How do you set transparency? In the text control it works (I’m on Windows 10). I can’t set it in a combobox or datepicker, or set the borders. I set it in the graphical properties and then tried it in code but they don’t seem to change. You can’t change the borders either.
Me.Transparent=True doesn’t create an error but it doesn’t work either. I’ve used the “g” graphics keyword for the list box, but that doesn’t seem to work the same on the input controls. What’s the real syntax and where do I put it? If it can’t do “transparent” at least let me change the background color.
transparency is more the outer area of native controls (<- pros and cons).
at windows it use fake transparency, so the control with transparency just got the color behind from parent control. the parent control should be visible with a red border by default in designer.
the listbox have some custom paint events.
I don’t see the datepicker and combobox displaying any type of transparency, fake or otherwise, but I’ll take your point that there’s no transparency. It seems also that there’s no way to set a background either.
I’m going to assume I can just make all my fields out of text boxes and make a list box visible nearby when I want multiple selections. The datepicker, however, remains problematic. I can make a three field date control and assemble the date like I would in php, but it won’t have the failsafes (against bad dates) that the real datepicker does. Plus, I’ll have to invoke the date assembly on every form open. Sounds too much like work to me.
Thank you very much for your time.
can you add a screenshot of your problem?
at datepicker you can see transparency only in the gap between date and time box.
with “text control” you mean a label or textfield?
ahh
i just saw that this textfield have a BackgroundColor property and the other controls not.
somehow inconsistent …
Exactly. The textbox is the only input control I can set to transparent. The rest of the input controls don’t seem to be graphically configurable at all, except for size. So far, this makes for a pretty plain and/or ugly form. This issue is compounded by the fact that the graphical properties selector has settings for “transparent”, which evidently serve no purpose. Seeing that this is (from what I gather) a Mac-first environment, I’m guessing some of these non-working settings apply to the Mac.
Even VB6 had more graphical options than this. I know the developers need to contend with cross-platform issues, but Visual Studio is cross-platform and I can do transparencies, background colors and border colors/thickness too.
So I am not having a “problem” with the controls per se. I guess that’s the way they were made. Since I’m a beginner, however, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something obvious.
Thank you for your input, Markus.
I set up Xojo on the Mac and the controls, oddly enough, seem to have the same limitations as the PC. You can set the transparency on the combo box on the graphical properties window, but it won’t accept the setting at runtime. It doesn’t even have (from my investigations) a date picker control, though it does have a date control for reports. Some of the controls do look better on the Mac, however (even though I would not personally use those settings). Well, now I know. I’ll just use appearing and disappearing listboxes for the combobox and see if I can make a datepicker in Xojo like I could in PHP.
Thanks again for your help.
xojo came with a date chooser example. it need little bit of rework.
about consistently transparency or propertys at controls you can add a feature request with this xojo feedback tool.
Oh yeah, I’ve used the datepicker tool. It’s perfectly useable, except that it’s graphically unconfigurable (and would not suit any of my layouts). On the Mac, however, I didn’t even see one in the library, but that may be my unfamiliarity with Xojo (and Xojo on the Mac, even more so).
I actually found a third party site (through a Xojo-provided list) that offers ‘CustomUI’ controls for Xojo, but he doesn’t respond to any email requests for information, so I assume his tech support would stink. Too bad.
Thanks for the info.