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Manzolli

Decorations With Drag-and-drop Behavior

Status: Declined

Any idea that has received less than 6 kudos within 6 years after posting will be automatically declined.

It would be nice have the drag-and-drop behavior in some box type decorations that will place a control inside it, just like Clusters. Can have also the same options to organize (AutoSizing: None, Size to Fit, Arrange Horizontally, Arrange Vertically). Nowadays, if we want to to have some graphically grouped controls, basically we have to:

 

  • Organize the controls
  • Place the decoration
  • Move the decoration to back
  • Resize the decoration to "hold" all controls
  • Select all
  • Group


I the proposed way:

 

  • Place the decoration
  • Resize the decoration
  • Drag-and-drop the controls in their definitives positions


If a control needs to be added to the group, nowadays we have to:

 

  • Select the group
  • Ungroup it
  • Place the new control
  • Sometimes select the decoration and send it to back
  • Group again


In the proposed way it will need only one step:

 

  • Drag-and-drop the new control 

In the application "1D Fourier Interpolation", an example that comes with LabVIEW, try to move the decoration that embodies the "Data Generation" controls. With the proposed idea they would move all together.

There is another gain: nowadays the Group, Ungroup and Move To Back operations are only accessible via toolbar drop-down menu.
André Manzolli

Mechanical Engineer
Certified LabVIEW Developer - CLD
LabVIEW Champion
Curitiba - PR - Brazil
4 Comments
hfettig
Member

Did you know, that you can customize a cluster control by replacing its frame with any of the decorations? You can go Advanced -> Customize and replace the frame of the cluster with a different decoration. This works even with custom images.

 

Advantage: You now only have one control to deal with on the block diagram instead of the separate controls (you can still react to events from the individual controls)

 

Disadvantage: Since this is a cluster, you cannot mix controls and indicators.

Manzolli
Active Participant
This is a nice workaround, even though it will also require some work to get the job done. It would be nice when you want a cluster terminal in BD. When you mix controls & indicators, as you said, and want terminals in diferente locations this solution will not fit.
André Manzolli

Mechanical Engineer
Certified LabVIEW Developer - CLD
LabVIEW Champion
Curitiba - PR - Brazil
AristosQueue (NI)
NI Employee (retired)

Interesting idea. It got me thinking... there is one existing "decoration" that behaves like this -- the Tab Control. It is a FP item that you can drop other FP items into. The Tab Control does not absorb these other controls into itself the way a cluster control does. It merely"decorates" them. Other controls/decorations along these lines should certainly be possible. In fact, as a workaround, I wonder how far you could get by just having a customized tab control. I've never tried to edit one of those in the Control Editor, but perhaps you could give it a transparent background and a nice border... Does it do autosizing? I've never thought to check... something to play with...

Message Edited by Aristos Queue on 02-09-2010 10:39 AM
Darren
Proven Zealot
Status changed to: Declined

Any idea that has received less than 6 kudos within 6 years after posting will be automatically declined.