Hello,

I am developing a VB.NET Windows form. I have some textboxes disabled (enabled=false), but the gray background and grey text make it hard to read. Does anyone know how to change the foreground text color for a control (textbox) that is disabled?

Thanks in advance for any comments.

I just looked through the member list for the System.Windows.Forms.Textbox control and saw there is a ForeColor and BackColor property. However, I don't think you will be able to change the affects that setting it to disable causes. In old VB I think there was some property like "Editable" but I don't see anything like that in the .Net docs. Perhaps there's another way too "disable" the button without using the enable property. Maybe you can handle the "GotFocus" event of that control and set the focus to another control so that a user can never access it. Dirty but affective. :)

Peter

Peter,

Thanks for your thoughts. I think what I am going to do is use the READONLY property. It actually seems to behave similarly to the ENABLED property in that it grays the background and doesn't allow editing. It has a different foreground color, though, which is more readable.

I am still curious as to how you set the disabled control color, however, so if someone knows please share.

Thanks,

Hubman

It's a bit weird how the Textbox behaves. When it is disabled, you can change its BackColor. but not its ForeColor:

TextBox1.Enabled = False
TextBox1.BackColor = Color.White

This will cause the BackGround to be white, but with a Grey text in it (on my Color Scheme).

Cheers,

Imar


---------------------------------------
Imar Spaanjaars
Everyone is unique, except for me.

Hubman:

Instead of disabling a control, I change its background and/or foreground colours and keep it enabled.

Well, that would miss the entire point, wouldn't it? The initial idea was to disable it.... ;)

Imar


---------------------------------------
Imar Spaanjaars
Everyone is unique, except for me.

If you set the ReadOnly property in the properties window to true the backcolor will grey out and the forecolor will go to Black. I tried changing just the forecolor of my textbox and was unable to do so. However, if you change the backcolor first then change the forecolor it will work and the text will change color.

Note: I used System.Drawing.Color.Gray and .LightGray for the back color but neither matches the original greyed out color of the textbox. I then tried setting backcolor to System.Drawing.SystemColor.Control (the default color for most controls) and then set the .Forecolor to another color, System.Drawing.Color.Red and it worked. It may have just been my darn eyes but there seemed to be a very very slight difference in the hue of the changed box and a textbox where ReadOnly was set to true and the colors unchanged. Could be me though.

I hope this helps and good luck

Risu

why not "replace" the textbox (or combo, datetimepicker etc.) field with labels if you want to disable them. Labels are not editable. Label colors can be adapted. Just place a label over the control you want to disable and hide the control. For enabling hide the label and show the control.

Here is a code snippet:
*** for disabling ***

Private Sub Disable_Control(ByVal ControlObject As Control)
    Try
      Dim iCnt As Integer
      Dim oEditLabel As Control

      'Check if editlabel doesn't yet exist
      For iCnt = 0 To Me.Controls.Count - 1
        If Me.Controls(iCnt).Name = "elbl" & ControlObject.Name Then
          'editlabel already exists
          ControlObject.Visible = False
          Me.Controls(iCnt).Text = ControlObject.Text
          Me.Controls(iCnt).Visible = True
          Exit For
        ElseIf iCnt = Me.Controls.Count - 1 Then
          'editlabel doesn't yet exist
          Dim oLabel As New Label()
          oLabel.Width = ControlObject.Width
          oLabel.Height = ControlObject.Height
          oLabel.Location = ControlObject.Location
          oLabel.Name = "elbl" & ControlObject.Name
          oLabel.Text = ControlObject.Text
          ControlObject.Visible = False
          Me.Controls.Add(oLabel)
        End If
      Next
    Catch ex As Exception
      MsgBox(ex.ToString)
    End Try
  End Sub 'Disable_Control

*** for enabling ***

 Private Sub Enable_Control(ByVal ControlObject As Control)
    Try
      Dim oEditLabel As Control

      For Each oEditLabel In Me.Controls
        If TypeOf (oEditLabel) Is Label Then
          If oEditLabel.Name = "elbl" & ControlObject.Name Then
            'found representing editlabel
            oEditLabel.Visible = False
            ControlObject.Visible = True
            Exit For
          End If
        End If
      Next
    Catch ex As Exception
      MsgBox(ex.ToString)
    End Try
  End Sub 'Enable_Control

Hope this will be usefull for anyone!

Nyree

Seems like a lot of code to do something so easy. Seems to me you would want to use the least amount of code as possible for efficiency reasons. Just use:

textbox1.BackColor = System.Drawing.SystemColors.Control

like risu said above. It works fine.

Rekless

Very funny Scotty, now beam down my clothes...

Why not just using the Locked attribute of the textbox control (setting it to true) and keeping the Enabled attribute set to true? That seems to work fine with VB6: User is not able to change contents of textbox control and foreground color remains the same.

Wilko