>>Craig,
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>>Thanks for the suggestion. I'm not sure, however, how I would do this for controls such as command buttons, option groups, since, I noticed, they don't have a read only property. Also, in my testing, for example, a checkbox behaved strangely when I set the readonly property to .t.. It looked enabled, but upon clicking it, it went grey.
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>>I was hoping to have look and feel for all controls in the 'view state' that was different than the edit state, but not quite as 'disabled looking' as when the controls are disabled, since the values can be hard to read in that state. I was thinking of setting/changing either the backcolor or forecolor.
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>This doesn't comply with Windows guidelines, but as I've stated before, that doesn't stop you from doing things this way.
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>>Also, another interface question. In Accountmete the enabled property is set in the control's refresh method, not the init. If these things are coded in the init, then they can't be changed once the form is instantiated, true? But maybe that is the way it should be? In Accountmate's case, instead of having an 'open' button, they have a 'key lookup' control. The form loads with the focus in the key lookup control. This control is the only enabled one, all others are disabled. After returning from the lookup, the editmode is switched to true, and the refresh of each control fires (after a thisform.refresh() - I think).
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>>I don't like Accountmate's method. I would much rather see a modal form 'open dialog box' popup, upon clicking an open button, rather than having a lookup control embedded in the form - Accountmate doesn't have an open button.
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>I'm not familiar with the way Accountmate does things. In my apps I've built (not those at 3M) I have a modal Open dialog where the user chooses the form they want. I use the same form for search and data entry. I use QBFBuilder from ClassyComponents.com to do this. Yes, the control's backcolor does change when in search mode.
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>>My intention is to have the form open up, initially in a state where the editmode is false, and all the controls are disabled (except the toolbar), and then only upon clicking new, or returning from the open dialog box, after clicking open, would the controls become enabled.
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>Clicking a New button is acceptable.