[archive] List Box

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 16 January 2006]

SIMPLE ISSUE WITH LIST BOXES.

AFTER A SELECTION IN A LIST BOX I SET ENABLED TO FALSE FOR THE LIST BOX AND GO TO THE NEXT SELECTION. IT ALL WORKS PERFECTLY BUT THE ANNOYING THING IS THAT THE GRAPHIC DISPLAY OF THE DISENABLED LIST BOX MAKES THE SELECTED ITEM EFFECTIVELY UNREADBALE AND THE NON SELECTED ITEMS ARE SHOWN IN A SLIGHTLY LOWER INTENSITY BUT ARE STILL PERFECTLY READABLE - NOT AT ALL HELPFUL. NO MATTER WHAT COLORS I SELECT THE 'SELECTED' ITEM IS ALWAYS TO THE WINDOWS SCHEME (IN MY CASE WHITE ON DARK BLUE). ANY SUGGESTIONS ANYONE?

KEITH

Something I've done in the past to disable controls, but still make them readable is to leave them enabled, but change the Color control attribute to 'protect'. You can do this through AcuBench utility and set the background colors accrodingly and check the protect check box. I looked at one of mine and with a Black letter, White background and Protect checked, it had a color value of 33281 and an unprotected value of 513. I do this a lot when disabling entry fields that have data in them and still want to be able to read them. If you set the Background on an entry field to light grey, and the forground to black and set the protect flag, it makes it alot easier to read.

Good luck,

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 16 January 2006]

SIMPLE ISSUE WITH LIST BOXES.

AFTER A SELECTION IN A LIST BOX I SET ENABLED TO FALSE FOR THE LIST BOX AND GO TO THE NEXT SELECTION. IT ALL WORKS PERFECTLY BUT THE ANNOYING THING IS THAT THE GRAPHIC DISPLAY OF THE DISENABLED LIST BOX MAKES THE SELECTED ITEM EFFECTIVELY UNREADBALE AND THE NON SELECTED ITEMS ARE SHOWN IN A SLIGHTLY LOWER INTENSITY BUT ARE STILL PERFECTLY READABLE - NOT AT ALL HELPFUL. NO MATTER WHAT COLORS I SELECT THE 'SELECTED' ITEM IS ALWAYS TO THE WINDOWS SCHEME (IN MY CASE WHITE ON DARK BLUE). ANY SUGGESTIONS ANYONE?

KEITH

Steven
I have tried your suggestion but after setting the protect the list box still allows the user to click on the box and the box responds to the new selection on the screen by highlighting the item clicked on - which is what i do not want as thie can be confusing to the user if the control is disabled. I am not using Acubench so do not know if your programs have this characteristic using the protect attribute in Acubench?
Regards
Keith

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 16 January 2006]

SIMPLE ISSUE WITH LIST BOXES.

AFTER A SELECTION IN A LIST BOX I SET ENABLED TO FALSE FOR THE LIST BOX AND GO TO THE NEXT SELECTION. IT ALL WORKS PERFECTLY BUT THE ANNOYING THING IS THAT THE GRAPHIC DISPLAY OF THE DISENABLED LIST BOX MAKES THE SELECTED ITEM EFFECTIVELY UNREADBALE AND THE NON SELECTED ITEMS ARE SHOWN IN A SLIGHTLY LOWER INTENSITY BUT ARE STILL PERFECTLY READABLE - NOT AT ALL HELPFUL. NO MATTER WHAT COLORS I SELECT THE 'SELECTED' ITEM IS ALWAYS TO THE WINDOWS SCHEME (IN MY CASE WHITE ON DARK BLUE). ANY SUGGESTIONS ANYONE?

KEITH

Keith,

I have to admit, I had never tried setting the protect flag on a list box. I did some testing and I see what you are refering to when you disable the control, the line selected becomes unreadable. Here is something I tried that may be useful,

modify Screen9-Li-Lb-1, enabled false, selection-index -1

By setting the selection index to -1, it removes the hightlight on the line selected. The only disivantage to this is that you cannot tell by looking at the list box what line was selected. With out knowing what you do after the selection, I can't know it this is useful or not. You could display on the screen the line that was selected and move on.

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 16 January 2006]

SIMPLE ISSUE WITH LIST BOXES.

AFTER A SELECTION IN A LIST BOX I SET ENABLED TO FALSE FOR THE LIST BOX AND GO TO THE NEXT SELECTION. IT ALL WORKS PERFECTLY BUT THE ANNOYING THING IS THAT THE GRAPHIC DISPLAY OF THE DISENABLED LIST BOX MAKES THE SELECTED ITEM EFFECTIVELY UNREADBALE AND THE NON SELECTED ITEMS ARE SHOWN IN A SLIGHTLY LOWER INTENSITY BUT ARE STILL PERFECTLY READABLE - NOT AT ALL HELPFUL. NO MATTER WHAT COLORS I SELECT THE 'SELECTED' ITEM IS ALWAYS TO THE WINDOWS SCHEME (IN MY CASE WHITE ON DARK BLUE). ANY SUGGESTIONS ANYONE?

KEITH

Keith,

I have to admit, I had never tried setting the protect flag on a list box. I did some testing and I see what you are refering to when you disable the control, the line selected becomes unreadable. Here is something I tried that may be useful,

modify Screen9-Li-Lb-1, enabled false, selection-index -1

By setting the selection index to -1, it removes the hightlight on the line selected. The only disivantage to this is that you cannot tell by looking at the list box what line was selected. With out knowing what you do after the selection, I can't know it this is useful or not. You could display on the screen the line that was selected and move on.

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 16 January 2006]

SIMPLE ISSUE WITH LIST BOXES.

AFTER A SELECTION IN A LIST BOX I SET ENABLED TO FALSE FOR THE LIST BOX AND GO TO THE NEXT SELECTION. IT ALL WORKS PERFECTLY BUT THE ANNOYING THING IS THAT THE GRAPHIC DISPLAY OF THE DISENABLED LIST BOX MAKES THE SELECTED ITEM EFFECTIVELY UNREADBALE AND THE NON SELECTED ITEMS ARE SHOWN IN A SLIGHTLY LOWER INTENSITY BUT ARE STILL PERFECTLY READABLE - NOT AT ALL HELPFUL. NO MATTER WHAT COLORS I SELECT THE 'SELECTED' ITEM IS ALWAYS TO THE WINDOWS SCHEME (IN MY CASE WHITE ON DARK BLUE). ANY SUGGESTIONS ANYONE?

KEITH

Stephen

Yep - that's therub isn't it. What I am doing is putting a list box up (from a called program incidentally) that allows the user to select the day of the week. It then puts uo a list of statistics for that day and when they select that it pops up a list of changes that can be made - for that day and for that statistic. Clearly if they cant see what they selected then it can become very problematic for them to know where they are.

The real problem here is that nothing I do seems to work with the list box when it is enabled. If I try to capture all events on the list box and fail the event it still changes the list item in focus. If I put it back to what it was I get a sort of mind blowing 'is it here - is it there' effect as the different items come into and out of focus as the list box is clicked. I cannot seem to discable the actual selection of the item before I get control back - unless I disable the whole list box - and then of course I can't read it with any color setting i can find.

Thanks for your help - any suggestions????
Keith

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 16 January 2006]

SIMPLE ISSUE WITH LIST BOXES.

AFTER A SELECTION IN A LIST BOX I SET ENABLED TO FALSE FOR THE LIST BOX AND GO TO THE NEXT SELECTION. IT ALL WORKS PERFECTLY BUT THE ANNOYING THING IS THAT THE GRAPHIC DISPLAY OF THE DISENABLED LIST BOX MAKES THE SELECTED ITEM EFFECTIVELY UNREADBALE AND THE NON SELECTED ITEMS ARE SHOWN IN A SLIGHTLY LOWER INTENSITY BUT ARE STILL PERFECTLY READABLE - NOT AT ALL HELPFUL. NO MATTER WHAT COLORS I SELECT THE 'SELECTED' ITEM IS ALWAYS TO THE WINDOWS SCHEME (IN MY CASE WHITE ON DARK BLUE). ANY SUGGESTIONS ANYONE?

KEITH

How about if you inquire the control for the selection index value, then upon any event after that selection, you force the selection index back to that same value.

Exa.

Inquire Screen9-Li-Lb-1, selection-index Select-Idx-Var

Then when Events are triggered,

Modify Screen9-Li-Lb-1, selection-index Select-Idx-Var

That should at least keep the origonal line selected as the one that is highlighted.

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 16 January 2006]

SIMPLE ISSUE WITH LIST BOXES.

AFTER A SELECTION IN A LIST BOX I SET ENABLED TO FALSE FOR THE LIST BOX AND GO TO THE NEXT SELECTION. IT ALL WORKS PERFECTLY BUT THE ANNOYING THING IS THAT THE GRAPHIC DISPLAY OF THE DISENABLED LIST BOX MAKES THE SELECTED ITEM EFFECTIVELY UNREADBALE AND THE NON SELECTED ITEMS ARE SHOWN IN A SLIGHTLY LOWER INTENSITY BUT ARE STILL PERFECTLY READABLE - NOT AT ALL HELPFUL. NO MATTER WHAT COLORS I SELECT THE 'SELECTED' ITEM IS ALWAYS TO THE WINDOWS SCHEME (IN MY CASE WHITE ON DARK BLUE). ANY SUGGESTIONS ANYONE?

KEITH

I'll try it just the way you suggest over the weekend. Effectivly whatever I have done in the event procedure to put the selection back to where it was, the list box control still manages to move the focus first - that is what i meant by the 'is it here? is it there?' result so although I can keep the correct line selected it drives you nuts when you accidently click on it - worse some of our less accomplished users (not that we have any!) will simply believe that the control is not working correctly - "I pressed the fifht line, it selects it and then ignores me and goes back to line 2"!!.

BUT - I have not tried it the way you have suggested - I 'll let you know the results. Thanks for your help.

What we really need is a way to inhibit the selection in the list box control, i.e. disabling only the selection, not the actual control. Maybe setting selection-index to 0 or something.

I do not understand I must confess why we are given a control that will make itself unreadable when disabled - if we wanted the control to be unreadable we would make it invisible. Wouldn't we??!

Ho Hum!
Keith

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 16 January 2006]

SIMPLE ISSUE WITH LIST BOXES.

AFTER A SELECTION IN A LIST BOX I SET ENABLED TO FALSE FOR THE LIST BOX AND GO TO THE NEXT SELECTION. IT ALL WORKS PERFECTLY BUT THE ANNOYING THING IS THAT THE GRAPHIC DISPLAY OF THE DISENABLED LIST BOX MAKES THE SELECTED ITEM EFFECTIVELY UNREADBALE AND THE NON SELECTED ITEMS ARE SHOWN IN A SLIGHTLY LOWER INTENSITY BUT ARE STILL PERFECTLY READABLE - NOT AT ALL HELPFUL. NO MATTER WHAT COLORS I SELECT THE 'SELECTED' ITEM IS ALWAYS TO THE WINDOWS SCHEME (IN MY CASE WHITE ON DARK BLUE). ANY SUGGESTIONS ANYONE?

KEITH

I'll try it just the way you suggest over the weekend. Effectivly whatever I have done in the event procedure to put the selection back to where it was, the list box control still manages to move the focus first - that is what i meant by the 'is it here? is it there?' result so although I can keep the correct line selected it drives you nuts when you accidently click on it - worse some of our less accomplished users (not that we have any!) will simply believe that the control is not working correctly - "I pressed the fifht line, it selects it and then ignores me and goes back to line 2"!!.

BUT - I have not tried it the way you have suggested - I 'll let you know the results. Thanks for your help.

What we really need is a way to inhibit the selection in the list box control, i.e. disabling only the selection, not the actual control. Maybe setting selection-index to 0 or something.

I do not understand I must confess why we are given a control that will make itself unreadable when disabled - if we wanted the control to be unreadable we would make it invisible. Wouldn't we??!

Ho Hum!
Keith

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 16 January 2006]

SIMPLE ISSUE WITH LIST BOXES.

AFTER A SELECTION IN A LIST BOX I SET ENABLED TO FALSE FOR THE LIST BOX AND GO TO THE NEXT SELECTION. IT ALL WORKS PERFECTLY BUT THE ANNOYING THING IS THAT THE GRAPHIC DISPLAY OF THE DISENABLED LIST BOX MAKES THE SELECTED ITEM EFFECTIVELY UNREADBALE AND THE NON SELECTED ITEMS ARE SHOWN IN A SLIGHTLY LOWER INTENSITY BUT ARE STILL PERFECTLY READABLE - NOT AT ALL HELPFUL. NO MATTER WHAT COLORS I SELECT THE 'SELECTED' ITEM IS ALWAYS TO THE WINDOWS SCHEME (IN MY CASE WHITE ON DARK BLUE). ANY SUGGESTIONS ANYONE?

KEITH

That may be a nice suggestion for a future enhancement if it is possible. I.E. the ability to control the colors on a control when disabled. Check boxes are one of my pains in that when disabled, they are not that easy to read. I've never really used a list box control like you are. I usually pop a list for a selection in a floating window, then once they select the option they want, I terminate that floating window and then display the value or record that they selected on the screen. I mostly use that way for data validation where the use wants to see what the valid values are.

Good luck on what you find.