Possible bug changing from field from disabled to read only.

[leomoore]

We have a screen used both for enquiry and update depending on the user's secruity setting. If the user is read only, the fields on the screen are to be protect so that the user could not type in the fields. Initially, I used I bound the Disable attribute to an indicator. This protected the fields, grayed them, and dimmed the contents of text fields. I learned later that this was not the standard method chosen by the department. The standard is to bind the text fields to an indicator for the Read Only attribute.

I went into Profound UI Designer. I unbound the Disable attribute then bound the Read Only attribute to an indicator with the same name as I originally used for the Disable attribute. This protected the input capable fields from the user, but the protected fields still turned gray; however, the fields were not dimmed.

As a further test, I added a brand new field and set it up identically to the other 18 input capable fields using the same indicator to turn on Read Only. All of the fields were protected when Read Only was on, but only the new field was not gray. It is as if some residue from the Disable is still in the metadata for these other fields. I hate to delete all these fields and start over, but I don't see much choice.

[David]

What you are describing here is normal operation, in one respect.

The browser automatically applies the "gray/dim" effect to disabled items. The browser does not apply any automatic styling effects for read only items.

So it's normal that you would not see any special effect for read only. Customers can provide their own effects by using CSS classes on these fields.

As for the "residue" effect, that is very unusual, we've not heard of anything like that. I'm wondering if it's just that you have some CSS styling on the old ones, but not on the new.

FYI -- using read only may not be the best standard as the browser applies this attribute only to text boxes. So it's entirely invalid (and will have no effect) for other types of controls like drop downs, check boxes, etc.