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There are multiple objects in Appian that help us developers to design and build dynamic, fresh, and good-looking interfaces. Sometimes, however, we find the existing components restrictive, preventing us from fully customizing them and building around a specific interface look. This thread, in particular, is about the component BoxLayout, which, after some discussion with our team, has shown a lot of potential to upgrade both functionally and aesthetically.
As shown in the screenshot, we have come up with the idea of adding new parameters to the existing component that we think will allow more detail-focused developers to have full access to the colors and style of the component.
Also, we think it would be interesting to have full control over the margins that affect the component, in order to build around it more easily.
Thanks in advance.
Fran.
Discussion posts and replies are publicly visible
Did you consider to build your specific box layout using nested card layouts? This way you would have more freedom.
If Appian were to address this, I would hope they'd consider updating the "label" parameter to simply the "a!richTextItem()" component (with certain restrictions, like it would probably have to ignore links, linebreaks, bulleted lists, etc, but could honor formatting, style, color and size inputs). The benefit here is that it wouldn't require a whole host of novel named parameters to a!boxLayout() just to handle formatting of the label. Either way, I'm not really holding my breath.
I totally get your frustration with BoxLayout's limitations. We've all been there trying to match specific design requirements only to hit a wall with the preset styles! Adding custom color and margin parameters would be a game-changer, letting us finally build those pixel-perfect interfaces our clients expect without jumping through hoops with workarounds or custom plugins.
Problem with a!richTextItem() is you cannot add the heading attribute which goes against accessibility guidelines. (Something of a bee in my bonnet at the moment)
I don't believe that has anything to do with the implementation I'm suggesting here, which is simply for the BoxLayout label to consume a!richTextItem() to dictate certain aspects of the formatting of the box label.