Multiple Appearance Schemes

[Cat]

All I can say is, skinning or not, from now on I'm using "Clouds" on all of my GUIs!

[Ton Plomp]

In the NI community group 'UI interest' is a tool to replace all controls bith a specific Strict Typedef Set.

With this tool you can easily skin a complete GUI VI.

Unfortunatly the NI site is currently down, but I try to remember to add the link here.

EDIT:

Found the link (it's in the APIs group).

LabVIEW UI template Tool

Ton

[Yair]

I'm surprised no one mentioned skinning a cat yet (or a Cat, perhaps? ). It just remains to be seen whether we'll get the same conversation that's been had recently (and in the meantime, I'll go hide under the couch).

I would agree with Chris that skinning is far from a critical feature in LV and that the tools are already basically there. I would be surprised if other IDEs offer a built in method for skinning. For most, if not all, I suspect special (or pre-existing, like Kshif's library I linked to) code would need to be written.

Also, one other method of skinning is using the system controls and colors. Granted, the GUI for controlling the actual customization is out of your hands and this won't work for non-system controls, such as graphs, or for different sizes, etc., but it is one valid answers.

P.S. Re. LV as a "general" language, I don't think I ever heard anyone at NI say that either. They certainly refered to it as a general purpose language, in the sense that it's not limited to test and measurement, or whatever, but I don't remember them claiming that it's ideal for everything.

[ShaunR]

You said that changing the background "isn't better than nothing... if you can't change the controls skin as well"

Indeed. But I didn't say there is never a valid reason not to change the background (visually impaired users is an example where you might for example). But for most applications you can change the colour and don't need images.

I'm not completely familiar with a lot of other languages, but I don't think that you can define "all". You only get access to the attributes of a control that the developer of that control exposes to you. In this case, the attributes exposed in LabVIEW are less than other languages. In other languages, you don't get absolutely everything without getting into the very low level of the control itself, in which case you might as well write your own.

I can define "All" All properties and methods that are available at design time. The big difference is that most other languages come with full source for controls so if it doesn't quite do what you want then you can modify it or expose hidden properties....unlike LV.

It'd be nice to be able to write our own Xcontrols are the poor cousin of native controls. I'd love a statusbar control with default panels for time etc.

Compare the LV1 palette with the LV 2009 palette. I'm not saying that there has been an explosion of changes in the last 20 years, but I think it's totally unfair to take the extremist view that nothing has changed. Please: credit where it's due. There's a difference between saying that not a lot has been done and insinuating that nothing has been done.

LV1 was MAC only. So it pretty much looked like Labwindows. I came in at LV2.1 (which was windows) and theres been little change since then in terms of UI but there have been huge leaps in functionality (most of) which I am thankful for.

If you've got ideas, get off your arse and suggest them over on the Ideas Exchange. And don't just say "we need newer controls" - list specific stuff that you want, and go into details of how you want it.

Perhaps if NI R&D always took the top 10 and implemented it I might. But I've seen no correlation between the Idea exchange and implementations. I'm sure they do read it, but I would imagine only those that are on the time-line are actually implemented so its probably more to do with your request just happens to coincide with a feature that was to be implemented. I hope I'm wrong though and would love to hear about requests that were taken on board. I use LV with what it has and if it doesn't have or do what I need, I use something else. And (by the way) I actually said "it would be nice" if it supported skinning.

In the NI community group 'UI interest' is a tool to replace all controls bith a specific Strict Typedef Set.

With this tool you can easily skin a complete GUI VI.

Unfortunatly the NI site is currently down, but I try to remember to add the link here.

EDIT:

Found the link (it's in the APIs group).

LabVIEW UI template Tool

Ton

Presumably that will only work at design time. Nice little tool for branding though.

[Yair]

Perhaps if NI R&D always took the top 10 and implemented it I might. But I've seen no correlation between the Idea exchange and implementations. I'm sure they do read it, but I would imagine only those that are on the time-line are actually implemented so its probably more to do with your request just happens to coincide with a feature that was to be implemented. I hope I'm wrong though and would love to hear about requests that were taken on board.

The idea exchange is extremely new (a few months) and didn't even have time for a single version in which to implement any idea. If you'll look at the status summaries, you will see that there are some ideas are in the implementation process. These are not necessarily the most popular ideas, nor would I expect them to be. Deciding which ideas to implement should not be based only on how much users want it, but also on other considerations such as how difficult it is implement, whether it's even correct to implement, whether it will become obselete due to other features, etc.

NI had the product suggestion center before the idea exchange, and I'm sure that if they saw a good idea they didn't think of, they used it even if it wasn't already on the road map. The "black hole" nature of the PSC, however, prevents outside users from knowing how many of those ideas originated from the users. The idea exchange is considerably better (although it has its own share of serious usability issues).

As an aside, expecting your suggestion to be one of the most popular ones is a bit arrogant, for lack of a better word. I've had several good suggestions which simply didn't get that many votes (which I hope will not prevent NI from implementing them). Incidentally, there was actually someone who posted an idea along the lines of "we need better controls" without specifying and (if memory serves) didn't get that many votes. On the opposite side, Altenbach suggested flat controls (with sample images) and got the votes. As Chris said, you need to have specific suggestions for people to be able to vote on them.

Also, here are some which have already been implemented, include one which has been implemented as a direct result of the request and even released as a patch.

[ShaunR]

The idea exchange is extremely new (a few months) and didn't even have time for a single version in which to implement any idea. If you'll look at the status summaries, you will see that there are some ideas are in the implementation process. These are not necessarily the most popular ideas, nor would I expect them to be. Deciding which ideas to implement should not be based only on how much users want it, but also on other considerations such as how difficult it is implement, whether it's even correct to implement, whether it will become obselete due to other features, etc.

NI had the product suggestion center before the idea exchange, and I'm sure that if they saw a good idea they didn't think of, they used it even if it wasn't already on the road map. The "black hole" nature of the PSC, however, prevents outside users from knowing how many of those ideas originated from the users. The idea exchange is considerably better (although it has its own share of serious usability issues).

As an aside, expecting your suggestion to be one of the most popular ones is a bit arrogant, for lack of a better word. I've had several good suggestions which simply didn't get that many votes (which I hope will not prevent NI from implementing them). Incidentally, there was actually someone who posted an idea along the lines of "we need better controls" without specifying and (if memory serves) didn't get that many votes. On the opposite side, Altenbach suggested flat controls (with sample images) and got the votes. As Chris said, you need to have specific suggestions for people to be able to vote on them.

Also, here are some which have already been implemented, include one which has been implemented as a direct result of the request and even released as a patch.

Well. Perhaps my comment was a bit harsh considering the newness of the site. I wasn't expecting that should I post that my suggestions being taken up though, just that I would only consider it a worthwile excercise (of effort on my behalf) if I saw a definitive criteria behind it (like the top 1, 2 or 10 are always implemented). That was the only point I was trying to make.

[Yair]

No commercial entity can guarantee that it will do something before it knows what that something is. Contrived example - what if someone posts "I want the LV RTE to be 5 MB in size and work without installation"? Certainly, everyone would want that, but it would be impractical for NI to try to implement that.

Obviously, more transparent criteria would be welcome, but I can understand NI not wanting to disclose such things, both because they're probably not set in stone (e.g. an idea might get more weight even if it wasn't very popular because NI realizes it will be really useful or really easy to implement) and because such things tend to become political (e.g. users will think "these criteria discriminate against me because X"). If you think it's not worth wasting time in there, that's your business, but you certainly don't have any other official course of action.

[crelf]

Obviously, more transparent criteria would be welcome, but I can understand NI not wanting to disclose such things, both because they're probably not set in stone (e.g. an idea might get more weight even if it wasn't very popular because NI realizes it will be really useful or really easy to implement) and because such things tend to become political (e.g. users will think "these criteria discriminate against me because X"). If you think it's not worth wasting time in there, that's your business, but you certainly don't have any other official course of action.

Couldn't have said it better.

All I can say is, skinning or not, from now on I'm using "Clouds" on all of my GUIs!

[Yair]

from now on I'm using "Clouds" on all of my GUIs!

And a hot pink and purple for the controls and labels?

[jzoller]

All I can say is, skinning or not, from now on I'm using "Clouds" on all of my GUIs!

I can work with that...

[ShaunR]

I can work with that...

Or this?

[Yair]

Or something like this:

I bet by now the OP is really sorry about posting.

[ShaunR]

Or something like this:

I bet by now the OP is really sorry about posting.

Ummm. Thats not a vi though

[crelf]

Ummm. Thats not a vi though

It is now:

[Grampa_of_Oliva_n_Eden]

I can work with that...

Public Sevice Announcement/Warning!

Before agrreing to implement an application that use a bright color scheme* as shown above, think twice! After a day of staring at a screen with that color mix you will suffer from image persistance. I threatened to charge hazardous duty rates the next time they come back.

Ben

* I developed an application for a company that did all of their markting research up-front right down to the RGB values of all colors used in the GUI. It turns out that most of the decision makers in their product area were women and a color scheme of Pink and Purple where chosen by them. They have been selling the product for the last 8 years so it may have worked but ... I still think that some of my cone receptors may have been damage along the way.

BTW: The tab control can be customized to look like a cloud and using image only format of the tabs will let you click on a lobe of the cloud to change pages.

Edited November 9, 2009 by neBulus

[ShaunR]

It is now:

Touché ...lol

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

LV1 was MAC only. So it pretty much looked like Labwindows. I came in at LV2.1 (which was windows) and theres been little change since then in terms of UI but there have been huge leaps in functionality (most of) which I am thankful for.

Ohh, ohh, you got that mixed up very much mate .

LabVIEW 1 was Mac only and so was LabVIEW 2. It did not look like LabWindows at all but like Macintosh. LabWindows was for DOS and its programming was in Basic and a subset of C and the graphical UI was far from what a Macintosh could do although much better than most of what could be done on DOS otherwise.

The first LabVIEW version for Windows was 2.5 but it was really a preview release and more like a glorified Alpha. It's stability was ... well, nothing to write home about, but then it was also Windows 3.1 and LabVIEW was probably one of the few applications out there exercising the Windows 3.1 kernel to the limits of what MS never had imagined. The first official LabVIEW version for Windows was 3.0 followed by numerous bug fix releases and with 3.1, if memory serves right, adding SunOS support, which many years later was renamed Solaris 1 by Sun. Somewhere around 3.1 the Macintosh version was also getting back in sync with the multiplatform release, having been sold until then as 2.2.1 version in its old non-multiplattform version, with its Mac only resource format files.

The UI has had quite a few changes IMO, with new objects being added regularly. Yes the basic concept hasn't much changed and I wished they had overhauled things like the custom control editor to allow a much better customization of controls. The current editor is from the beginnings of LabVIEW and simply not very intuitive in many ways. Also some of the newer controls seem not to have gotten the internal object message support to be customizable at all in that editor. If I knew this is because they support internally a different object message interface for a yet to come new custom control editor then I could more easily live with that, but I have my doubts.

[Cat]

All I can say is, skinning or not, from now on I'm using "Clouds" on all of my GUIs!

I go away for a few days and you all turn my innocent little joke into a series of hideous GUIs. Nice work!