Groupbox Caption

General
#1

Am I mis-remembering? I thought that one could change the TextColor of a groupbox caption?
Was this an attribute that we could change in the past, but no longer? :frowning:

#2

AFAIK it never has been possible.
A long while ago I had some weird issues with the Groupbox control having the caption been used.
For inexplicable reason these were solved when setting the caption to ā€œā€
Since that day I use a label control on top of it instead. If you start and end with a space it looks like a groupbox-caption and you can also set the color of it.

#3

I thought about the label ideaā€¦ but I have dozens of windows some with 2 or 3 groupboxes. and dread redoing themā€¦

I didnā€™t realize that the caption didnā€™t ā€œgray outā€ if you disabled the control :frowning:

#4

[quote=333521:@Dave S]
I didnā€™t realize that the caption didnā€™t ā€œgray outā€ if you disabled the control :([/quote]

Labels donā€™t eitherā€¦ but they used toā€¦ Apple has stopped caring about having constant visual clues apparentlyā€¦

  • Karen (who changes labels to disabled text color in one when needed even it not the current UI)
#5

Yeahā€¦ my original code just disabled the groupbox
then I realized that the labels INSIDE didnā€™t changeā€¦
so I created a method to address each label (in a control set) to change its color
that is when I noticed the groupbox itself didnā€™t change either :frowning:

but at least you CAN change a Labelā€¦ you CANā€™T change a Groupbox :frowning:

#6

I donā€™t recall a time Iā€™ve seen a label disabled in software I use.

Controls get disabled, but I donā€™t see a need to disable a label. Theyā€™re still useful to let the user know what theyā€™re labeling, even if the item they are labeling is disabled.

I donā€™t have a data-backed argument for my opinion, so I stayed quiet on this one.

#7

my rationale is this.
I have two groupboxes each containing various controlsā€¦ labels, textfields, listbox etc.
I do not want the bottom groupbox to be ā€œactiveā€ until the user has filled in a minimal amount of data in the top groupbox
until that time, I want ALL the contents to be ā€œgrayā€ā€¦ having somethings ā€œgrayā€ and others ā€œblackā€ looks wrong.

#8

[quote=333531:@Dave S]Yeahā€¦ my original code just disabled the groupbox
then I realized that the labels INSIDE didnā€™t changeā€¦[/quote]
What about creating nice containercontrols. Enable and disabling is quite straight forward, including everything which is in it.

#9

first offā€¦ a groupbox is a ā€œcontainerā€ā€¦ .so disabling it does in fact ā€œdisableā€ everything inside of itā€¦
the issue is the visual aspects of a label (and a listbox for that matter) do not change just because the enable flag did
so I would have to loop thru all the controls, decide who owned them, and change the textcolor based on the flagā€¦
which is exactly what I am doing now.

#10

[code]Public Sub DoEnable(extends g as GroupBox, enable as Boolean)
Dim w As Window = g.TrueWindow
if w<>nil then
for i as Integer = 0 to w.ControlCount-1
Dim ctrl As RectControl = RectControl(w.Control( i))
if ctrl<>nil then

    if ctrl.Parent = g then
      ctrl.Enabled = enable // or whatever you want depending on the control class
    End If
  End If
Next

End If
End Sub
[/code]

#11

Jean-Yvesā€¦ that does not solve the problem

#12

Why not create your own groupbox with a ContainerControl with styled label, enabled property and so on ? Then just make the super of your present out of the box groupboxes with your new control.

#13