Preview your CSS directly in the form editor!

In 4D v18 R5, you can preview the final CSS rendering in the form editor WITHOUT running your dialog. Yes, you heard that right. Standardizing and reviving your forms has never been easier!

If you haven’t yet heard about CSS in 4D, now’s the perfect time to learn more! Introduced in 4D v18 for project applications, this concept includes enhanced and quick style sheets based on CSS. I recommend taking a look at this blog post.

Look and feel

A new button is available in the toolbar, allowing you to view your form with or without the CSS applied on macOS or Windows.

Plain view

CSS view

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Property overridden or not?

In CSS preview, a CSS icon is displayed to the left of the property if the property is overridden by a CSS value. In the following example, the following two properties in the Property List are overridden by a CSS value:

  • Fill Color –>  fill 
  • Line Color –> stroke 

 

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For more details, check out the documentation.

Display on both platforms

If you were using style sheets in your binary applications, during the conversion to a project, two files were generated, one for Windows and one for macOS.

Now in the form editor, you can visualize the size and the position of the text for both platforms!

We take votes very seriously

Before leaving you to beautify your applications, I want to add one more thing: this feature was not only the highest voted feature request, but the “fastest voted to the top feature” ever in our feature request forum. Requested when we started beta testing for 4D v18 R4 … now available in 4D v18 R5!

Tell us about your needs and use your votes!

Vanessa Talbot
• Product Owner •Vanessa Talbot joined 4D Program team in June, 2014. As a Product Owner, she is in charge of writing the user stories then translating it to functional specifications. Her role is also to make sure that the feature implementation delivered is meeting the customer need.Since her arrival, she has worked to define key features in 4D. She has worked on most of preemptive multi-threading new features and also on a very complex subject: the new architecture for engined application. Vanessa has a degree from Telecom Saint-Etienne. She began her career at the Criminal Research Institute as a developer for the audiovisual department. She has also worked in media and medical fields as expert in technical support, production as well as documenting new features.