A couple of questions concerning the (7.6.8) MDE's Form Editor behavior:

1) Does anyone know how to retain a custom color between sessions ? I can setup a custom color, but it is gone the next time I open the Form Editor. This can get to be quite annoying !

2) Is there any way to make a Text Box background color transparent ? Or a way to set it's background color to 'inherit' ?

I have a repeating gradient background, and the text boxes don't look very good sitting on top of it with their solid colors.

Thanks,

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Dave Ayers,

1. I also find it annoying - going back to the screen that has the custom color(s), and copy them into the current custom color(s). Haven't found a way around that, other then to put it in code and copy that into the source.
2. What exactly do you mean with a text box? The standard text box has a default background color, which as far as I can see is transparent. Edit boxes and such other input or select items are not transparent, and cannot be made transparent within the maintain environment. Even outside of maintain it is not quite easy to do. But, if you can do it with a css styling, then you can include that style in the maintain and associate the control with the style.

Hi Dave
I am checking with saving the custom colors inside the MDE. This has been a known limitation for a long time. Maybe we can add it as a new feature. As a solution, might I suggest using a Stylesheet? If the form colors are going to be the same, you could add this as a stylesheet option.

As for the second question, if you leave the BackColor of a Textbox as Default, it SHOULD always pick up the BackColor of the form. If you have a case where this isn't happening, please let me know.

Mark

Dave
I spoke with programming and the answer is, we only store the custom colors that you have assigned to your form / objects. We have no place to store anything on the pallet that was created but not used. What I found worked very nicely was:

1) When you re-enter the MDE, bring up the form with the custom color.
2) Click on the property (ie BackColor) and select Other
3) With the custom color displayed in the color/solid box, click Add to Custom Colors

Not that color is available for the rest of your forms / objects. I AM having trouble adding more than one and will open a project for that.

Finally, you could code the statement:
Form.SetBackColor(r,g,b)
Where Form is the name of your form and r,g and b are the red, green, blue ratios anywhere in your file.

Mark

Mark and GamP,

Thanks, I never really noticed the 'default' background color selection before. (??) But I gave it a try and it worked like a champ !

I'm glad I don't have to use an external style sheet for that since it requires an additional line of code for each object to assign the class. I really wish that was implemented as another control property to make it far more useful.

As to the custom color issue, I get around it somewhat by exporting a 'template' form with my custom colors so they can be used to easily update the color dialog, or just as-is.

But they really should be saved between sessions, and I hope that that becomes a new 'feature' in a future release.

I'm satisfied with the answers, and so will close this question.

Happy Independence Weekend !