unwanted top left empty space in front panel

[beemerbiker]

This Q has been asked several times b4, but expert repliers seem not to have seen the problem, so no real help. It happens for me every time I create a new vi -- there's a huge chunk of empty space in the top left of the front panel that I cannot get rid of, however I try to move the controls up there. Then, when the vi is run on a machine with smaller screen resolution a huge chunk of the valuable real estate is taken up by empty front panel. Guys, this is either a bug in LabVIEW (I've got 7.1) or experienced users are doing something different to me when they begin to create a new vi. Why isn't everyone shouting about this? Yours frustratedly ...

[Dennis_Knutson]

Attach either a picture or a VI (LV 7.0 please) that shows this problem. I can't think what your problem might be unless you've set a large number for the grid size. Have you turned grid alignment off (Tools>Options>Alignment Grid) to see if that's your problem?

[rolfk]

beemerbiker wrote:

> Why isn't everyone shouting about this? Yours frustratedly ...

Because I have never seen this on any computer I have used.

Rolf Kalbermatter

[beemerbiker]

But people have been posting this problem on this forum for over a year, so I know I'm not alone. When you try to move a control up into the acres of free space in the top left of the front panel, the scroll boxes roll back so that even more space is created beyond the area you've moved the control to, so you never make any progress. This problem has appeared at least 3 times in this forum, and, each time, the answer is more or less the same -- I don't see it or I don't understand the problem.

So I guess only a subset of LabVIEW users experience it. So what have we sufferers got in common? It's not to do with min window size, coz I've tried that. Maybe it's to do with the screen resolution of the PC that you create the vi on? Mine is high (1600
x1200). Can anyone throw any light on this?

Thanks.

[beemerbiker]

Turning off the alignment grid makes no difference. I attach a picture of the front panel for a trivial vi showing the prob (it's shrunk to half actual size linearly to make the file smaller), and I also attach the actual vi (it's in 7.1, I'm afraid, coz I don't know how to save in any other version).

Any help much appreciated.

[Dennis_Knutson]

To save for a previous version, go to Save With Options. The Save for Previous should be the second from the bottom.

What happens when you select all of the controls and move them with the arrow keys on the keyboard?

[beemerbiker]

Thanks. Hopefully, the attached vi should be in v7.0. When I select all and try to move with keyboard arrow keys into vacant top left space on front panel, the scrollers back off so that when you finish the move everything seems to be at top left, but, because the scrollers have backed off, it has in fact recreated all the empty space you tried to get rid of! This scroller-shift effect is as reported previously in this forum by another user.

[DD]

Sorry, I couldn't duplicate the problem. I've attached an edited version of
the vi with the wasted space eliminated. I was able to shrink the front
panel until I could use the scroll bars to put the origin dot in the upper
left corner. As you can hopefully see, there is no longer any wasted space.



[Attachment wastedspace2.vi, see below]

[rolfk]

beemerbiker wrote:

> Thanks. Hopefully, the attached vi should be in v7.0. When I select
> all and try to move with keyboard arrow keys into vacant top left
> space on front panel, the scrollers back off so that when you finish
> the move everything seems to be at top left, but, because the
> scrollers have backed off, it has in fact recreated all the empty
> space you tried to get rid of! This scroller-shift effect is as
> reported previously in this forum by another user.

Ohh, man I see what you mean and I have to say it just doesn't seem to
me like a problem. Forget the scrollbars!

LabVIEW always maintains some empty space around the controls to give
you the possibility to scroll the panel around when you want to add a
control at the border. If it wouldn't do that and you happen to have a
window which neatly contains all controls in the visible area you
couldn't scroll to the side to make more space to add some new control.
You would have to place the control on the visible panel, select it and
move it with the cursor to the non visible part before the scrollbar
would indicate there is something to unhide.

In a real application you basically always hide the scrollbars as you
don't want a user to scroll around on your panel. If you do want to let
them scroll around because you happen to have designed a panel with to
many controls to fit on the screen you have some other more important
problems to solve about your application before worrying about some
empty space (ahem you probably won't have any empty space then, would
you 🙂

Basically the way I work in LabVIEW is that I place the controls as I
wish them and then resize the screen to neatly contain all the controls
This will leave you with scrollbars right and on the bottom which
indicate that there is some space left on all four sides. Don't worry
just go into File->VI Properties and there to the Window Appearence and
then check Custom and hit the Customize key to disable the scrollbars.
When the VI runs, the scrollbars will be entirely gone and you panel
looks like a professional application.

Rolf

[Marco Tedaldi]

beemerbiker wrote:

> But people have been posting this problem on this forum for over a
> year, so I know I'm not alone. When you try to move a control up into
> the acres of free space in the top left of the front panel, the scroll
> boxes roll back so that even more space is created beyond the area
> you've moved the control to, so you never make any progress. This
> problem has appeared at least 3 times in this forum, and, each time,
> the answer is more or less the same -- I don't see it or I don't
> understand the problem.
>
> So I guess only a subset of LabVIEW users experience it. So what have
> we sufferers got in common? It's not to do with min window size, coz
> I've tried that. Maybe it's to do with the screen resolution of th
e
> PC that you create the vi on? Mine is high (1600x1200). Can anyone
> throw any light on this?

Now i think I understand what you mean!

LabView has no defined size of the front panel. The size gets
dynamically set. It allways adds some spare place around your existing
items on the front-panel. So you never have to move the wole panel to
mekae place fpr new items, you can just add them, whereever oyu want
(upper boeader, lower, left or right). Normaly while developing you see
the scrollbars. They are allways about in the middle.

But I don't see a problem with this? If you find the scroll-bars
annoying you can disable them in the built app.

Hope this explains a bit

Marco