Configuring UI Appearance with UI Themes
DPE allows configuring UI Appearances and UI Themes / UI Schemes through parameter configuration.
Both UI Schemes and UI Themes mean the same thing. Term UI Schemes is used from the perspective of parameters configuration where as, UI Themes is used from the perspective of normal user. Configured UI Schemes will be displayed as Themes in the User Menu dropdown.
About UI Schemes
All color and other UI appearance parameters are bundled in so-called UI Schemes.
UI schemes are only configurable from Administrators via Parameters described below and cannot be changed within DPE user interface.
The concept and many parameter names are identical with DBM UI Schemes.
Creating a UI Scheme
The Default and Dark UI Scheme configuration is available as Common_UISchemes.PAR in the PAR_examples folder of the delivered DPE software package which can be adapted to create custom UI schemes.
UI Schemes can be configured at following levels:
| Level | Place | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | |Common|UISchemes|<NameOfScheme>| | Global Scheme parameters, which are shared across various DAVID products to achieve consistent UI appearances. This folder supports only select parameters, like Color_Symbol_Class_<ClassName> |
| 2 | |Common|DPEUISchemes|<NameOfScheme>| | DPE Scheme parameters, which are applicable to DPE web-application range. DPE level Scheme parameters take precedence over Common|UISchemes |
| 3 | |<appName>|UISchemes|<NameOfScheme>| | Application specific Scheme parameters, for allowing applications to have their custom styles if required. Application level Scheme parameters take precedence over both Common|DPEUISchemes and Common|UISchemes |
Using a UI schemes
Once UI Schemes are created, next step is to make these schemes available for users to select.
Following parameters located in |Common|DPEUISchemes| allow to configure which schemes are available for a user and which one is current.
| Parameter Key | Description |
|---|---|
| UISchemes_available | Defines a list of available UI Schemes, which are provided as drop-down option in the User Menu. The key contains '|' separated list of entries where each entry is the name of an UI scheme folder (a subfolder to DPEUISchemes\...) and an optional value to be displayed in the menu (as text). Example: UIScheme_HighContrast=High Contrast | UIScheme_Monochrome In this example, the drop-down will show two options "High Contrast" and "UIScheme_Monochrome". |
| UIScheme_current | Defines the currently active UI Scheme (user option) |
UI Scheme Parameters
Each UI Scheme is composed of several configuration parameter keys known as UI Scheme parameters. These parameters store color values e.g.
To disable a UI Scheme parameter, simply add an "_" infront e.g. in above configuration parameter "_color_topmenu_hover" is disabled.
To understand which UI Scheme parameter is responsible for changing which part of DPE see UI Theme Configuration in DPE.
Parameter Location Priority
Each parameter inside a scheme is read from different locations following this priority:
- First from user, then local, then global.
- If not found in these folder below |<appName>|UISchemes|<NameOfScheme>|,
- then they are looked up in folder below |Common|DPEUISchemes|<NameOfScheme>|,
- then they are looked up in folder below |Common|UISchemes|<NameOfScheme>|, again applying the same location priority (user, local, global).