I've run into what I believe is a genuine inconsistency in how modern controls handle DisplayMode.View, and I'd like to know if others have observed the same behavior.
The setup:
Both a modern Text Input and a modern Dropdown control, configured with the same Appearance property (e.g. Appearance.Outline or Appearance.Filled), placed side by side in a Canvas App.
Expected behavior (both controls):
When switching to DisplayMode.View, the control should become non-interactive (read-only) while retaining its visual appearance as defined by the Appearance property. This is the whole point of View mode — it's explicitly not Disabled mode.
Actual behavior:
- Text Input — Behaves correctly. Switches to read-only, retains its visual style. The
Appearance property continues to take effect. No gray-out.
- Dropdown — Switches to a gray, visually "disabled-looking" state, regardless of what
Appearance is set to. The Appearance property has zero effect on the visual output in View mode. The control looks exactly like DisplayMode.Disabled, even though it isn't.
Why this matters:
If you're building a form where you want to visually communicate "this field is read-only but still part of the active UI" (e.g. auto-populated fields in a multi-step form), the TextInput and Dropdown behave completely differently — which makes it impossible to achieve a consistent look using Appearance alone. You'd have to resort to workarounds like replacing the Dropdown with a Label in View mode, which adds significant complexity.
What I believe is the correct behavior:
DisplayMode.View should only suppress interactivity. Visual styling should remain fully under the maker's control via the Appearance property — just like TextInput already does. The Dropdown's View mode behavior looks like it's accidentally inheriting Disabled-state styling.
Interestingly, Microsoft's February 2026 quality update blog post mentions that the Radio control received a fix specifically so that DisplayMode.View renders as read-only rather than disabled — which suggests this exact distinction is a known issue category, but the Dropdown hasn't received the same treatment yet.
Has anyone else observed this? Is there a workaround beyond swapping the control out entirely? And does anyone know if this has been filed as a bug with Microsoft?
Happy to provide a minimal repro if helpful.
