programmable decorations

[bmishoe]

I want to have a GIF (or similar) on a front panel that shows the routing of some network traffic.  As the user clicks a radio button, I would change the color of some pre-drawn lines from clear to black so that it appears to come 'on'.  There's no real functionality to them, it's for display only.

What kind of indicator do I use?  I looked under the decorations pane but none of these things appear to have a back-end equivalent.

Or perhaps there's a better way to do this?  Do I have to pre-load all possible iterations of the GIF and then just draw a different one on the front panel as the user clicks?

Any help appreciated.

[Rubikon]

Hi.

I haven't worked much with GIF's or other pictures on the front panel. And the only option that comes to mind is having different pictures overlap eachother on the front panel, and then show one of them that corresponds with what the user clicked. 

I have attached a simple VI that uses a Tab container to switch between to pictures. I dragged the two pictures on the front panel from windows explorer so I am not sure if they are visible when you open the VI.

[LordNobady]

I think a picture ring is your best option. On compile time you can load the pictures in and then display them by only selecting it with the corresponding number. 

[apok]

What I have done in the past with cockpit flight panel controls was to take the drawing and delete the section using paint so that it transparent on the front panel, then I would use an LED behind it to simulate, off/on states and dimming. After all is said and done..The flight panel basically simulated an operational lit panel, whether in day or night mode. You would use the 'reorder tab' on the front panel to move your objects front/back, forward/backwards whether it is controls, leds, or drawings. Beware though..If there are many objects on the front panel with drawings, this tends to slow things down when being updated/redrawn. Use the defer panel updates properties...

[Thoric]

I would go with a picture ring control. Use the classic picring, preload all your images into it, set the border to transparent and hide the index display. Then programmatically set the index value of the terminal to show the picture you need. Probably best to make it an indicator, and also set it's advanced properties to Disabled to prevent an operator from interacting with it.

Let us know how you get on!

[bmishoe]

thanks a lot, I'll give it a try!!!

[JÞB]

Alternatly a customized coror box might fit the bill here too.  just make the color box in the shape of the lines you want and change from T to Green or red or whatever

[DFGray]

Other options:

1. Decorations have a Visible property.  Use it to turn the decorations on and off.  You can get references to the decorations using the Traverse for GObjects VI.  Unfortunately, the only way to figure out which is which is by indexing the array of decoration objects.  If you only have one decoration, this is very easy.
2. Draw your lines using a picture control with a transparent background under all the other controls.  This approach is very flexible, since you can also dynamically load images, if desired.  This would probably be my first choice, since it is more future proof.  It does require more initial setup.
3. Draw your lines using a graph or XY graph control with a transparent background.  Every line is a separate plot.  XY graph would probably be easiest.