How come you can't put a Tab in a Cluster?

[Sima]

This has been an entertaining thread.

After reading your flurry of replies, I can see the advantage of putting a tab in the cluster OR finding an easier way to reference controls in the pages (without having to use a bunch of VI Server code), which is probably your main objective.

Now, how would controls and indicators in the same set of pages in a tab be handled if the tab was a cluster? Would the cluster be a control or indicator? Or do we need some other container, like an uber-cluster?

[Ben]

Hi Kevn,

I hope I wasn't mean spirited with my previous reply.

This whol;e conversation remnds me of a post made by Machael Avaliotis of LAVA fame (that I can not find at the momemnt and the exact verbage of his posting escapes me ) that I will try to paraphrase.

"your GUI design and layout should not dictate your data structures."

No that I have that off of my chest...

1) Did you submit this idea to ths suggestion center? It will NOT happen if you do not.

Now lets enter the "way-back machine"*

Before LV introduced tab controls it was possible to give the usr the look-and-fell of tab controls but all of the the graphical effects had te be coded explicitly  (hidding/showing groups of controls). This is still posible with clusters using property nodes and some decorations to simulate the tabs. So an XControl could be developed to make your cluster look like it has tabs.

Back to the present...

One of the ugly little creatures I smell lurking behind this request is the association of unrelated items into a single structure (a super cluster**). Could you please provide an example of a cluster that would make use of the tabs to help us understand the need you are trying to fill? Although I have never had any formal DB design training I have picked up a couple of idea durring my travels that I have attempted to apply to my application designs has to do with what data gets grouped together. If two data elements have nothing to do with each other, they should not be in the same data structure. So applying this simple rule (grouping only related items) makes it hard for me to imagine a cluster that has related items that would not be on the same tab page. So can you help illustrates?

Ben

*On loan from Mr Peabody

** On the topic of Super-clusters Rolf Kalbermatter posted to Info-LabVIEW on 3 Dec 2002 "Once your physical memory is used up by a single shift register storage [holding the super cluster] your application is propbaly going to suck."

[tbob]

Kevin asked for a simple example of a Local Defs case in a state machine.  Here it is:

You don't have to call this state ever.  The local def clusters will appear on the shift register in all cases.

Message Edited by tbob on 11-17-2008 12:02 PM

[kmcdevitt]

We all could save the world if we could put Tabs inside our Clusters. 

[Ben]

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kmcdevitt wrote:

We all could save the world if we could put Tabs inside our Clusters. 

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April Fool's ?

Ben

[Sima]

Today, I came across the need to put a tab in a cluster. There might be other ways to do this but the way I'd like to do it is, I find, a good way to organize and display multiple controls.

I would like to show and hide controls based on the user's selection of a ring control. Based on this ring control, I can display the corresponding page in a tab. But I would like to put this ring control and tab in a cluster and into an array. Obviously there are problems with this because I can't put a tab in a cluster, and also because I'd like this to be in an array of clusters, I can't show and hide different controls across the array elements.

Somehow, if the tab could go into the cluster?? Is my other option is to put all my controls in to the cluster and always have them showing?

[tst]

I suggested this here (you still can't do this with 2009). I suggest you go there and vote for the original post. You can also add your voice saying you also prefer my version.

[tst]

Kevin, since you brought up this thread again, I figured I would link to the more relevant idea - http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Idea-Exchange/Allow-clusters-to-have-quot-pages-quot/idi-p/1481862

If people want this to happen, they should go vote for that.