The List object creates either a dropdown list or list box form control. A dropdown list only shows one item but can be expanded to show the full list; a list box shows multiple items at once. The image below shows a dropdown list on the left (which has been expanded), and a list box on the right.
Form controls are actual HTML elements floating above the game canvas in the HTML page. Therefore, nothing can be displayed on top of a form control, apart from other form controls.
Form controls position themselves according to the layer parallax, scale and so on. However they are not truly "in the game" (since they float above), so it is recommended to avoid using scrolling, parallax and layer scaling with form controls, otherwise the end result can feel unnatural.
Styling List objects
List form controls can be customised in a huge number of ways via CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Rather than adding actions to set all of the possible properties, the List object exposes a Set CSS style action. Knowing CSS will of course be an advantage here, but it is simple to use for simple properties. A few examples are listed below.
Make the text red: Set "color" to "red"
Make the background yellow: Set "background-color" to "yellow"
Make the border a thick light grey: Set "border" to "3px solid #AAAAAA"
Make the font bigger: Set "font-size" to "2em"
Make a dashed red border: Set "border" to "2px dashed red"
List properties
- Items
- A semicolon-separated list of the initial items to display in the list. For example, One;Two;Three will display three separate choices.
- Tooltip
- A tooltip that appears in most browsers if the user hovers the mouse over the button and waits. Leave blank for no tooltip.
- Initial visibility
- Whether or not the control is initially visible in the layout.
- Enabled
- Whether the control is initially enabled. If No, the control will appear greyed out and the selection cannot be modified.
- Type
- Choose between the List box and Dropdown list control styles. An image displaying the two types is shown above.
- Multi-select
- Allow more than one item to be selected when Type is List box. This has no effect for dropdown lists.
- Auto font size
- Automatically set the font-size property of the element according to the layout and layer scale. This will prevent the font-size CSS property being manually set with the Set CSS style action. Set to No if you intend to use Set CSS style to adjust the font-size property.
- ID (optional)
- An optional id attribute for the element in the DOM (Document Object Model). This can be useful for accessing the element's value from external scripts, or styling with CSS in the HTML page.
List conditions
- Compare item text at
- Compare the text of a given item in the list.
- Compare selected item text
- Compare the text of the currently selected item in the list.
- Compare selection
- Compare the zero-based index of the currently selected item.
- On clicked
- Triggered when the control is clicked.
- On double-clicked
- Triggered when the control is double-clicked.
- On selection changed
- Triggered whenever the chosen selection in the control is changed. This can be by any means of input (such as a mouse click, keyboard press, or touch input on mobile).
List actions
- Set CSS style
- Set a CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) style on the list element. For more information, see the section Styling List objects. Note that if the Auto font size property is set to Yes, any changes to the font-size property will be overridden.
- Add item
- Append a new item to the end of the list of available choices.
- Add item at
- Insert a new item to the list of available choices at a certain zero-based index.
- Clear
- Remove all the available choices from the list.
- Remove
- Delete an item at a specific index.
- Set item text
- Change the text of an item at a specific index.
- Set selection
- Set the item at a specific index as selected.
- Set enabled
- Enable or disable the control. If disabled, it will appear greyed out and the selection cannot be modified.
- Set tooltip
- Set the Tooltip property of the object, displayed by most browsers when hovering the mouse over the control.
- Set focused
- Set unfocused
- Either set or unset the input focus to this control. When focused, keyboard input affects the control.
List expressions
- ItemCount
- The current number of items in the list.
- ItemTextAt
- Return the text of an item at a zero-based index in the list.
- SelectedCount
- The number of currently selected items. This will always be either 0 or 1 unless a list box with Multi-select enabled is used.
- SelectedIndex
- The zero-based index of the currently selected item. For multi-select lists, use SelectedIndexAt instead.
- SelectedIndexAt
- The index of a selected item out of all the selected items. In other words, SelectedIndexAt with numbers 0 to SelectedCount - 1 gives the indices of all the selected items.
- SelectedText
- The text of the currently selected item. For multi-select lists, use SelectedTextAt instead.
- SelectedTextAt
- The text of a selected item out of all the selected items. In other words, SelectedTextAt with numbers 0 to SelectedCount - 1 gives the text of each selected item.