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

Question

Hello,
How come you can't put a Tab Control in a Cluster?
It looks like users have been asking this question
for years, and all the way back to LV versions 6.1.
Someday, please, pretty please, NI.
Please. Maybe by version 9.5 of LV?
Kevin.

Answer 1

Ben wrote:  This idea just weirds me out!
Kevin:  Sorry Ben, but think how I must feel.
Ben wrote:  I understand the cosmetic and GUI interaction part of it OK.  Its the "how would it code?" part that send my head spinning.
Kevin:  We don't need to worry about that.  We'll let the NI LABview guiruis worry about that.  They know how to program for TABs and they know how to program for Clustors.  Now they just need to put them together.
Ben wrote:  Would the tab control be available via bundle by name and unbundle?
Kevin:  Yes.  It would simply return the value indicating which page is selected.
Ben wrote:  If the cluster was an indicator and the tab value was "page1" would the user be able to select page2?
Kevin:  Of course, the block diagram would simply pass the enum indicating which page to display.
Ben wrote:  On the block diagram, would there be a relationship between the tab and the elements on each tab?
Kevin:  None.  Or no more so than the relationship of any element on a panel or front panel.
Ben wrote:  On the FP the tab control has a "pages" property and from those we can get an array of refs to the controls on the pages. Would we still be able to that within a cluster.
Kevin:  Yes.  No Differrence.
Ben wrote:  Aside from the above Q's I would guess that the tab in a cluster would only allow greater abuse of clusters i.e. "Super Clusters".
Kevin:  It is not my intent to abuse any Super Cluster in any way shape or from.  In contrast, would help to spread out some clutter from ones front pannels and move the clutter into tabs within a cluster.  The beauty of it would be that it would come automatic, and handled by labview.
Ben wrote:  There was also until recently, limitations on the size of the type descriptors. Very complex FP's and large clusters would be hit by the problem that the type descriptor need more than the 16 bit allocated.
Kevin:  I would never suggest even coming close to putting more that 65535 items in a cluser in any fashion.
Ben wrote:  I do not pretend to know why NI did or did not allow this. In the end I can only share my guess and hope somone who does know will post.
Kevin:  Yes, somebody from NI might know something about why we can't put a Tab in a Cluster.
Ben wrote:
Related story:
I had often been mystified by "Why I could not create a waveform datatype block diagram constant?". While at NI Week and talking to Jeff Kodosky I asked him (thinking that I would get a good under-the-hood explanation of the data type used blah, blah, blah... He said "I'm not sure. It ws probably an over-sight."   I noticed that in LV 8, you can now create a waveform data type constant.
Ben
Kevin:
Maybe it was an oversite.  Maybe we can have Tabs in Clusters in 64bit Lab View 9.
Kevin's Disclaimer:  The variation in case usage, while referring to LabVIEW, should not be construed as disrespect, nor should it be interpreted as an indication of Kevin's LabVIEW programming skill or experience or knowlege.