When a BO is not in edit mode, all the controls are disabled. I've got a few users who are visually impaired, and I think these controls are going to be difficult for them to read.

Is there a way I can globally control the color of disabled controls? I've called BO.Edit() after navigation but, as expected, it sets the BO into Edit mode (which makes it easy to read) but the user will have to save (even though no changes are made) before they can continue navigating.

Any ideas how I might handle this?

TIA,

Rob

The colors that you see are the default disabled colors supported by native .NET controls.  We have taken measures to actually make it easier to ready than it used to be.  There are several options here.  All business objects have a property called ManageUIReadOnlyState which will determine if the BO will even attempt to manage the enabled/disabled state of a control (True by default).  Also, all controls have a a property called IgnoreManageReadonlyState which when set to True, will leave the control out of the management list of the BO when changing the states.

On either of these options, you can manage the color of the control yourself.  Here is the problem, Textboxes have a ReadOnly property that works pretty well as a disabled state.  However, it is the only native .NET control that has this functionality.  Another issue is that none of the controls have any disabled settings, .NET just does what it likes in this case.  So overall the options are limited.

This one of the reasons we are creating our own basic controls to add to a new collection.  One option that you have at present is to purchase DevExpress controls and incorporate them.  We will have a wrapper available for DevExpress in the next few weeks which will allow direct data binding just like the StrataFrame controls.  These controls support disabled colors to be modified.

As for the new StrataFrame control collection, it will be a while before we make these available, but there are some options in the mean time.

Hi Trent,

Setting ManageUIReadOnlyState to false does exactly what I need.

>>We will have a wrapper available for DevExpress in the next few weeks which will allow direct data binding just like the StrataFrame controls.

I use DevExpress extensively and look forward to the wrapper. On that subject: I have found a problem while using their LayoutControl (ver. 6.1.2.) with SF that you may want to look into: You can reproduce a fatal error by dragging a SF Textbox into the LayoutControl and setting the "Multiline" property on your control to true. I've tested it with both the Standard Textbox control that you inherit from and it works correctly.

Thanks,

Rob

Thanks for the heads up.

I just purchased your framework over the weekend and really love your approach. I have put together a few demos to show my staff and there number one complaint was that the controls are hard to read. I really don't want to loose the managed read-only state so I'm very interested in the DevExpress controls that you mention in this thread. Is the wrapper available yet?

Just nearly.  We will make the wrapper available within the next 7-10 days from the downloads area of the website. 

Hi Trent,

would it be possible to get a example how to use e.g. the DevExpress-control, if you have that one ready. If not, a textbox-control would be ok as well. That way we could have a taste of things to come...

Cheers,

Kari

ps. For me a VB.Net sample would be preferred...

It's hard to give you just one control because they are all in a single DLL.  If you would like I can post the code behind the inherited textbox so you can add it yourself for the DevExpress TextEdit control.

Hi Trent,

no need, I wait....

Cheers,

Kari

We'll have the wrapper ready very soon.  Hopefully next week we can make what we have available.