"Move to Front & Move to Back"

[RL]

I need help in placing text, controls and indicators so that they float on top of Tab Controlled windows. Some components already do this but others seem to attach themselves to a Tab layer. There appears to be an unwritten convention here, that may be part of an IQ test which I am failing, that determines when the component will be visible.

RL

[Dennis_Knutson]

If you drag anything into a tab control, that object becomes part of a page. If you first place the object outside the tab and then move it using the cursor keys, that object is not part of a page but will appear on all pages. You will see some weird shadows when you do this. One one to avoid that is to group multiple controls before placing them over the tab.

[Shan]

If you place a control (or indicator) on a tab with the mouse, it'll be part of the tab. To "float" it on top of the tab control, place it outside the tab, then use the arrow keys to position it. You may need to "Move to Front" (CTRL+Shift+K) so that it will be on top of the tab. You'll have a shadow around the control in edit mode, but this will disappear when you run. I've used this trick when I want a control to appear on multiple tabs.

If you want to control it's visibility, use a property node.

Hope this helps
Tim

[RL]

Thank you both for your helpful replies. I eliminated the shadows by bringing in the objects with a back drop. The remaining problem is placement consistency as various Tabs are selected i.e. there are four FFT Graphs which are, unfortunately, of slightly different size and position. Is there a way of keeping the position and size of all of them consistent?
RL

[Dennis_Knutson]

LabVIEW 7 makes this fairly simple. If they're all on different pages of a tab control, Move them off and select them all. Then from the toolbar, click the Resize Objects button. You can make them all the same size with Maximimum Width and Height or Minimum Width and Height. If you have the alignment grid turned on, you should be able to get them to the same veritical and horizontal position on the tab pages with a minimum of effort.