Design improvement when editing in a ListGrid (in both Enterprise and Simplicity)

[Blama]

Hi Isomorphic,

please see the online grid_custom_editing_cell-sample (v10.1p_2016-03-03).

When entering any field but the Boolean-field and the Slider-field, the cell background or part of the cell background gets white, showing "hey, we are editing here".
This is because the background of the used FormItem is white and the FormItem is wide.
In case of the Slider, which uses the whole cell, the background should be white as well IMHO.
Now there is obviously a problem with the Boolean-field as the FormItem there is very narrow, so there might be a different solution needed, but here as well the "white" -> "hey, we are editing here"-effect would be great.

Best regards
Blama

[Isomorphic]

We're not setting the background white for edited rows, it's just that TextItems fill the cell and they are white. Look at the checkbox field or in between the drop-down controls for DateItem and you can see that there is no change in background color.

We don't think a change in background color for the edited row is actually desirable, but if you do, it's easy to achieve via getCellCSSText() or getCellBaseStyle().

[Blama]

Hi Isomorphic,

that is exactly what I wrote: The "white" is there because of the FormItem, except for the Slider, where the used FormItem has no change in the background color.

Best regards
Blama

[Isomorphic]

Sorry, this doesn't make any sense to us. None of the FormItems introduce a change in background color. To demonstrate this to yourself, just set a TextItem to a fixed width and you'll see that the background color of the grid cell shows through. This is consistent across all FormItems and makes no sense to change, but again, you could use a special background color throughout the edited row if you like, with the techniques above.

[Blama]

Hi Isomorphic,

I got that and that is not what I wrote. The "working space" for almost all FormItems is white (=the FormItem background, not the ListGridCell background).
The only exemption to this rule is the SliderItem. I just wanted to make you aware of this inconsistency.

Best regards
Blama

[Isomorphic]

Not really sure what you mean by "working space", but if you mean the area where values are typed in, yes, that's consistently white. This has nothing to do with the background color that shows through behind the FormItem, which is also consistently styled already, and under your control if you prefer some other color.

[Blama]

Hi Isomorphic,

Yes, that is what I meant. This is consistently white for all FormItems but the Slider. For the Slider, the class is even class="normal" as it seems.



Best regards
Blama

[Isomorphic]

CSS class "normal" has no background color so this, again, agrees with everything we've been saying.

We can't figure out what point you are trying to make.

Try this: in general, when you stick a FormItem in any context: grid, form, window header, toolstrip, section header, etc - the control-as-such is rendered and whatever is behind the FormItem is unchanged and shows through. For example, use a checkbox control in a section header, and the gradient of the section header shows through all around the checkbox and its label.

This is exactly what you want in all the contexts we just listed. The alternative of the checkbox bringing along a white background color, so that it becomes a big white rectangle interrupting the gradient of the section header, is obviously wrong. It would also be wrong for window header controls, toolstrips, etc.

The grid is just yet another case of FormItems rendering the control-as-such and not influencing the background color. It's not only completely consistent, but desirable, because the background color coming from the grid cell has important information - it shows that the row is selected, and some apps use it to convey other information too.

Changing this would make so little sense that at this point we have to assume you mean something else entirely, but we have no idea what that might be.

[Blama]

Hi Isomorphic,

no, that's what I meant - I think that it would make sense for Sliders in ListGrids (because of the consistency "white"->"editing"), but agree that it would look way worse in e.g. SectionStackHeaders, WindowHeaders.
So I agree that a change would make no sense.

Thank you for explaining & Best regards
Blama

[Isomorphic]

Perhaps beating a dead horse, but again, there is no use of "white" as a color signifying editing. Checkboxes are not white, radio buttons are not white. The actual consistency is that the background color of the ListGrid cell shows through for every type of control that doesn't happen to fill the cell, including in between various controls and their default icons (DateItem, RelativeDateItem, ColorItem et al), and this is consistent with how FormItems are shown in every other context as well.

Introducing a white background color here would in fact create *inconsistency* while simultaneously losing the indication that the row is selected.