How to separate / detach a control / indicator from its container (tab) ?

[F._Schubert]

Ok, one more idea. They grey is the color of the FP beneath the tab. So lets try the following:

make a decoration of the same color as the tab and place it where the button is and move it to the back.

If this won't give desired results, paint the background of the FP in some fancy color, so the 'grey should be that fancy color if it is the FP background. If yes there propably is a way to color the background with a pattern (I don't know how but have seen something like this) that will place the system color on the place below the button.

Felix

[Ben]

I posted earlier with an example where the boolean is inside a tab control with a sytem white background. Without putting it in the tab control it picked up the container color as we learned from Greg McKaskl's post.

So it will look ugly if not in the tab control and that seems to be intended (but not beutiful) behaviour.

Re: replace the tab control. I could do the replace if the tab was not a type def but failed to replace it when it was a type def. Fom where I sit it looks like you will have to disconnect it from the type def to do the replacement.

I hope that covers it all,

Ben

PS: The twinkle in the eye of Chiristian's and my avatars are custom versions. After Christian did his, then tst (Yair) modified mine for me (I have been using it ever since in recognition of the gift he gave me). If you do a search on the word "evil" and ignore all threads talking about globals, you will find a thread called "Enthusiast List 2" were we talked about many things including, what were we going to call the "Breakpoint". And if you look close you will even see Dennis being social and posting about things other than LV.

[F._Schubert]

Even more playing around I found this approach: Make a custom control (strict type def) and place a box decoration. Paint the box in the system color and the frame transparent (hope this won't show up as grey now). Maybe a picture with the image palette linked to the system paleete could do the same without the border. Maybe you could space the border down to 0 pixels.

I'm not an expert in any painting work. Maybe you search the forums for customizing controls. Some of the people working on JKI as well as falkpl are known experts in this field, so hunt downm their posts on that topic.

Felix

[Vaibhav]

make a decoration of the same color as the tab and place it where the button is and move it to the back.

This won't solve the issue, because the indicator carries its own background everywhere (no matter what is below it, the decoration below the indicator will e the same thing as tab control below the indicator.)

Btw, the indicator is not a button but a round LED (Modern).

If yes there propably is a way to color the background with a pattern (I don't know how but have seen something like this) that will place the system color on the place below the button.

Donno how. Didn't find a pattern. But yes, somehow I would like to make the indicator with "system" background to match with the "system" type tab.

I posted earlier with an example where the boolean is inside a tab control with a sytem white background. Without putting it in the tab control it picked up the container color as we learned from Greg McKaskl's post.

So it will look ugly if not in the tab control and that seems to be intended (but not beutiful) behaviour.

Yes, the point is it looks ugly for what I want to do.

Re: replace the tab control. I could do the replace if the tab was not a type def but failed to replace it when it was a type def. Fom where I sit it looks like you will have to disconnect it from the type def to do the replacement.

That's it. I tried to change the tab and the custom control separately, but yea, I didn't try to disconnect it from type def. I could do it now. I finally got my "modern" tab back. This is what I was looking for, if there is no better way to deal with the situation. Thanks a lot for the tip.

I didn't advance, but I went back to a point where it was acceptable (the last best configuration, like a system restore point in Windows). 🙂

Make a custom control (strict type def) and place a box decoration. Paint the box in the system color

How do I do this, exactly this thing? I mean, how to paint something with a "system color"  because system color is not just one color. If I place a "system" type object, the system decides the color automatically. If I paint something with some color, in the colors palette, in the system category, there are several colors (panel and object and so on) but selecting that color will not affect only the object types of the color's name, but any object where I put the brush, will be set to that new color, hard coded - fixed. so how do I just put something in system color, that the system automatically decides which color to show.

I didn't understand well, this part -

Maybe a picture with the image palette linked to the system paleete could do the same without the border. Maybe you could space the border down to 0 pixels.

PS:

Sir Ben, you didn't give up and paid attention to the query. I am a programmer since many years, and have worked with some veteran programmers who were young programmers in the 80's (when professional applications were not so many, in India), and I have good (should leave to others to decide that) logics and flexible programming designs, but need to make my mark in LabVIEW. Problem is not logic, but the lack of knowledge of the environment. In today's programmers, I have found a lack of logic and matured thinking which help make a reliable and scalable application. Here in the community I see many good designers and that's a sign of a good community where I can learn a lot.

Thanks for the reply of that comment in the "congratulations" thread. It was a light comment out of my curiousity. I knew I am wrong, but wanted to find the truth as those twinkles are eye catching and fascinating if with a Knight. Actually today I noticed that "Breakpoint" label on one page, but missed to click it. Will surely see those threads. Now I am active in this forum, and exploring many places, including areas like "suggestions for improvements".

I wish to meet many encouraging programmers here and learn a lot.

[Harold_Timmis]

this goes along with the first question you asked and you did mention doing something like this so I attempted it.

here is the VI.

[F._Schubert]

One more idea (as posted, I can't test it). Even if you don't need it any more, maybe someone else will look into it in the future.

* XControl; Facade VI has the right background color.

FelixI

[Vaibhav]

@ Harold,

Ok, that's a good one. Yes, you've made the Front panel background (bg) color = the Tab control's color, so it stays well maintained in "normal" case. In that case, even the decoration behind the tab control was not needed either, except for a dark bg. However, I changed the tab control to "System" type (as in my application), and in XP, it showed a little difference as in the attached pic.

 

Bottom line is, the front panel and tab control should have same bg colors, as it was concluded earlier. So, either I select a Modern tab, and fix its color and color of the front panel background as equals or select a System tab and try my best to find a suitable frontpanel color, but always with a risk to color change in different OS.

I have selected the former, and thanks a lot for your VI, because it shows that the hypothesis was correct, and there is no "easier" rout.

@ Felix

Interesting suggestion you've given. I have never tried XControls. Perhaps they would make it better. But due to less time available, I would not consider that for now. Perhaps, after I finish the primery version of my application, I would consider studying XControls. Can you just give me a comment/opinion, if XControls make things fast/easy/more powerfur/efficient?

Thanks to both of you and everyone else who helped me in this seemingly easy but stubborn situation (because I had to just accept "modern", i.e. hard coded colors for both the backgrounds), except if the XControls give me more freedom.

[BenjaminR]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for posting on National Instruments forum. 

I have filed a Corrective Action Request #186460 about this behavior. 

You can easily reproduce it using a control over a decoration. It seems that the grey out takes the FP background color instead of using the decoration (tab control) background color.

We will work on that behavior and fix it for a further version of LabVIEW. 

Thanks all of you making NI products closer to your expectations. 

Message Edité par BenjaminR le 09-11-2009 03:01 AM

[Ben]

Hi Benjamin,

Please take a look at the links provided by Raven's Fan in post #13 or thereabouts. One of them is a post by Greg McKaskle that explains where the BG color comes from....

so this may be "as designed".

Ben

[Vaibhav]

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BenjaminR wrote:

I have filed a Corrective Action Request #186460 about this behavior. 

Thank you!

You can easily reproduce it using a control over a decoration.

What does it mean? Such attempts have failed as you can see from the experiments above. Or I misunderstood something

It seems that the grey out takes the FP background color instead of using the decoration (tab control) background color.

That's it!!!

That's exactly the point that I put in several conclusions in this thread, after all the experiments. And recently the Harold's experiment where he tried to put the control over a tab over a decoration, also failed and the control just retained the FP background when disabled and grayed. This is the correct conclusion if you want to work in the right direction.

We will work on that behavior and fix it for a further version of LabVIEW. 

Thanks all of you making NI products closer to your expectations. 

(a shiney new CAR??)

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