Vanishing Grid Lines

[Chellappan_Palaniappan]

I am using Xojo 2026 Release 1 on Mac OS Tahoe

I have a listbox in the first tab of a Tab Panel control.

The grid lines of the listbox are visible when the window opens.

If I view the second tab and then come back to the first tab, the grid lines are missing.

Any help ?

[Eric_Williams]

You’re not alone:

My ListBoxes have Lost Their Horizontal Lines Under MacOS

After updating from Ventura to Sequoia, many (but not all!) of my apps’ ListBoxes no longer display their horizontal lines, which I typically set to “Thin Dotted”. Under Windows, they all look normal. Xojo 20221r2.1. Anyone else seen this issue?

[Michael_Hußmann]

It looks like grid lines under macOS are gone now, i.e. either dead or dying. They still show up in the documentation but in my experience one can no longer make any selection of grid line styles.

[Emile_Schwarz]

BTW: yes, you seems to be right and I do not noticed that !
For some reason, I checked a minute ago and that is why I add this entry…

[Emile_Schwarz]

Now that I am awake, I can say why I do not notices the disappearance of the grid lines:

Not really needed, isn’t it ?

Saved in a html file:

Yes, I will change the background colors, the ones from html are better imho (less colorful / flashy)

[Michael_Hußmann]

I nearly always use alternating colours for the rows to increase readability but grid lines are rarely needed in my experience. Especially dotted lines don‘t look very Mac-like.

[Julia_Truchsess]

Seems that only “thin dotted” lines are unreliable, and it’s true for both vertical and horizontal.

I find alternating colors garish and distracting, and without grid lines delineating them, visually messy, but that’s just me. I’ll probably use conditional compilation to make them all thin solid under MacOS and leave Windows as-is.

[Thomas_Kaltschmidt]

An alternating tint of a color is all you need, thats not so distracting.

[Jared_Feder]

If you want the native colors on macOS you can use color groups to get the native look.

g.DrawingColor = ColorGroup.NamedColor("primaryContentBackgroundColor")
g.DrawingColor = ColorGroup.NamedColor("secondaryContentBackgroundColor")

And for dark mode, you can just do g.ClearRectangle(0, 0, g.Width, g.Height) instead of filling with the primary color so the window tint shows through.

All personal preference though, of course.

[Emile_Schwarz]

That give:

[Michael_Hußmann]

@Emile_Schwarz

That give:

Subtle but effective. The only ‘garish’ colour (to use Julia’s term) is in the title row – that’s a bit hard on the eyes in my view.

[Julia_Truchsess]

There are many occasions where I need to use row coloring to convey information, and adjacent rows may have the same status, in which case lines are useful. (Note the missing vertical lines here, they’re set to “thin dotted”.)

[Emile_Schwarz]

@Michael_Hußmann

The only ‘garish’ colour (to use Julia’s term) is in the title row – that’s a bit hard on the eyes in my view

You are correct, that is Pure Yellow… I could have used lightyellow (the html color) instead.

[Emile_Schwarz]

@Julia_Truchsess

There are many occasions where I need to use row coloring to convey information, and adjacent rows may have the same status, in which case lines are useful

I love these colors ! Light versions (IMHO)