Programming LabVIEW VI at high resolution, for use on lower resolution

[InternationAL]

Hello,

Does anyone have a quick tip for a situation where you are programming a VI at a very high resolution (2048 X 1536, or even dual monitors), because it is nice to have room for a large block diagram and to still see the front panel and tools and other palettes, for use on a monitor or display of a lower, known resolution (1024 X 768)?  The resolution of the target will not change and is known ahead of time.

I tried setting the minimum window size under VI properties to the size of the target monitor's resolution, then shrinking the front panel window until it wouldn't shrink anymore, then using a decoration to draw a box on the front panel slightly smaller than the target monitor's resolution, but I somehow messed this up.  It didn't work out, and some scrolling around was needed to get to see the whole front panel.  Maybe I should use a jpeg on the front panel with a known size?

I consider this a topic that might even be worthy of a Community Nugget, so please someone post a solution.  And can someone please point me to the Product Suggestion form, since I think LabVIEW should have this built right in (the ability to set the target resolution of the VI).  I can understand if you will run at multiple resolutions, how the program wouldn't be able to help you, and how it might be dfficult to pull off, but it seems too difficult for me to pull off for one, known resolution.  I thought it would be easy.  Even if I couldn't make it a perfect fit, I would be satisfied now with just getting close to perfect and having it fit without scrolling or reprogramming to fit.

Thanks to anyone who can offer a helping hand, because this would alleviate much stress for me and a few of my colleagues.

[Mikk]

You seem to be doing this in a somewhat roundabout way.
It would be easier to put a small window manager inside your application, that first reads the
available display size (drop a property node, select VI server class as Application and read
the Display:All Monitors or the Display:Primary Workspace properties) You can then set the
window size in the VI property node by writing to the FP.PanelBounds property.
You may also want to set the position and sizes of some of your front-panel objects.

A bigger problem when moving applications from machine to machine is that LabVIEW
depends on the system fonts, which can change in actual pixel size even when the
font size value is the same. LabVIEW also does not handle
font scaling very well (i.e. if you use the Windows display control panel to set font
scaling to something other than 100%). In those cases the front panel objects may need to
be manually adjusted on the target system. I have seen this, for example, when developing
on the English version of LabVIEW but running the application on the Japanese version.

[InternationAL]

I think I might have figured something out.  I changed my screen resolution to the target resolution temporarily, then created a VI template at that resolution.  I then changed my resolution back to the high resolution I had started with.  I haven't tried out my VI template yet.  If it works, then I will try to remember to post back.  That solution is not that unbearable.

[Marc_A]

Some computers that use my software run at 800x600  so I know what you mean. I just opened up mspaint, drew an 800x600 box, and made a little blue bar at the bottom about the size of the task bar. Now I can see if a VI will fit while it's running with a titlebar and everything.

[InternationAL]

I found that the stuff above in the VI is more the problem than the taskbar.  LabVIEW's title bar, menu bar, and toolbars scale in proportion to the resolution, and are hard to account for.  Maybe you turn off the display of all of that stuff, so you only have to worry about the task bar down below?

If my VI template doesn't work out, then I will be trying the MS Paint image resolution trick next.

Thanks for the replies!

[Marc_A]

True, it will be a little bigger when run on the target. I never need it to be exact, so I just allow a little extra space There is a property of the VI: Front panel -> window bounds that you could set. This is the outer part of the window including the toolbar and titlebar.