Tuesday, April 7, 2015
Data Fields: Hiding the Lookup Details Arrow

Lookup data fields in forms will automatically show a lookup details arrow button to the far right of the field. The screenshot below shows the lookup details arrow for the Customer Company Name field of the Orders controller in the sample Northwind web app.

The Orders page showing the lookup details arrow next to the Customer Company Name field.

Clicking the arrow will allow the user to directly access the lookup record.

The customer record has been opened.

Sometimes, it may be necessary to prevent the user from accessing the lookup record.

Start the Project Designer. In the Project Explorer, switch to the Controllers tab and double click on Orders / Views / editForm1 / CustomerID data field node.

The CustomerID field of the Orders controller.

Append the following tag to the Tags property.

Property Value
Tags lookup-details-hidden

Press OK to save the data field. On the toolbar, press Browse to regenerate the app.

When the app opens in the browser, navigate to the Orders page and select a record. Note that the lookup details arrow next to the Customer Company Name field is now hidden.

The lookup details arrow next to Customer Company Name field is no longer displayed.