Dashboard Programming - Colorful categories?

[ionine_]

Hello CD. I am trying to customize the FRC dashboard to better suit our team's needs. There is a problem however, and that is the fact that text is very hard to read on the dark background. I was wondering how the people at FIRST/NI made those nice-looking, colorful category things for each of the slots (green "Slot 1", blue "Slot 4", brown "Robot IP", etc.), so that I could use those to group my own data. The closest I have come was using Decorations->Raised Rounded Box, however it is very odd-looking and the components don't group together like they do in FIRST's categories. I'm a total LabVIEW newbie, by the way.

Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you,
Ilya Ostrovskiy
Team 334



EDIT: Found it! They use a Decorations->Lowered roundedbox, change the background color (using the Tools palette), and as far as the text and "separator" go - I just Ctrl+Drag'ed those. After that I grouped them using layout controls (the button with the two arrows in a circle). Hopefully this should save other Dashboard-developers some hair-pulling.

So much for LabVIEW being developer-friendly.

[Greg McKaskle]

Glad you found it, sorry it took so long. At some point, I grouped the graphic box, text, line, and some of the indicators so they were easier to move around.

If you want the quickest way to grab the boxes, copy and paste one like the Communications box. While selected, ungroup using the rightmost toolbar button with circling arrows on it. Delete the indicator, rename the box, recolor, resize, and potentially reselect and regroup.

If you really want to use these a lot, you can put this onto a new VI and add it to your palettes. Look in the help for customizing palettes, and let me know if you want more info on how to do this. We didn't bother making a dashboard palette, but if the community wants to make some common elements, we could integrate them in for new teams to have easier access to.

Greg McKaskle