If you specify colors for a frame-level widget, but not its field-level widgets, the field-level widgets inherit the colors of the containing frame, by default. ABL provides widget attributes and options that allow you to override this default color inheritance for the following field-level widgets: BROWSE, COMBO-BOX (all types), EDITOR, FILL-IN (NATIVE and Enabled), and SELECTION-LIST.

You can use the INHERIT-FGCOLOR and INHERIT-BGCOLOR attributes to control whether the field-level widgets listed above inherit the foreground and background colors of their containing frame. Setting these attributes to TRUE allows these field-level widgets to inherit the foreground and background colors of their containing frame. Setting these attributes to FALSE prevents these field-level widgets from inheriting the foreground and background colors of their containing frame. You can also set these attributes on the SESSION system handle to specify the foreground and background color inheritance for all frame-level widgets created in the session.

When defining static frame-level widgets, you can control foreground and background color inheritance on a frame-by-frame basis by specifying the following options on the Frame phrase: