Viewing Individual Tabs

[ggaryt]

Hello,

I'm working in VB 8.0 and have a program modification I'm trying to get working.  Here is what I'm trying to do.  The program has 128 test register spread out over three tab pages out of a total of 7 tab pages.  All tabs are not visible when the program is running.  When the operator selects one of the register page buttons to view from the main page I want the tab for that register page and the other two register page tabs to become visible so from that register page they can view the other register pages without having to return to the main test page.  So is there a way to make only certain tabs visible while all the others are still hidden at run time and then hide them once you return back to the main page?

Gary

[MikeS81]

Hi Gary,

do you mean something like this?

Mike

[smercurio_fc]

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ggaryt wrote:

Hello,

I'm working in VB 8.0 and have a program modification I'm trying to get working.  Here is what I'm trying to do.  The program has 128 test register spread out over three tab pages out of a total of 7 tab pages. 

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So is it 3 tab pages or 7?

Tab controls don't work the way you're describing, so you'll have to use another method. Even if they did work that way, it would require that the controls on one tab be physically located so they don't overlap/share the same XY area as another control on another tab page. Basically, consider the tabs to be on different Z planes. If you want to stick with a tab control then you could use the tab control purely for selection, but none of the tab pages would have any controls. Then, depending on which tab page is selected you could hide/unhide the appropriate controls.

Another option is that for the control(s) that are on the other pages that should be made visible can be left as "floating". In other words, their XY location is as if they're inside the tab, but their Z location is such that they're not contained within a tab. You can do this my using the arrow keys to move a control. At edit time the control will have a shadow around it, but the shadow will go away at run-time. You can hide/unhide these controls as necessary depending on which tab is selected.

[ggaryt]

Hi Mike,

What you have sent to me is close and I don't believe I can do what I want with the tabs.  If you program could select the individual tab and display them one at a time would very close since I want only three of seven total tab visible and only when you invoke the pages of interest (test register pages).

So from what I can gather is you can make all tab visible or none but not individually.

Gary

[MikeS81 · Accepted solution]

Hi Gary,

it's also possible to show only selected tab page selectors.

See the attached example.

Mike

[Mark_Yedinak]

Is there some other way to design your front panel? A front panel with 128 controls sounds extremely conplex and probably confusing for the user. People generally don't do very well when there are that many pieces of data for them to process at one time. Perhaps there is a more intutive way to guide the user through setting the necessary values.

[ggaryt]

Mike,

Thanks that will work and I'll get this going in my program.

Gary

[ggaryt]

Hi Mark,

Yes I know that 128 register is a bit but they are broken into three sets over three tab pages with the first two being tied to channel 1 & 2 respectively and the third as miscellaneous (mainly status registers) for the operator to look at.  This program is meant for bench characterization and will be operated by an experience tech or engineer so it not going out to Joe public.

I'm sorry if this information wasn't very clear in my first posting.

Gary

[Mark_Yedinak]

Even when experienced people are looking at numerous studies have shown that people get information overload with a small amount of information. I was only asking if there was a better method for breaking the data down into more manageable chunks. Take a look at some of the presentations from previous NI Weeks that discussed good an bad user interface designs. Just something to think about.

[smercurio_fc]

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ggaryt wrote:

Mike,

Thanks that will work and I'll get this going in my program.

Gary

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So you were wanting to make visible/invisible the tab selections, rather than having the content of another tab visible at the same time as seeing a different tab page?