# Read-only inputs

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/read-only-inputs/57609>\
**Category:** Ignition\
**Tags:** perspective\
**Created:** [March 24, 2022, 6:57pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/read-only-inputs/57609 "2022-03-24T18:57:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![gdube](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/gdube/32/41701_2.png) [@gdube](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/gdube)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2022, 6:57pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/read-only-inputs/57609/1 "2022-03-24T18:57:59Z")

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Has anyone found a nice way to set Perspective inputs (textfields, etc.) read-only, like we can in Vision (Behavior \> Editable)?

My workaround is to use the `enabled` property, but it displays a red stop cursor and and the background color is way too dark. And I didn’t find a way to set the css attribute `readonly` (impossible?) on them either, and it doesn’t seem to be settable via css classes.

I think there’s a nice semantic distinction between read-only and enabled, it would be cool if we had it in Perspective too.

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**Author:** ![cmallonee](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/cmallonee/32/6416_2.png) [@cmallonee](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/cmallonee)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2022, 7:48pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/read-only-inputs/57609/2 "2022-03-24T19:48:55Z")

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You can modify the appearance of disabled components by way of theming your project.

I obviously don’t know how your project is used or what expectations are where it will be used, but as a user I find read-only inputs to be one of the worst things ever. The only applicable usage I can think of is restricting permissions - at which point the cursor makes sense. I never recommend read-only inputs (outside of boolean representations being displayed by disabled toggle switches or checkboxes), and always instead recommend using whichever applicable display component makes the most sense.

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**Author:** ![gdube](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/gdube/32/41701_2.png) [@gdube](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/gdube)\
**Post date:** [March 29, 2022, 1:31pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/read-only-inputs/57609/3 "2022-03-29T13:31:15Z")

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Hi, thank you for the feedback.  
The thing is I’m creating a lot of forms for Q.A techs to input quality data in different contexts, and instead of re-creating all of those forms with labels only, I’d like to set inputs as read-only when the forms are filled in & saved, for reviewing later.

I’ll modify a theme to make the disabled states less dark, thanks again.

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**Author:** ![victordcq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f6c823/32.png) [@victordcq](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/victordcq)\
**Post date:** [March 29, 2022, 2:00pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/read-only-inputs/57609/4 "2022-03-29T14:00:03Z")

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> [@gdube](#):
>
> modify a theme

Do not modify themes, create a new one that imports the theme and override the css. If you modify the default css files they will get reverted on an ignition update