JADE Environment Development Ideas

It would be useful if alternatingRowBackColor on JadeTableSheet, ListBox, JadeSkinListBox, JadeSkinTable, etc. supported a transparency or luminance mask for tables and lists that contain rows with different backColor values. Currently, alternatingRowBackColor is limited to a single alternate colour per sheet or control, which doesn’t work well when multiple row backColor values are in use.

The desired behaviour is:

• For every N‑th non‑fixed row (e.g. every 2nd row), adjust the brightness of the existing effective backColor (cell/row/column/sheet) to a specified percentage, such as 95%.

• This would respect any backColor already applied to rows or cells and maintain a consistent alternating pattern even when the data is sorted or scrolled.

• Alternation should continue to apply only to visible non‑fixed rows and cells, as per current behaviour.

At present, I am manually implementing this, for example:

if self.callDisplayAlternating then

	rowIndex := pRow - pTable.fixedRows;

	if rowIndex > 0 and rowIndex mod 2 = 0 then

		self.zApplyAlternatingRowColours(backColour);

	endif;

endif;

pTable.accessRow(pRow).backColor := backColour;

zApplyAlternatingRowColours(pColour : Integer io) protected;
vars

	red,

	green,

	blue 	: Integer;

begin

	red := pColour mod 256;

	green := (pColour div 256) mod 256;

	blue := (pColour div 65536) mod 256;



	red := (red * 95) div 100;

	green := (green * 95) div 100;

	blue := (blue * 95) div 100;



	pColour := red + (green * 256) + (blue * 65536);

end;
	

This works in principle but doesn’t automatically respect sort preferences: when the user sorts, the alternating pattern becomes visually inconsistent and I have to redraw the entire table to restore alternation, which is inefficient.

To address this, it would be good to introduce built‑in constants and properties such as:

AlternatingRowType_Colour : 0 (Default, singular colour, every N-th row)
AlternatingRowType_Luminance : 1 (New, masks over existing colours, every N-th row)

table1.accessSheet(1).alternatingRowBackColorCount := 2;
table1.accessSheet(1).alternatingRowBackColorType := AlternatingRowType_Luminance;
table1.accessSheet(1).alternatingRowBackColorLuminancePercent := 95;

In AlternatingRowType_Luminance mode:

• alternatingRowBackColorCount still defines the interval (e.g. 2 for “every second row”), as it does today.

• For each visible non‑fixed row that matches the interval, the renderer would take the effective backColor (honouring cell/row/column overrides) and apply the luminance adjustment specified by alternatingRowBackColorLuminancePercent, at paint time.

• This would preserve existing colour semantics (including explicit backColor values and skin colours) while providing a robust, sort‑aware alternating row effect without requiring manual redraws.