Coloring Objects and Backgrounds

You can add or change the color of front panel objects, front panel panes, and block diagram workspaces. Some objects have a foreground and a background you can color separately. For example, the foreground color of a knob on the Classic Numeric palette is the color of the main dial area, and the background color is the color of the raised edge. You can create custom colors, copy colors from one object to another, and create transparent objects.

Complete the following steps to change the color of an object, the front panel background, or background of the block diagram workspace.

1. Use the Coloring tool to right-click an object or workspace to display the color picker. If automatic tool selection is enabled, select the Coloring tool from the Tools palette to disable automatic tool selection.
   
   

   Tip�� Press the <Shift> key and right-click to display a temporary version of the Tools palette at the location of the cursor.

   
   
   The top of the color picker contains a grayscale spectrum and a box you can use to create transparent objects. The second spectrum contains muted colors that are well suited to backgrounds and front panel objects. The third spectrum contains colors that are well suited to highlights. The first row of color boxes displays user-defined colors. The second row of color boxes displays the most recently selected colors and the system colors. System colors allow you to set the appearance of a front panel to match the system colors of any computer that runs the VI. The system colors are three pairs of colors each containing a background color and a text color. There are colors for panel and object, window, and highlight for items like menus.
   
   The box at the bottom of the color picker displays the currently selected color. Objects that have foreground and background colors display the foreground color in the left half of this box and the background color in the right half.
2. Move the cursor through the color picker to select a color and preview the object or background in the selected color. As you move the cursor over a color, LabVIEW displays the RGB value of the color at the bottom of the color picker.
   
   If the object has foreground and background colors, press the <F> key to select the foreground color so you can set it or press the <B> key to select the background color so you can set it. You also can press the spacebar to toggle between the foreground and background colors.
3. (Optional) Click the More Colors button in the bottom right corner of the color picker to select a specific color using the color utility on the operating system.
4. Click a color to apply that color to the object or background. To cancel the coloring operation, press the <Esc> key.