Make clickable grid lookups configurable

I agree with Peter in this. The cell becoming a clickable action that makes the popup happen hinders features as selecting text or double clicking. You have to target a very specific area to circumvent this.

In our situation a quickfix by adding an extended property to disable link lookups in non edit mode would suffice.

I do think the suggestion by Peter makes more sense to have this a subject setting as the lookup does not always make sense in the grid, but still is useful in the form.

Maybe go even one step further and make it also configurable which reference to use for the clickable link so it can deviate from the edit-mode lookup. 

Context: edit-mode lookup points to a view which was created just to limit the options the user can choose from. But when clicking on the link in the grid, the user expects to open the master data record (instead of the view).

For example an order-line in which you can only select a product that meats certain criteria which are handled in a view for the lookup. But when the user clicks on the product in the grid, he expects/wants to open the product record itself.

​@PeterKeeris ​@Mark_Plaggenborg We already have the Domain setting 'Show action button’ where you can opt for the option 'When editable'. This will then be applied to both Grid and Form and ensures a Lookup value is not clickable in Read mode of the Grid/Form or specific Column setting.

That seems to suffice for the case of ​@Mark_Plaggenborg. But ​@PeterKeeris, do I understand you correctly that you would want to suppress the Lookup hyperlink specifically for Grid (but not for Form) in Read mode?

​@PeterKeeris Your additional, more complicated, case is interesting, but I don't see us adding that support soon (if ever). I'd suggest in such cases you could go for the double-click task on that particular column to then open the Product record itself.

​@Arie V Thank you for pointing to the domain setting as this one had disappeared from my memory. For a few cases this might indeed help.

I do however still prefer the option to disable the lookup method for grid only, as this makes the whole text a link, which is getting in the way of other abilities. In the form we have this little icon at the back, so you can still target the text without issues.

For now we will disable the popup lookup on most screens as a lot is done with grid in non edit mode. All Create/Update screens have found place as a separate view or are a task, so we might be able to limit the fields we actually do need the popup enabled.

For me it is fine if both grid and form suppress the lookup hyperlink, I only want to differentiate between edit-mode and non-edit-mode.

I didn’t know this could be done with the ‘show action button’ setting on the domain, but I’d argue that should only be the default value which should still be configurable at the column level. You might want the same lookup source to be clickable from one table but not from another, which would currently mean you’d have to duplicate the domain just to differentiate this setting. 

For the additional idea, creating a double click task changes the user interaction, so it will be inconsequent which is not desirable. How about a new option for tasks to start as a single-click task (with a mandatory column to click on)? The GUI could style the column in the grid the same way as it currently does for clickable lookups (and if there would be a conflict when the task is enabled as single-click on a cell which also has a clickable lookup, the task should always take priority). There is an idea open for this already: Single Click - Table Task | Thinkwise Community

Additionally: could ‘Show action button’ be empty when creating a new domain so developers are forced to make a choice? Or make the default value for this field configurable.

After some testing, we came to the conclusion that we want to turn off the clickable lookups in most cases and only enable it in specific situations. So we would prefer the feature of clickable links to become opt-in rather than opt-out.

In addition to my earlier suggestions on how to influence the behavior using the ‘Show action button’ setting I’d like to highlight 2 more things:

• We’re considering if and how we want to support the ability to suppress the Lookup pop-up on Non-editable Grid specifically, this might require a Model change. At the same time, we do see a lot of added value of working from a (non-editable) Grid in combination with Modal/Pop-up/Floating documents/New tabs as it is often a lot more intuitive than having to navigate through a lot of tabs! 
• If you wish to suppress the pop-up on Grid, you can als opt for using the following Custom CSS. Note that it won't remove the actual styling but it will prevent the popup from opening.

  .tsf-grid-cell .hyperlink-lookup {
    pointer-events: none;
  }

With a few more lines of css you can also reset the styling:
 

.tsf-grid-cell .hyperlink-lookup {
    pointer-events: none;
    cursor: default;
    text-decoration: none;
    color: inherit !important;
}

This is what we deployed to be able to implement the new Universal versions as the grid lookup hyperlinks where not acceptable by our business.

​@Arie V Just to note that I am not against the method of having an option to make a popup of a lookup possible on a non-editable grid, it is the method chosen that gets in the way. The text is now a hyperlink that activates as soon as you single click it, making selection of a text more difficult, unless you make an effort to target the cell, but not be close enough to activate the hyperlink. The same issue for double click tasks.

I unfortunately have no suggestion for a better method, but a less “in the way” method would be welcome and probably workable for our users. In the current state they are not accepting the change, so we are disabling it completely.

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

We’ll most likely cover the ability to do a Single-click task as part of this Idea, I’ll merge the Idea you referred to into that one too:

We acknowledge that our implementation of clickable hyperlinks on non-edit mode Grids was too intrusive and have considered multiple alternatives before deciding a solution. We will implement a fix with Universal GUI release 2025.3.11, for which the beta will be released coming Monday.

The fix is that you can only click the Lookup hyperlink on the selected row, meaning you’ll need 2 clicks if you wish to open a Lookup on another record. Benefits:

• Lookups are still easily available for users on a non-editable grid, but we believe it is no longer too intrusive
• It doesn’t require a model change

Let us know what you think after you have tried it out! See below gif for a first indication:

As a bit of background:

Before Platform Release 2025.1 and the introduction of the Action bar, it was possible to select a Lookup value on a non-edit mode Grid > open the Overflow menu > click ‘Show lookup’. This meant 3 clicks and a super un-intuitive way of opening the Lookup, which proved to be rarely used by our users.

We know that it was rarely used, as with the introduction of the Action bar we deliberately decided not to re-implement this button. The hyperlink was meant to replace that button soon anyway. It took a little while longer than anticipated to deliver the new hyperlink styling, but during those 6+ months we have never received a ticket or complaint about the missing ‘Show lookup’ button.

Nevertheless, we did want to introduce an easier way of opening Lookups on non-editable Grids, as it’s part of our vision to reduce the need to navigate between screens and tabs and do more with modal popups to provide some quick context for end users where they need it.

​@Arie V The feedback from our side about the new version.

The change requires a user to be too much an expert to circumvent the hyperlink. People wish to target the one record they will work on and having the need for another record to be able to select a part of a text or the whole text is too much of an inconvenience. If your result (with or without filtering) only contains one record, you cannot even avoid it at all.

The double click or even triple click is now not possible as it will enable the popup. So selecting partial word right away or the whole text by this method will be missed.

Regarding the form, I had not realized it myself, is now also a hyperlink and the whole field now acts as such!

Old:
 

New:
 

We do not have forms that much, but they do exists in a few locations.

I have tried to Domain setting “Show action button” = “When editable”, which does wonders for the Grid, but the downside is now that Form is also in this state.

In conclusion:

We would like to disable the Hyperlink method for Grid, but still keep the option to for a lookup popup in the form with the little icon as reaching the value of the field is very important.

Solution?:

Would the little icon not work for Grid, but only show it for an active row? Still keep it at the end of the cell even if the column would not be long enough for the data.. This suggestion seems to be acceptable by the majority of our users.