XAF Usability: Highlight focused items in DetailViews

We all agree that DevExpress’ skins are very cool, but you can get even a cooler user interface as well as an enhanced usability for you Windows Forms Applications with a small but effective piece of code that will let you highlight and change background color for every focused item in a DetailView.

OptionsView.HighlightFocusedItem property allows you to get or set whether focused layout items are highlighted according to the current skin. If the HighlightFocusedItem option is set to true, the layout item containing the focused control is painted according to the current skin.

At the same time, you can use Appearance.ControlFocused.BackColor property to override skin’s backcolor and set the one that suits your needs, giving your users a constant visual clue of where keyboard entry is going to, whatever the focused layout item is.

To achieve it, add a new ViewController with its target type set to ViewType.DetailView. Then, in OnActivated event, get the actual DetailView and set OptionsView.HighlightFocusedItem and Appearance.ControlFocused.BackColor properties for the DetailView’s LayoutControl.

public partial class HighlightFocusedItemController : ViewController
{
public HighlightFocusedItemController()
{
InitializeComponent();
RegisterActions(components);
TargetViewType = ViewType.DetailView;
}

protected override void OnActivated()
{
base.OnActivated();

DetailView lDet = View as DetailView;
if (lDet != null)
{
((LayoutControl)(((WinLayoutManager)(lDet.LayoutManager)).Container)).OptionsView.HighlightFocusedItem = true;
((LayoutControl)(((WinLayoutManager)(lDet.LayoutManager)).Container)).Appearance.ControlFocused.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.FromArgb(255, 201, 84);
}
}

protected override void OnDeactivating()
{
base.OnDeactivating();
}
}

Run your application, open any DetailView and see how it looks like. Here you have the screenshots.

Focused item before adding the ViewController


Focused item after adding the ViewController


Keep in mind that OptionsView.HighlightFocusedItem is in effect when a skinning paint scheme is applied and the OptionsView.AllowItemSkining property is set to true.