Softvelocity's Clarion 6.1 provides a huge amount of out of the box capabilities and functionalities.  For example, it is easy for a developer to create customized, stylized browse list boxes.  The rows displayed can have different colors, fonts and even icons to indicate a record meets a developer specified condition.  For example, in a help desk application it is easy to set background colors for rows where a record has a value of "New" in a status field with other colors to indicate other status values.  In some of my own applications written in Clarion I have used colored icons in the first column to indicate a status.  For example, a green icon for a Completed request, red icon for requests with a status of New and so on.  Many of my end users are quite happy with the conditional displays that I have included but then there are some who wanted more control.  Instead of an indicator on a single column they prefer to have several - or all columns - stylized to indicate a status value.  Still others want to set their conditions for changing row appearance.  Suppose instead of using a value of New they want to use a different field value (isn't Nuevo the Spanish word for New?). Or instead of indicating a request is Complete they want to use the word "Solved" and have the conditional coloring apply to rows with that value in the status field.

Now with enough head scratching or newsgroup posts it is entirely possible a developer could use the full power of Clarion to make this kind of end user modification possible.  Why reinvent the wheel if someone has done it for you?  In the case of the scenario I described above, someone has already invented the wheel and it works just fine.

A recent addition to my Clarion Tool Box is the xRuntime Style Manager from Seal-Soft.

The example screen shot to the left shows the end user setting up the condition to evaluate.

This screen shot shows two styles available. 

Implementing the xRuntime Style Manager was a simple matter of adding the global extension to my application and dropping a control template on my browse window.  Ba-da-bing, Ba-da-Boom!  The first customer to use this new feature loved it and I am confident other will, too.

Check out a self running demo of the xRuntime Style Manager - then click on over to Seal Soft and download a demo.  If you decide as I did that this add-on is worth the very reasonable $79 don't forget who brought this fine add-on to your attention! :-)

NOTE:  The demo was created with TurboDemo - which will be featured in an upcoming review!