Controls on tablets

[rossu]

I've successfully ported a Labview application onto a windows based tablet, but the biggest issue I'm facing is the size of the controls on the UI. Some, like buttons are no issue, but others, like numerical edit controls, are. I can make the font bigger (not really the issue), but i can't seem to change the size of the increment/decrement control to the left. As is, it is too small to be operated with a finger. Drop down boxes and lists can also be a pain. Is there a way to make these bigger so they are more tablet(finger) friendly?

[tst · Accepted solution]

Right click the control and select Advanced>>Customize. You can now click the wrench in the toolbar to go into a mode where you can change individual elements of the controls, including the buttons. The LV help should have more info on customizing controls, and I would also recommend looking at the UI interest group in the communities area.

[rossu]

Good suggestions and the little wrench solved the immediate issue (more or less). It would be nice to have tools to help with the tablet transition. I designed my app on a laptop (as I suspect many would do) and then copied it to the tablet. I thought I had taken into consideration the tablets smaller screen size, but obviously there were some issues there. The biggest is the concept that there is no mouse, so you have to make controls big enough that they can be readily used by big fingers. It would be handy to have an app that showed you how things would look on your standard tablet screen. I was going to Windows 7 and I suspect that some of these things will change with Windows 8 tablets, How will labview deal with swiping and other standard tablet motions as opposed to mouse operations? Having to go to custom controls for all your tablet controls does not seem like a great way forward. Anyway, I'm off to browse through the WIndows 8 stuff. Thanks again for your comments above.

[Thoric]

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@rossu wrote:

How will labview deal with swiping and other standard tablet motions as opposed to mouse operations?

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There is little to no support, as yet, for native gesture-based operation of a LabVIEW UI. Maybe something for the Idea Exchange?