.

Let me know what you think or otherwise, maybe post more information about your application so we can discuss further.

Regards, 

[AttilaZ]

Thanks Hillman!

This link was very helpful.

This is very clever:
“Lazy method...make a transparent boolean to cover real estate to 'lock'.  Condition which disables controls makes this boolean 'visible'...and user can't get to other controls.  To enable other controls, make covering boolean 'invisible'.  No loops, no fuss.”

I would use it but how can I make a transparent boolean?

[Ben]

Another approach....

For each FP that you want to greyout, drag all of the controls onto a single page, trasnparent tab control.

Use the "disable" property of the single page tab control to control they grey-out setting.

Ben

[AttilaZ]

Thanks Ben!

I was thinking of doing that but I decided not to because I have so many controls and decorations as well where the order is important like which one is at front and behind and I would need to reorganize all this so I am looking for a simple solution to disable and grey out the whole front panel. To make a transparent boolean (which could cover all these controls) looks to me the way to go but how can I make a boolean transparent. I heard of transparent png pictures too but I don't know how to do that one as well...

[Ben]

ctrl-a (select all) followed by an de-select of the tab control should let you grab everything at once and drag all onto the tab contorl.

For transparent control and indicators, start with object on the "classic" palette. They are easier to re-color. Us the paint brush tool and select the "T" for transparent and paint away.

The transparent jpgs are another story,

Ben

[Hillman]

Hi,

Ive always used to invisable button trick - but with LV, as always, so many different but correct solutions.

To make the button visable (invisable). Right click on control, (block diagram), create property node, select visable, change to write, and wire a constant false to it.

Regards,

[AttilaZ]

Thank you guys!

I could make the tab transparent, cover all the front panel objects and it just works perfectly!!

Attila