Why is the decorations so limited?

[falkpl]

I have been using labview since 4.0 and have seen huge improvements in most areas of the environment but decorations have not changed all that much, Why?  Lately I have seen clients which want to see applications be commercialized but want it to look less like labview from a user point of view.  I have to exhaust almost every GUI trick in labview to do this and it is not all that easy.  There are so many improvements for labview on this front.  There needs to be an extended decoration class which uses a standard vector graphic with additional properties and methods to modify these objects at runtime. 

1.  Allow for naming of extended decorations to enable referencing these objects (NOT using Decoration[] from pane and keeping track of this unexposed index)

2.  Extend the color property from FG, BG to FG, BG, Colors[] where an unlimited number of configurable programatic colors can be changed ate edit or runtime.

3.  Allow for blending, texturing and patterning objects.

4.  Allow for rotation of vector graphics.

5.  Provide methods for accessing and modifying the vector graphics to change the decoration at runtime.

It would be noce to beable to make custom decorations that act much like 3d pipes in DSC.

The ability to have complete control over decorations will allow the GUI of labview to extend much like other languages.  I feel that the current decoration object is too limited.  Opening up this format could allow the community to make GUIs that rival other languages and environments (think of Apple interfaces).  Integrating this control with Xcontrols would allow users to make entire control sets for each industry and toolkits with relative ease.

Just some of my thoughts.  I could be alone here.

Paul 

[Ben]

Alone  ?

No, I'm with you, provided performance does not go south.

Ben

[falkpl]

I dont think performance should take too much of a hit if they use a new data type instead of replacing the original decoration which still has its place.  Since the graphic device interface is completly removed from the vi there is no way to implement this without NI adding it.  A vector grapohic object native to labview and interchangable with current decoration (possible an extended class) whould be great to have.

Paul

[a.plugaru]

I think that decorations aren't limited at all..

Let's face it! You can fine everywhere great decoration tips and tricks... great decoration gadgets... and everything is so cool!

Why do you say it is limited???

[smercurio_fc]

I think you need to find yourself a real job. If you're going to SPAM you could at least point to a web site that's actually not under construction!

[tst]

Paul, I'm also with you on this. Did you file a Product Suggestion? If you do, be sure to link to this thread.

Message Edited by tst on 12-11-2007 05:25 PM

[AnalogKid2DigitalMan]

Single stars make great decorations too!

[Gabi1]

definitely would be great to have more decos.

also, maybe a depository for custom controls and icons?

[falkpl]

I will send it as a product suggestion, but was hoping there is a hack but there is virtually no info on the graphic format.  I have seen a little on the topic on LAVA but NI has kept this locked up too tight.  We are still looking at a pallette that has not changed since for many years if it has ever changed.  Even a simple shape editor would be a step in the right direction.

Paul

[Matthew_Kelton]

I would not limit it to just decorations.  I would include some of the other places where there seem to be no way to add customized items, like plot points, plot cursors.  I have a customer who has been complainign to NI for years that he want to have custom cursors, but can't seem to get it moved up the list.