FrontPanel Transparency...

[Norm Kirchner]

Anyone ever think that they'll make the FP transparency mask-able as to only make certain colors transparent?

I know that we can do this in windows through but anyone who has done this knows that there are severe limitations behind it.

Thus it would make much more sense to make this ability work the way most of us thought it would work when we saw the option available.

comments?

[Ton Plomp]

QUOTE (Norm Kirchner @ Jun 30 2008, 03:19 PM)

Anyone ever think that they'll make the FP transparency mask-able as to only make certain colors transparent?

I know that we can do this in windows through but anyone who has done this knows that there are severe limitations behind it.

Thus it would make much more sense to make this ability work the way most of us thought it would work when we saw the option available.

comments?

Here Here.

Ton

[Justin Goeres]

QUOTE (Norm Kirchner @ Jun 30 2008, 05:19 AM)

Anyone ever think that they'll make the FP transparency mask-able as to only make certain colors transparent?

I'm not a big fan of non-standard window shapes & behaviors, so if I understand what you're talking about the concept kinda makes me shudder. I'm curious -- is there something in particular you would do with mask transparency for FP windows? Aside from making a fancy left-to-right-wipe fade in/fade out , or a donut-shaped window with a hole in the middle , I'm having trouble visualizing the use case.

However, I do wish for the following things:

• I wish it was easier to manipulate decorations on the FP.
  
• I wish it was possible to dynamically create & destroy front panel controls and indicators. I know this has severe implications for LabVIEW's dataflow paradigm (every FP control has a BD terminal), but if I could create/destroy FP controls & indicators and at least receive events from them in an Event Structure and interact with their references, I would be a bit happier.
  

[Aristos Queue]

QUOTE (Justin Goeres @ Jun 30 2008, 09:03 AM)

I'm curious -- is there something in particular you would do with mask transparency for FP windows?

Here here!

[crelf]

QUOTE (Justin Goeres @ Jun 30 2008, 10:03 AM)

...or a donut-shaped window with a hole in the middle.

Alex at Icon Technologies did something similar in LabVIEW a few years ago - you can download the demo http://www.icon-tech.com.au/downloads.html' rel='nofollow' target="_blank">here.

[Norm Kirchner]

QUOTE (Aristos Queue @ Jun 30 2008, 09:24 AM)

Here here!

no but there isn't a case where I need to use the transparency either.

It's like nipple tassels. Sure they can go on a guy, but they make a lot more sense on a woman. More visually appealing too.

[Justin Goeres]

QUOTE (Norm Kirchner @ Jun 30 2008, 08:12 AM)

no but there isn't a case where I need to use the transparency either.

It's like nipple tassels. Sure they can go on a guy, but they make a lot more sense on a woman. More visually appealing too.

Good point :thumbup: . The only thing I've used the FP transparency for is to write a subVI that fades a window in or out over a defined time interval. I assume we've all done that. Has anyone used it for anything else? I guess I could maybe see using it to make a window throb when it wants attention, or recede to semi-transparent when it's not frontmost....

I think your point extends to nipples in general, does it not?

[Francois Normandin]

QUOTE (Justin Goeres @ Jun 30 2008, 11:29 AM)

Good point :thumbup: . The only thing I've used the FP transparency for is to write a subVI that fades a window in or out over a defined time interval. I assume we've all done that. Has anyone used it for anything else? I guess I could maybe see using it to make a window throb when it wants attention, or recede to semi-transparent when it's not frontmost....

I think your point extends to nipples in general, does it not?

I've used partial transparency to get rid of complaints that one could not see his whole program while I kept a login/logout window hovering as a front-most app. By having 50% transparency, he could see what happened in the background and that effectively stopped the whining.

I would probably be happy with background transparency. When the title bar disappears as well, you don't have access to menu or buttons, which could be annoying. One application I see (however trivial) would be to make nice intros while loading. We could have something else than the usual rectangle window. But hey, that's not something I'd fight for... :2cents:

[crelf]

QUOTE (Norm Kirchner @ Jun 30 2008, 11:12 AM)

It's like nipple tassels. Sure they can go on a guy...

Speaking from person experience?

QUOTE (Justin Goeres @ Jun 30 2008, 11:29 AM)

I think your point extends to nipples in general, does it not?

Semi-transparent throbbing nipples?!?!

[Jim Kring]

QUOTE (Justin Goeres @ Jun 30 2008, 08:29 AM)

Good point :thumbup: . The only thing I've used the FP transparency for is to write a subVI that fades a window in or out over a defined time interval. I assume we've all done that. Has anyone used it for anything else? I guess I could maybe see using it to make a window throb when it wants attention, or recede to semi-transparent when it's not frontmost....

I think your point extends to nipples in general, does it not?

> Has anyone used it for anything else?

I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you... or find some other way to keep you quiet

> I think your point extends to nipples in general, does it not?

"... throb... wants attention... frontmost... point... extends... nipples..."

Is something on your mind?

[eaolson]

QUOTE (crelf @ Jun 30 2008, 09:40 AM)

Alex at Icon Technologies did something similar in LabVIEW a few years ago - you can download the demo http://www.icon-tech.com.au/downloads.html' rel='nofollow' target="_blank">here.

Those are very impressive. Any idea how they were actually done? I notice there's a DLL involved. I fear the LabVIEW component is just a wrapper around some low-level window-displaying code.

[AndyDm]

ZITAT(eaolson @ Jun 30 2008, 06:38 PM)

Those are very impressive. Any idea how they were actually done?

If you asking about shapes of the panels, then take a look here: http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?boar...=241590#M241590

Andrey.

[Norm Kirchner]

If you noticed in my original post, I acknowledge that this can be done as many people have noted.

But also as stated, it has severe limitations/quirks. Thus making it not a truly viable solution for many people.

[Aristos Queue]

QUOTE (Norm Kirchner @ Jun 30 2008, 10:12 AM)

no but there isn't a case where I need to use the transparency either.

Ah. And there's the rub. No one could really justify putting in transparency for panels originally. The developer who did it just thought it was a cool idea and did it in his spare time. Now he's moved on to other things. Doing *more* work on a feature that was of dubious use in the first place is going to take lots of justification (cash or gallons of gasoline are considered acceptable forms of justification).

[Dirk J.]

I'm using this (see attachment)

Note: apart from wrapping it into a class, there is nothing in there I take credit for:

Most of it is 'inspired' on code and examples found around these forums.

Specifically, it also includes a 'windowwrapper.dll' that was not written by me.

I can't remember where I got it, but it is vital if you want to use .net dialogs.

[Phillip Brooks]

QUOTE (Aristos Queue @ Jun 30 2008, 05:50 PM)

The developer who did it just thought it was a cool idea and did it in his spare time.

Does NI have its own version of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google#Innovation_time_off' rel='nofollow' target="_blank">Innovation Time Off?

[crelf]

QUOTE (Phillip Brooks @ Jul 1 2008, 06:35 AM)

Does NI have its own version of Innovation Time Off?

The first company I remember that had innovation time off (ITO) was 3M (years before google even existed). Rumour has it that post-it notes were an ITO project.

[LAVA 1.0 Content]

QUOTE (crelf @ Jul 1 2008, 08:19 AM)

...Rumour has it that post-it notes were an ITO project.

Can't speak to the ITO but I beleive the post-it notes were a by product of http://www.snopes.com/business/origins/post-it.asp' rel='nofollow' target="_blank">masking tape adhesive research. Rather than making it stronger they tried to make it weaker.

Ben

[Aristos Queue]

QUOTE (Phillip Brooks @ Jul 1 2008, 05:35 AM)

Does NI have its own version of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google#Innovation_time_off' rel='nofollow' target="_blank">Innovation Time Off?

Sort of. Not so formal. It would probably be closer to say there's enough downtime in any job such that if you want to work on something you can and, if it shows promise, it can, with minimal red tape and minimal hierarchy approval, become your assigned task for the next round. It is more true for R&D folks, but people in many different areas of the company move into R&D for a time if something they've built in their spare time looks useful. It isn't so much a break from your assigned task, the way Google's is, but more a high willingness to allow people to choose their next task when the current one is done.

[Justin Goeres]

QUOTE (crelf @ Jul 1 2008, 05:19 AM)

The first company I remember that had innovation time off (ITO) was 3M (years before google even existed). Rumour has it that post-it notes were an ITO project.

I've heard the same thing, but the Wikipedia page has no direct mention of it.

[SkifIL]

QUOTE (Norm Kirchner @ Jun 30 2008, 04:19 PM)

Anyone ever think that they'll make the FP transparency mask-able as to only make certain colors transparent?

I know that we can do this in windows through but anyone who has done this knows that there are severe limitations behind it.

Thus it would make much more sense to make this ability work the way most of us thought it would work when we saw the option available.

comments?

[Francois Normandin]

Hi SkifIL,

thanks to join the effort... however the question is not to make the front panel programmatically transparent, but rather to have it done with a mask. Or if you prefer, can it be done for certain colors and not for the others? The expected outcome of this behavior is that you could have, for example, UI with irregular form, such as this:

It's possible in Windows... can we reproduce this effect with LabVIEW?

[LAVA 1.0 Content]

The Gtoolbox from Georg Zhou has a mask function for LabVIEW VIs.

Ton

[Francois Normandin]

QUOTE (Ton @ Jul 22 2008, 01:28 AM)

The http://www.geocities.com/gzou999/' rel='nofollow' target="_blank">Gtoolbox from Georg Zhou has a mask function for LabVIEW VIs.

Ton

Too bad there are no block diagrams... I can't convert from v6i without it.

The preview for that function doesn't show the masking ability.