This page is for data modellers or application developers who want to apply special formatting to data that meets specific criteria.

Overview

A formatting rule allows you to specify an expression which evaluated can apply the selected style to the parent object. It allows to apply styles conditionally, depending on current values displayed on the screen.

A formatting rule can be applied to a view attribute or to a component. If you apply a formatting rule to a template, all components created from the template will have a copy of the formatting rule applied.

Basic Settings

Example

For the Status Type attribute in a view, set the properties to:

Properties

For the Status Type attribute in a view, set the properties to:

• Rule Expression:
  • either    _field.value == "OK"
  • or   _current.StatusSummary=="Validation Passed"
• Style: BackgroundColour-LightGreen
• Enabled: 

  Insert excerpt
  _check_box_tick _check_box_tick nopanel true

_field.value == "OK" identifies the status type of OK and highlights the cell

_current.StatusSummary=="Validation Passed" identifies the status summary of Validation Passed and then highlights the corresponding status type cell.

Resulting View

This displays the OK field with a green background.

Image Modified

Formatting Rule Expressions

Variables

In formatting rules, you can use the following Internal Variables.

• To determine the maximised state of a screen, use _screen. In a formatting rule, use the state of this variable to set the button icon. This means the button can match the current maximised state of the

• screen.
• To act on a specific record, use: _form, _grid and _current. The record depends on the structure of components on the screen, as shown in the following table.

Functions

For quick changes to screen appearance, you want formatting rules to be evaluated quickly. To ensure a quick response, only use the attribute functions that are evaluated by the client rather than the server; see the list of Responsive Attribute Functions.