Create a New Custom Blue Formatter Step Class

This guide shows how to create a new Blue Formatter Step Class and Override This is the first of 4 steps.

Sam Taggart
11 steps
2 minutes

LabVIEW 25.3.2f2 Development System

You need to have Blue Formatter 4.0 or later installed in order for this all to work. You can install it from VIPM.io or via the VIPM Desktop GUI or VIPM CLI.

Start with a blank project and add the lib_blue_core.lvlib from vilib. Start by right clicking on my computer and selecting add file.

Navigate to vilib I have a shortcut, but usually it is located somewhere like "C:\\Program File\\National Instruments\\LabVIEW 2025\\vilib

Inside vilib navigate to the SAS folder

Now navigate to the blue folder and then into blue_core

Find lib_blue_core.lvlib and add that to your project.

Now create a new class in your project. Adding this to our project allows us to select the correct parent interface in the next step.

Name your class something appropriate. For this guide I am just going to "Make the Background Color Blue" so that is what I named my class. You want something descriptive, but not terribly long. It needs to inherit from the Format VI Step Interface.

In this guide I chose to inherit from VI Format Step. You could alternatively inherit from Library or Project Format Step if you wanted to format a class/library or project file.

Right click on the class to add a new VI for override.

Select Format Core and click ok to create the override VI where you will write your scripting code.

Make sure to open the VI and wire the Class, the VI Ref, and the Error through. For some reason when you create an override from an interface, LabVIEW does not automatically do that.\ \ This is where we are going to write our scripting code in the next guide. For now, we'll just leave the VI blank.

Don't forget to right click on your class to go to the properties window and add a class description. This is what shows up as the description within Blue.