How to change default visual look and feel for different field types?

[iefjud874508dS]

Newbee question - how do I set the default look and feel for different field types? 

For example, if I want all of my textFields to appear with red text, 'sunken box' appearance with underlined text by default, but when set to 'readOnly' access, to change to grey text, 'solid' appearance with bold text by default, where would I make the appropriate settings changes?   I can do all of this programatically, but it would be easier and cleaner to change the default behavior for the PDF.

In a web page, this would be a .CSS file (though I want this info embedded in the PDF file).

Thanks in advance!

[Former Community Member]

You simply drag a text object onto your drawing palette ...set it up th eway you want then drag it back onto the object library (this is what the custom lib tab is for).....a dialog will pop up asking you to name your new object (do not overwrite the default one). Then when you drag that new object onto your drawing palette in the future it will be created in the same state that you left it in.

Note that css  support has been asked for before and is high on the priority list for future releases .....but the current versiosn do not use css.

Hope that helps

Paul

[iefjud874508dS]

Hi Paul,

This is really embarrassing, but I can't find the drawing palette.   I've been through all of the help contents, etc, but I'm just missing it.   I'm in LiveCycle Designer ES 8.2.1.  It sounds like this is a traditional drawing component for lines and rectangles, etc.   What am I missing?

Related to that, I'm actually trying to change the way a text field looks when it is in a 'readOnly' mode, not the default mode (which I can configure in the properties).   I was trying to eliminate touching every field by code to do it.  Specifically, in 'open' access, I'm using the solid box, and in 'readOnly' it is supposed to change to nothing (no border, no fill), though I might be able to get by with 'underlined', which is a predefined appearance (I'll have to check with the team who specified the set of documents).

Any help is appreciated!

Thanks!

[Former Community Member]

The drawing palette is the area wher you create your forms (you drag and drop an object from the object

library onto the drawing palette).

I misunderstood your question.....there is no means of create a "state" object for future use ....but if you have version 9 you can apply changes at a subform level and all choldren of that subform will inheret that property. So if you change the background color to yellow on the enter event of the subform then all children of that subform will inheret the same commands.

In version 9 there was a checkbox near the language selector than needed to be checked on for this to work (something about propogation) but that has been removed and it happens auto-magically now. Depending on which version of Designer you have you may need to check that box if it is there.

Paul

[iefjud874508dS]

Ah, cool!   Let me see what it costs to update to v 9 from my ES 8.2.   It's not that many months old, so hopefully it isn't too expensive.

Thanks again for the prompt support!