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tst

Show hidden controls as "ghosts" in edit mode

Status: Completed

The ability to show hidden controls at edit time has been implemented in LabVIEW 2021.

I occasionally hide controls on my FP and control their visibility programmatically during the execution of my program. The problem is that if I edit my UI and the control is hidden, it's very easy not to be aware that it's there and to accidentally overlap it, hide it or even move it off the screen.

 

To solve this, I usually try to save the VIs with all the controls visible, but that's not always feasible.


A better solution - LabVIEW should always show hidden controls in edit mode. It should just have some way of differentiating them from visible controls. This mockup shows them as ghosts, but it can also be any other solution:

 

20779iD19E3A04FFDC0A31

 

In run mode, of course, the control would not be shown. This is similar to the black border you get when objects overlap a tab control.


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47 Comments
tst
Knight of NI Knight of NI
Knight of NI

> What if the effect, grayed out or otherwise only appeared with the move tool selected.

 

I don't think I would like stuff appearing and disappearing all the time (which is what would happen with the auto-tool). It's simpler to have a toggle.

 

Ideally, I would say that this should be a global system toggle, so that each developer can have their preference, but I'm assuming some people would want something easily accessible in the toolbar, so here's one suggestion which should cover this:

 

This would be a global setting, but there would also be a toggle on the toolbar. Whenever you open a VI's FP for the first time, the local toggle would initialize itself from the global setting. From that point on (until you unload the VI), the local toggle will control the behavior of that VI. The value of the toggle will NOT be saved with the VI, so that next time you open the VI, it will again read the global setting.


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tst
Knight of NI Knight of NI
Knight of NI

Also, this should probably apply to hidden tab pages.


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manuellausten
Member

Good & Useful Idea.

 

But you shout can switch this view on and off

Taylored_Solution
Member

have you every hidden a control within a cluster and try to get it back.  This feature would be great to show these.  If you have a hidden control you can at least find the terminal and click Show Indicator.  You can't do this with clusters.  I have to get a reference to all the controls within a cluster and use a property node to show indicator

Darin.K
Trusted Enthusiast

> have you every hidden a control within a cluster and try to get it back.  This feature would be great to show these.  If you have a hidden control you can at least find the terminal and click Show Indicator.  You can't do this with clusters.  I have to get a reference to all the controls within a cluster and use a property node to show indicator

Can't say that I have ever done that, but if I were to I would probably edit the cluster control (Advanced->Customize).  In the Edit menu of the Control Editor is the option to show all hidden controls.

tst
Knight of NI Knight of NI
Knight of NI

For clusters, you should already be able to do this today even without customizing. The advanced sub-menu should have another sub-menu for un-hiding any of the elements in the cluster.

 

More specifically, one of the problems with cluster is that if the cluster is set to auto-grow, showing the elements would presumably make the cluster temporarily larger, which can hide other controls or expand the container which holds the cluster (another cluster or a tab control). For clusters, perhaps this can simply be accomplished by marking the cluster somehow (e.g. with a glyph or a halo).


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SteenSchmidt
Trusted Enthusiast

This idea is great, but it should be implemented with not exclusively acting on the Visible property = False, but also on a couple of special cases where controls are invisible due to other causes - for instance a SubPanel with hidden Frame and no content loaded.

 

/Steen

CLA, CTA, CLED & LabVIEW Champion
JonP
Member

Yes PLEASE! At the moment I have to implement "cleanup" code to restore the visibility of the controls I've been hiding.

gerh
Member

Pictures tell more than thousand words...

 

What would You think about this solution?

hidden_controls.png

No resizing, no confusion about inactive elements and universally applicable to all hidden elements.

 

Kudos for this idea!

Darren
Proven Zealot
Status changed to: In Development