openList property on a drop down menu

[cyan_studios]

I have a drop down list with a ton of selection options. What I've found to help with this problem is that I can set the "Allow custom text entry" to true.



Then, if the user clicks on the drop arrow to bring up the selection list, then starts typing custom text, the form will start matching the string to available choices. This is awesome, except that this list needs to be open.



Ok, so the following code seems to work:



xfa.host.openList("dropdownlistname");



but only on the "mouseEnter" event. It does not work on the "enter" event. I see that there were changes to the behavior of the drop down list's "enter" event when LCD 7 came around, but reverting to the behavior of 6 didn't help either.

What's up?

[foleyb77]

what do you mean that the list needs to be open?

[cyan_studios]

On a drop down list, when you click the arrow pointing down to bring up the available selections, that's the "openList" function.



I'm trying to trigger that on mouse entry also.

[Former Community Member]

Can't do that .... the opening of the list is triggered on the click of that down arrow. That is the way the Dropdown widgit works.

[cyan_studios]

It works on the mouseover. If you'd like to see the form, I can send it to you, but the mouseEnter event works with the openList function. If it works with mouseEnter, there must be some fundamental difference between the mouseEnter event and the Enter event aside from triggers.

[cyan_studios]

Here is an example of the mouseenter event working but not the enter event.



http://www.hpeinc.com/downloads/ddltest.pdf

[Former Community Member]

If I point to another DD on the enter event it works. My guess is once the field has focus you cannot openlist unless you click the drop arrow. I will verify and let you know.

[cyan_studios]

Yeah, for the meantime, what I've done is placed a button with no visible properties (no border, text, nor fill) and placed it over the drop down. When you click it, it hides the button, opens the list, then sets focus on the drop down.



The exit event of the drop down turns the button back to visible. Seems to work great for now. I'm hoping it doesn't have to be such a hack in the end.



But it's something for now.

[Former Community Member]

Just found out that it is a bug and has been fixed for a future release.