Yes, I was looking forward to the silver controls. They look great. Wanted to start a new application using silver controls only to find out there’s no silver tab control :(. Hopefully in the next service pack.
Given how common the tab control is in larger app's, not having a silver tab is a huge setback. You have the choice of not using the new looks, or mixing old and new looks which does not look good at all!! I would hope for a fix sooner than the SP as that is probably 3-6 months out still!!
I have come up with a workaround until NI releases a silver tab control. First, you have to grab a gradient two tone decoration with drop shadow by customizing one of the silver controls and copying it. I've also been using this to replace my drop and raised box decorations for grouping controls - it looks very slick, don't know why it wasn't released as a decoration.
Then create a regular tab control, shut off autogrow and size to fit. Size the control as you require. Make the decoration slightly larger than the control (I found that +2 width and +4 height works well) - you need to do this from the "resize object" drop down menu at the top of the window as the decoration does not have a size property. Put one of these decorations on each page of the control. Finally, overlay one more decoration on top of the control (not inside one of the pages). Use the "Move to Back" so it is behind the control - this makes a drop shadow.
Only problem is it doesn't scale well if you try and resize the tab control afterwards.
Simon and I really wanted to include a tab control in the set of Silver controls, but it was cost-prohibitive. (The tab control does not lend itself easily to customization, as you know if you've ever tried to edit it in the Control Editor). Personally, I feel that a Modern tab control, set to the same color as the new panel default, looks reasonably compatible with the Silver controls. Simon prefers to put a Silver frame behind a System tab control.
I'll kudo this idea. If it gets enough requests, we will try to get it in a future version.
Christina Rogers Principal Product Owner, LabVIEW R&D
