Forum

Hello,

I want to modify the skin for a software we are building with prof-uis. I understand the general process of modifying the aqua.xml file and the image bank that comes with it to get what we want.

Im a graphic designer, so I might not get the technical terms right... try to understand me :)

My first question would be: Are all the SkinItem that I can play with listed in the aqua.xml?

For example: I want to modify the look of the zone where we drop column header for grouping. I have found a SkinItem named "ReportGroupAreaItem", so I tried to add a SkinItem named "ReportGroupArea". It seemed logical to me, but it did not "picked up". So my guess is either I got the SkinItem name wrong or this zone did not get a SkinItem name at all.

My second question is: I wouldn’t want to flood this forum with every SkinItem I am looking for... So would there be a way for me to identify the "pieces" of the interface and what SkinItem name it has? A sort of Inspect CSS feature like in Firebug?

I have read on other thread that you do not/cannot have a skin editor, but this would help a lot so we do not have to work in the dark and might be easier to make than a skin editor?

Finally, Could you add the Grid in the skinable sample? It would greatly help visualize a more complete results of the effect of a skin.

Thank you!

We made the skinning subsystem improvements in the latest Prof-UIS 2.87 pre-release version. The serial version history numbers of the latest Prof-UIS versions are: 2.84, 2.85, 2.87. All these versions are very friendly to each other. You can compile your apps with any of them and it will be 100% compatible with newer and older versions. We can provide you with the 2.87 download if you drop us an e-mail to the support mail box at this web site.

Out of curiosity, are you able to tell me when the official release is planned to be released? If it is anytime soon, I think we would prefer to use an official release. Thank you

We hope to release Prof-UIS 2.87 this month.

We are sorry for the delay with this answer. We implemented a skinned version of the group area part of the report grid control. Here is the ZIP file with the updated skins and compiled versions of the ReportGrid sample application which load the Black Diamond and Aqua skins initially:

http://www.prof-uis.com/download/forums/tmp/TestThemedReportGridGroupArea.zip

The new /Background/ReportGroupArea/Background XML item defines background image for the group area. It’s referred to the ...\BlackDiamond\Background\ReportGroupAreaBackground.png and ...\Aqua\Background\ReportGroupAreaBackground.png images in skin files. The /Grid/ReportEmptyMessageColor XML item defines text color of the message displayed in the group area when there are no columns dropped into it. We made the group area using colors which are somewhere between the default looking background and color of sea surface.

The ReportGrid sample project can be converted into skinnable by your developers. They just need to uncomment two groups of lines. One is in the StdAfx.h file:

//#if (!defined __PROF_SKIN_H)
//    #include <../ProfSkin/ProfSkin.h>
//#endif // (!defined __PROF_SKIN_H)

Second is in the CMainFrame::CMainFrame() constructor in the MainFrm.cpp file:

//                             CExtPaintManagerSkin * pPM = new CExtPaintManagerSkin;
//                            bool bLoaded = true;
//                            if( ! pPM->m_Skin.Load( _T("..\\..\\Skins\\XML\\Aqua.XML") ) )
//    //                      if( ! pPM->m_Skin.Load( _T("..\\..\\Skins\\XML\\BlackDiamond.xml") ) )
//                            {
//                                  bLoaded = false;
//                                  ::AfxMessageBox( _T("Failed to load initial skin.") );
//                                  delete pPM;
//                            }
//                            if( bLoaded )
//                                  g_PaintManager.InstallPaintManager( pPM );

But first of all you need a newer version of Prof-UIS library, ProfSkin library and sample projects. You can drop us an e-mail to the support mail box at this web site with your license information and we will provide your developers with the FTP download of the latest Prof-UIS source code.

The HelpNotes sample application demonstrates how to show the rich editor windows instead of default Prof-UIS tooltips over toolbar buttons and menu items. The rich editor window is the standard component of Windows. The WordPad application distributed with Windows uses the rich editor window for editing .doc and .rtf files. The HelpNotes sample application displays read-only rich editor windows instead of tooltips. This rich tooltip component is implemented as part of the HelpNotes sample application - it’s not part of Prof-UIS and Prof-UIS simply doesn’t know how to skin it. Please provide us with more details about how would you like to skin these rich tooltips.

Is the version2.84 new enough to make the Group Area of the Report Grid skinnable? Because I have been told that we do not want to switch the version we are using to avoid regression issues with our softwares.

Thank you

Thank you for the quick answer. For now I would only need the code to be able to add the XML node to the Group Area of the Report Grid so I can modify its text style and its background.

Would it be possible to add skinning capabilities to the HelpNotes feature, ie to skin the box in which the RTF appears in? If yes, I would appreciate the code for that item too.

Thank you very much

The Prof-UIS skin is very similar to CSS in HTML. The XML file describes painting rules - not exactly defined look of each UI element. We used XML because it has tree like structure. Each UI element has its leaf node in XML. If this node does not contain enough information about how to paint an UI element then this information is searched in parent nodes. The CSS styles are using the same inheritance of one style from other. Most of UI components in Prof-UIS are skinned and have their nodes in XML skin. The ribbon bar, for instance, is not skinned yet. Some of UI elements does not have XML nodes yet and they painted using default skinned dialog window background. The group area of report grid control is such element. We can add the stand-alone skinning rule for it in the XML file and provide you company with the source code update.

We edited XML skins using Visual Studio .NET because it provides colorized XML editor with automatic text indent formatting and the Document Outline window displays tree structure of edited XML file. The Document Outline window helped us to identify what is where in the XML skin file. We can compile some of our grid samples and make them initially loading XML skin. This will let you to see how the grids are skinned. Please provide us with the full requirements list for this moment.

oops... did not reply to the right block of text... here is my reply :

Thank you for the quick answer. For now I would only need the code to be able to add the XML node to the Group Area of the Report Grid so I can modify its text style and its background.

Would it be possible to add skinning capabilities to the HelpNotes feature, ie to skin the box in which the RTF appears in? If yes, I would appreciate the code for that item too.

Thank you very much