shortcut to disable/enable part of front panel

[pcs82]

Hello All,

I am coding to control a batch test bay which has 10 similar stations. each station has one tab control which carries about 25 controls/indicators. So around 250 front panel elements. other than these tab controls a small section of front panel contains a group of controls which has to be active at all times (such as close app, login etc). I want to disable/enable the tab control part of screen (all 250 elements) based on the status of a bit. but sittin down to select disable property for 250 elements and wire that to 0/1 sounds really scary.

I found the below thread which comes close.

http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Best-way-to-enable-disable-multiple-front-panel-controls/td-p/153512...

It talks about a string control which is painted transparent and placed on the part of the front panel that you wnat to disable , and whenever string control is disabled/enabled that part of panel too is disabled/enabled. this sounded quick but the problem was that whenever someone clicks on the sting when the vi is running , it turns white irrespective of the fact that its painted transparent. any other shortcuts for the above purpose?

thanks!!

[GerdW · Accepted solution]

Hi pcs,

you could

- simply disable the tab control at all

- simply disable all or selected tabs using a property node of the tab control

- collect references to all controls in the tabs (using a property node of the tab) and disable them in a loop: all done at runtime…

[ToeCutter]

We've used a transparent tab control in the past which works. Still it can be a bit of a pain to move/replace when you want to modify the panel. enable/disable by array of references is more work initially, but easier to maintain IMO.

[kbbersch]

I have a utility I wrote that allows you to enable, disable, or disable & grey any or all controls on your front panel.  You feed it an array of control names then select if you want to change the Enabled properties of the controls in the list or all controls except those in the list.  You also select to enable, disable, or disable & gray.  There's also one that works the same except it will change the visible property.  I've attached a zip file containing them along with two VIs that recursively search for controls inside clusters and tabs as they are used in the utility VIs.  These are updated for LV2013 but I originally wrote them in 8.5 and can supply those if needed.

[Yamaeda]

Place your controls in clusters and you'll only need 1 disable per cluster, or just disable the tab control.

[freemason]

hi,

can you post a 2012 vrsion please

[kbbersch]

Here you go.  Just add these files to your user.lib folder.