Flexibility and simplicity coupled with advanced input features
The Innovasys PropertiesList control natively supports the capture of both standard text / numeric values and more complex data items such as Color, Font, File names, Pictures. Custom property types such as RTF or HTML can also be seamlessly supported, saving you valuable coding time and effort and providing an intuitive way for your users to input and manipulate a set of related values.
A wide range of properties are provided to allow you to tailor the look, feel and behaviour of the PropertiesList to suit your particular requirement and User Interface design.
The PropertiesList control is as easy for customers to use as it is for the developer to configure and code with - don't take our word for it, try if for yourself.
Practical and comprehensive object model based design
The PropertiesList control presents a full logical object model (including PropertiesList, PropertyItem, ListItem, ImageItem, Page, ToolItem, ColumnHeader objects and related collections) that allow simple manipulation and configuration of the control at runtime.
List configuration can easily be defined at design time using a comprehensive set of property pages or the provided stand-alone designer. Properties layouts and List layouts can be loaded and saved to disk at run time.
Full ownerdraw capabilities
The capabilities of the PropertiesList can be extended by you through use of the DrawItem event and related Canvas object. The Canvas provides an easy to use programming interface for implementing your own custom items.
Using the LanguageStrings class, you can also override many of the default English language strings with your own localized versions.
Data Access
You can bind a PropertiesList control to any ADO data source in two ways, to either populate the contents of dropdown lists, or as this screen shot shows, the PropertyItems collection itself. And with integrated browsing features which can be enabled or disabled as required, and the ability to add and delete records.
Checkboxes and Radio Buttons
Each PropertyItem can display either a Checkbox or Radio Button, in checked, unchecked and greyed styles. You can even assign the checkboxes their own tooltips independently of the reset of the item row.
Dynamic Population
You can populate the PropertyItems collection from the properties of other objects and controls, or even link the PropertiesList to these objects so that when the properties are set in the PropertiesList, the appropriate properties are updated in the attached object.
Full demonstration and on-line help
The control setup package comes complete with a full context sensitive online help file, a set of sample list layouts and a detailed demonstration projects.
Property Styles
- Color Picker - PropertiesList contains a fully integrated drop down Color picker control (this control is also available separately - see the Color Picker Control page). Clicking 'More Colors' shows a standard Color requester dialog. Although not shown in the screenshot, you can also display an "Automatic" button and change it's caption text.
- Custom - Providing a button allows you to display custom dialogs in order to edit your own proprietary item types. You can also use the button property type for About boxes or to display help (for example).
- Drop down list - Providing standard drop down combo type functionality, you are sure to want to use the drop down list property type. Cycling through the list by double clicking (as in Visual Studio) is supported, double right clicking will cycle backwards. You can specify the maximum number of items to display in the list, or assign a picture to each item. You can also customize other attributes such as colors and formatting, and even assign a tooltip to each item.
- Date - The date property type provides an integrated date picker, making it easier than ever for your users to input and manipulate date information. Date display format is fully configurable to suit your preferences / locale.
- Font and Font List - Provides a hassle free way to implement font picking functionality. If you only need to pick a font name, then the font list style will appeal.
- Picture - The picture style provides an integrated viewer, and displays a preview of images when browsing files. It even has a complete graphics editor for small images.
- Number - The number style allows you to enter numbers, or you can display a spin button
Other property styles
- String default free text field. You can also display a popup text editor with more advanced features, limit the number of characters which can be entered and limit the actual characters which can be entered.
- Boolean standard True or False dropdown. You can override the labels with you content, or example Yes and No or On and Off etc, or display a checkbox instead of a dropdown list
- File handles the windows file requesters to provide the familiar way to capture a filename from the user
- Folder provides similar functionality to the File property type, but displaying an integrated folder browse dialog box instead of a file dialog.
Designers
All PropertiesList features can be configured at both design time and runtime. PropertiesList also comes with several stand alone design tools for creating and maintaining PropertyItem collections and LanguageString files.
And More...
PropertiesList has lots more to offer, such as filtered PropertyItems, expandable and collapsible items, integrated toolbars and tab strips, event hooking, ability to attach WinHelp and HTML Help topics to PropertyItems, drag items around to reorder the list, or even from one control to another, and much more.