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Is there a way to disable a web form control (change the Enabled
property to false) without the control being dimmed out when it's
rendered? I have quite a few of them on the form and they are hard to
read when they are disabled .


Thanks,

Bill
Cincinnati, OH USA

wrote:
> Is there a way to disable a web form control (change the Enabled
> property to false) without the control being dimmed out when it's
> rendered? I have quite a few of them on the form and they are hard to
> read when they are disabled .
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bill
> Cincinnati, OH USA

Dimming of controls is a well understood and recognised visual cue to
the user that a control has been disabled. Are you proposing to give
the users no clue over which controls are enabled or disabled, until
they click on some and nothing happens?

Damien

Um, well ... yes.


I didn't know this was Microsoft.public.dotnet.frmework.aspnet.abuse


Damien wrote:
> wrote:
> > Is there a way to disable a web form control (change the Enabled
> > property to false) without the control being dimmed out when it's
> > rendered? I have quite a few of them on the form and they are hard to
> > read when they are disabled .
> >
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Bill
> > Cincinnati, OH USA
>
> Dimming of controls is a well understood and recognised visual cue to
> the user that a control has been disabled. Are you proposing to give
> the users no clue over which controls are enabled or disabled, until
> they click on some and nothing happens?
>
> Damien

I'm sorry.

I do agree with the importance of visual cues, but in this particular
app I need more control of the appearance of the disabled check boxes.
When they are dimmed they become very difficult to read against the
chosen background. I do plan to visualize their disabled-ness somehow,
but it has to be more readable. The customer will be looking at 4
columns of check boxes for many hours each day. They have to be
disabled yet still easy on the eyes.

wrote:
> Um, well ... yes.
>
>
> I didn't know this was Microsoft.public.dotnet.frmework.aspnet.abuse
>
>
> Damien wrote:
> > wrote:
> > > Is there a way to disable a web form control (change the Enabled
> > > property to false) without the control being dimmed out when it's
> > > rendered? I have quite a few of them on the form and they are hard to
> > > read when they are disabled .
> > >
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > >
> > > Bill
> > > Cincinnati, OH USA
> >
> > Dimming of controls is a well understood and recognised visual cue to
> > the user that a control has been disabled. Are you proposing to give
> > the users no clue over which controls are enabled or disabled, until
> > they click on some and nothing happens?
> >
> > Damien

wrote:
> I'm sorry.
>
> I do agree with the importance of visual cues, but in this particular
> app I need more control of the appearance of the disabled check boxes.
> When they are dimmed they become very difficult to read against the
> chosen background. I do plan to visualize their disabled-ness somehow,
> but it has to be more readable. The customer will be looking at 4
> columns of check boxes for many hours each day. They have to be
> disabled yet still easy on the eyes.
>

Could you put the text for the control into a label control, rather
than using the text property of the checkbox, so that disabling the box
does not affect the text? It would still affect the actual box,
obviously (which would give some cue and continue to have all of the
desirable programmatic behaviours).

To be honest, I can't think of much else, off the top of my head, that
would work well - if you want the control disabled, the browser has to
know this (and at the end of the day, the browser controls the
appearance/behaviour of the control).

Damien

Your point about using labels is a good one. I was hoping to stick with
the check boxes because when the user goes into Edit mode I can simply
enable the Check Box List and then be ready to roll. If I can't make
the check boxes readable when disabled, then I have to create a
boatload of labels by hand and integrate them into the web form.

Also, the check box list is entirely data-driven and the content is
somewhat dynamic, so creating labels is problematic.

Damien wrote:
> wrote:
> > I'm sorry.
> >
> > I do agree with the importance of visual cues, but in this particular
> > app I need more control of the appearance of the disabled check boxes.
> > When they are dimmed they become very difficult to read against the
> > chosen background. I do plan to visualize their disabled-ness somehow,
> > but it has to be more readable. The customer will be looking at 4
> > columns of check boxes for many hours each day. They have to be
> > disabled yet still easy on the eyes.
> >
>
> Could you put the text for the control into a label control, rather
> than using the text property of the checkbox, so that disabling the box
> does not affect the text? It would still affect the actual box,
> obviously (which would give some cue and continue to have all of the
> desirable programmatic behaviours).
>
> To be honest, I can't think of much else, off the top of my head, that
> would work well - if you want the control disabled, the browser has to
> know this (and at the end of the day, the browser controls the
> appearance/behaviour of the control).
>
> Damien

wrote:
> Your point about using labels is a good one. I was hoping to stick with
> the check boxes because when the user goes into Edit mode I can simply
> enable the Check Box List and then be ready to roll. If I can't make
> the check boxes readable when disabled, then I have to create a
> boatload of labels by hand and integrate them into the web form.
>
> Also, the check box list is entirely data-driven and the content is
> somewhat dynamic, so creating labels is problematic.
>
If you have javascript enabled, and can keep track of all of this, you
can do your disabling on the client side, rather than the server side.
That will disable the checkbox itself, but not the associated text.

The javascript needed is just:
document.getElementById('CheckBox1').disabled = 'disabled';

Damien


> Damien wrote:
> > wrote:
> > > I'm sorry.
> > >
> > > I do agree with the importance of visual cues, but in this particular
> > > app I need more control of the appearance of the disabled check boxes.
> > > When they are dimmed they become very difficult to read against the
> > > chosen background. I do plan to visualize their disabled-ness somehow,
> > > but it has to be more readable. The customer will be looking at 4
> > > columns of check boxes for many hours each day. They have to be
> > > disabled yet still easy on the eyes.
> > >
> >
> > Could you put the text for the control into a label control, rather
> > than using the text property of the checkbox, so that disabling the box
> > does not affect the text? It would still affect the actual box,
> > obviously (which would give some cue and continue to have all of the
> > desirable programmatic behaviours).
> >
> > To be honest, I can't think of much else, off the top of my head, that
> > would work well - if you want the control disabled, the browser has to
> > know this (and at the end of the day, the browser controls the
> > appearance/behaviour of the control).
> >
> > Damien