Run-time menu appearance change (LV8+)

[DonRoth]

A significant change has occurred to the appearance of VI run-time menus in LV8.0  and above.  The items are all close together, and there are literally no spaces between items.  I know I am going to get complaints about this when I build executables.  Why the change and any workarounds to get the appearance back to acceptable level?

Sincerely,

Don

[DonRoth]

Additionally, the edit mode menu item bar items at least have a line above the first letter of the menu item to demarcate it from the next item. I don't see this for custom run-time menu items (at least for LV8.0).  I will be migrating to LV8.2 (only using LV8.0 as a temporary learning bridge between LV7.1 and LV8.2) and am hoping this might have been addressed.

Sincerely,

Don

[Thaison_V]

Hi Don,

I hope you're doing well.  It sounds like you have a couple of issues with the Run-Time Menus in LabVIEW 8.0.  I have used the Run-Time Menus in both version 7.1 and 8.0, and I have not noticed a change in the spacing of the menus.  Can you post screenshots of what you are describing?  If not, can you give us more details on where you are expecting the spaces to be?  I'm taking a look to see if one of the LabVIEW Options, particularly with the fonts, that may be set differently on your 8.0 development system versus your 7.1.  Some font and spacing settings are pulled from your operating system as well.  Are you running both 7.1 and 8.0 on the same machine and see the same spacing issues?  Do you see this behavior only in executables or as VIs as well?  If I can duplicate the same behavior, I'd be more than glad to help figure out the reason and a workaround if needed.

Regarding your second question, I am not quite sure whether you are talking about the Seperators between two items, or if you are referring to the underscore on certain letters of menu items to create Windows shortcuts.  The Seperators span the entire menu width, and the underscores only underline one letter (not over the letter).

The seperators still exist in 8.0, and you can add them by:

1. Create a new menu item
2. In the Item Properties for this new item, click on Item Type and select Seperator.

You can then use the arrow buttons in the toolbar to move this Seperator item up and down in the menu to place it between items.  The behavior of the underscore in Run-Time Menus has not changed in 8.0.  When you create a Custom Run-Time Menu item, make sure you type an underscore (the _ character) in front of the letter you would like underlined in the "Item Name" field.
Please let me know which of the above you are talking about, and I will let you know what I find.  Have a good day, Don!

Thaison V
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

[DonRoth]

Here is a screenshot I made of the differences between LV7.1 and LV8 run-time menus.  I did not make executables yet for the LV8 versions.  I am in the process of updating code based on LV8 changes and the run-time menu appearance change was the first thing I noticed.  What I did in LV7.1 was add separators such that dots would appear between the items and the items were spaced nicely.  In LV8, the separators now appear as overscores between items rather than dots (see attached).

I understand about adding underscore when statically customizing run-time menu item to enable use of <ALT> key to display but that has nothing specifically to do with what I am describing here (although I probably will add that as well as keyboard shortcuts in later).

Sincerely,

Don

[DonRoth]

Guess what, the problem has gone away with upgrade to LabVIEW 8.2.  The only difference is the separators now appear as lines rather than dots during run-time execution. That's OK. So this problem must have been known about and addressed for LabVIEW 8.2.

Sincerely,

Don

[Thaison_V]

Hi Don,

I'm glad that your menus seem to have better spacing in LabVIEW 8.20, although I am still unsure about why your run-time menus look as they do in your screen shots.  It looks like even in your development environment, your menu headings are not spaced in LabVIEW 8.0.  I have attached a screenshot from my machine, which is also running LabVIEW 8.0.  My menus appear this way (with the spacing and underlines on the first letter rather than the lines over the letters).  The fact that your 7.1 and 8.20 installations are "normal" tells us there may be something strange with your 8.0 installation.  If you are concerened about this, I would try either repairing or uninstalling 8.0 and reinstalling.  If not, it shouldn't affect 8.20 at all.  Are you using a localized operating system by any chance?

Thaison V
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

Message Edited by Thaison V on 08-28-2006 03:42 PM

[DonRoth]

I see no reason to stay on LV8.0 and will be going to LV8.2.  I saw this same menu appearance for LV8.0 when I installed on my laptop. So it was not something local to one particular computer.

Sincerely,

Don

[Thaison_V]

Hi Don,

We may want to investigate this further for the sake of improving LabVIEW 8.0, but I understand if you would prefer to move on.  If your laptop is having the same issue, I am less inclined to say the installation of LabVIEW is bad, but there may be some settings from the operating system that is affecting the behavior, since I know there are appearance settings from Window that LabVIEW may rely on.  If you'd like to look into this any further, I'd be interested in finding out what operating system you are using (localization/service packs), and if you have the LabVIEW 8.0.1 patch as well.  Thanks Don!

Thaison V
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

[DonRoth]

Win XP Pro Service Pack II.   I did not install the 8.01 patch because I effectively stayed on 7.1 until 8.2 came out.  But I was fooling with 8.0 here and there thruought the year just to get familiar with some of the major upgrades.

Sincerely,

Don 

[craigdobis]

Is there a way in Run-Time Menus to change the font or font size of the menus? This is in LV8.5 that we are working on, W-XP.

Thanks in advance...