Silver Graph Legend Color Issue (Bug?)

[X.]

Must be the week-end...

I can't seem to figure out how to revert to the original color of the Silver Graph legend after I have painted it some different color (Graph 2 below, painted "System"):

I used the color picker for the main body and legend of the original graph (they are identical, apparently), but when I use this color choice, not matter where I apply it (corner, center, etc), I get the weird result shown in Graph 3). What gives?

I have no issue with the Modern Graphs:

I am attaching the offending VI and the non-offending one for somebody to confirm (or not).

I am sure there is a way, I just seem too stupid to figure it out.

I would argue that you don't teach an old horse like me to paint a graph legend differently than he has been used to for ever...

This is of course all LV 2011 stuff.

[Christina_R · Accepted solution]

I agree this is a bug and will file it as such, but I also want to explain what's going on.

The Silver controls have the background of the plot text set to transparent so that you can see the gradient of the Silver decoration behind it.

When you color the legend, it is changing the foreground and background colors on the plot text as well as on the frame. The way the Silver decoration works, these two colors are the endpoints of the gradient, so you're getting the darker color as the background of the plot.

I will probably fix this by having the coloring tool leave the background as transparent.

To fix a graph with this problem, you would need to use the Control Editor. By switching to "Customize" mode, you can select the plot text and choose Edit>>Customize Control to open it in another Control Editor where you can color it.

[X.]

Thanks for the work around. Other than that, it's a nice object!

[X.]

Well, it might be a tad more subtle than it sounded...

First, when you only select the text of the legend (having "Customize Contol"-ed the Graph control), "Customize" and paint it, it does not change the color of the background between the text and the graphics itself. So you actually have to customize the "caption cluster" (or whatever it is) too. Then, having picked the color of the graph object does not seem to do the job. I am not sure how clear that will appear on that screenshot:

but it is not as nice as in the original:

I managed to do a better job using a custom color of (215,215,215):

but even that does not appear perfect.

In fact, because of the gradient you are talking about, it would appear that I would need to color-correct EACH caption individually (which I can't). To illustrate what I mean by that, here is the same graph object (color corrected by myself as shown above) when I expand the caption to show 6 graphs:

The first text background is clearly too dark, whereas the bottom one is clealy too light.

Either I did not understand your explanations, or I don't think this is a very useful workaround.

[X.]

One other puzzling (to me) thing I noticed is that if I "Replace" the control (incorrectly painted) by a new one, the caption actually keeps the "wrong" color sets. So I have to delelete the control and grab a new one to get to the original color scheme... 

[Christina_R]

Sorry, I didn't specify that you need to color the plot text background to transparent. It's the "T" box in the top-right of the color picker.

For Replace, unfortunately that's just how LabVIEW's Replace works. It tries to preserve some things, including color. You can work around it using paste-replace. I blogged about this in some detail here: http://blog.eyesonvis.com/2011/05/28/replace-and-paste-replace/

[X.]

Choosing transparent for both the text background and the cluster background still results in this odd "dephasing" of the text background color and that of the legend "frame". Bottomline: it is not EASY to fix... 🙂

I read your blog. I must be cynical, but I am the kind of guy that is not helped by having somebody feel his pain (or pretending to) 🙂

[Verne_D]

This issue has been reported to R&D and will be tracked under CAR#336497. We appreciate your feedback and hope to use it to continue improving LabVIEW in the future. I hope you're able to move forward in spite of the inconvenience this causes. Have a good day!