Mystery of the colored read-only form field

[Shane J]

I need to figure out how one of my form fields is getting its background color changed dynamically, while still being read-only.

On the Planned Task table, the Number field is read-only and changes to green after a condition is met.

There is a Style record setup:

and as far as i can tell that's the only thing that could be causing the color change.   I've checked Client Scripts and UI Policy and can't find anything that appears to impact this.

That being said, I have another read-only field, Status, that I want to have change color based on its value.   It works fine in the List View.   It doesn't work at all on the form.

I have Style records setup for the available options, Green/Yellow/Red.   I have a Client Script that works fine if the field is NOT read-only:

Script:

function onChange(control, oldValue, newValue, isLoading, isTemplate) {

  /*if (isLoading || newValue == '') {

  return;

  }*/

  // Variables

  var tableName = g_form.getTableName();

  var elementID = gel(tableName + ".status");

  // Change the background color based on status field.

  var ajax = new GlideAjax('ProjectStatusColorHelper');

  ajax.addParam('sysparm_name', 'setStatusColor');

  ajax.addParam('sysparm_value', newValue);

  ajax.getXMLWait();

  var color = ajax.getAnswer();

  elementID.style.backgroundColor = color;

}

How can I get this to work when the field is read-only like Number?

[Shane J]

Hate when I do this, but here's what I ended up doing to get around this issue.   I haven't seen anyone else offer this solution up so...

1. I took off the Read-Only flag on the Dictionary of 'Status'.
2. Created a list_edit ACL which restricts who can modify Status from a list (essentially no one).
3. Created a UI Policy that restricts Status to be read only when the form is viewed.
4. Left my existing Client Script in place

Tada it works, while still basically keeping the Status field read-only in all places.

Glad I spent over an hour on this...

[Bharath40]

That feeling when you fixed your own issue . Glad that it worked .

Thanks,

Bharath.

[Dale Hynes]

I've had a similar issue with Read-Only fields and Styles, found these 2 PRB's that acknowledge the issue/s but do not promise any fix:

PRB638178: Field styles on forms and lists do not behave as expected

https://hi.service-now.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=KB0584393

PRB638484: Value-based field styles applied to forms inconsistently on UI14 and UI15

https://hi.service-now.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=KB0564026

[frankcoates]

I ran into something similar trying to highlight and decorate the Requested for field on SCTASK (request_item.request.requested_for). It is read only because Request Item is read only at dictionary level.

I needed to unset Read Only for the Request Item dictionary entry for the sc_task table.

I created a UI policy to set Request Item AND Requested For fields to be read only sc_task table.

I created an onLoad client script on the sc_task table:

// Get the field name that needs highlighting
var caller = "request_item.request.requested_for";

// Put an icon beside the field
g_form.addDecoration(caller,  "icon-user-selected", "Text beside the field", "color-green");

// Highlight the background of the field
g_form.getDisplayBox(caller).style.backgroundColor = "lightgreen";

// Set the color of the text
g_form.getDisplayBox(caller).style.color = "black";

A great library of icons likely can be found in your instance at /styles/retina_icons/retina_icons.html

Note: You may also need to remove the write ACL for the Request field on sc_req_item and create a UI policy that sets the field read only instead.