Show resizable VI window without showing scrollbars

by Jim Kring on October 21, 2009 in LabVIEW | 4 comments

One of the downsides of using splitter bars (panes) is that, even when a VI’s main window is resizable, if you hide the scroll-bars of the bottom-right pane, the resize window image (Resize Handle) goes away (as shown below).

Hide Scrollbars Hides Resize Scrollbars Hidden

Sometimes, you might want to keep the resize window handle, such as cases where you use panes to create a status bar at the bottom of the window, as we do with VIPM (shown below).

VIPM Window

While there’s no obvious way to do this in LabVIEW, you can use an image decoration (an image of the resize window handle) to achieve the effect.

To see an example, download this VI (LabVIEW 8.2 or greater): Show Resize Window.vi (zipped)

Show Resize Handle

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  1. Shaun Hayward on October 21, 2009 at 12:10 pm

    Nice trick! Thanks for highlighting this one! :)

    …Just one little thing though… the link to the mentioned VI seems to be broken.

  2. Jim Kring on October 21, 2009 at 12:15 pm

    Shaun: I (think) I’ve fixed the VI download link. Please try again. Cheers!

  3. Jeffrey on October 26, 2009 at 1:24 am

    For the visual aspect, the trick is nice.. On the other hand it is confusing to the user, because he still can’t grab that part of the window for the resize operation (unless you implement code to do of course).

  4. Jim Kring on October 26, 2009 at 7:38 am

    Jeffrey: Yes, I agree that there is a possibility of confusing the user, who might think they can click on the image of the grab-handle. That said, IMO, the benefit of the visual cue to inform the user that the window is resizable outweighs this secondary problem.