Does anyone know if it is possible to apply custom themes to Delphi applications. Example, changing the default colour, font, tab styles, etc. of a whole application (i.e. set of forms) at once. Kind of like css files for webpages.
Change the color and font of most of the vcl controls is relative easy to do, you can iterate over all the controls of a form and then set the propertiesFont and Color for each control. Now to customize the drawing of a VCL control you must owner draw each control your self. Another way is using a skinning library which do this for you, for example try the VCLSkin component which let you skin the entire application with no need for modifications in your VCL controls. Btw the new incoming version of Delphi (XE2) has great changes in this area introducing FireMonkey and VCL Styles.
Devexpress has something like that, ExpressSkins for VCL
Try Alphaskins it is easy and have a lite free version but make the work you want...
Related
I managed to interpret a mmstyles file through a tool called "msstylesEditor" but I can't find where I can modify the values for the background and font color of the context menu.
Also if anyone could link me to some tutorials on how to make theme like those found on DeviantArt i'd be glad ! I couldn't find anything !
Here is how msstylesEditor looks
The background can be changed under Menu -> POPUPBACKGROUND. This is an image (1x1px). You have to export it, change its color, then replace the old image.
You also might want to look at the POPUPBORDER and POPUPITEM parts, in order to fully change the menus appearance. I havent verified where the font color is located, but i guess its the TEXTCOLOR properties
of the just stated parts.
The aim of the tool you linked, is mainly to modify existing themes. The styles on DeviantArt are probably made using a (commercial) tool called "Windows Style Builder".
Im my application I want to implement the feature of when a user click on a button show a Panel which will consist of some user controls. I know In Java I can easily use Jpanel and use setVisible() method to get this done easily. But this is an MFC application. I couldn't find any built or customized component that I can use for my purpose.
I also tried GroupBox. But it is not grouping the components logically.
What would be the best approach for this?
As user1793036 says, start by creating a dialog resource and CDialog derived class for the panel. In the dialog resource properties turn off the Title Bar style. In the code call Create for the dialog and then SetWindowPos to place it where you want it to appear.
MFC is nothing but a thin wrapper over Win32 API for windows and controls. The core Win32 API doesn't provide any feature to group controls in a group-box or panel. One way is to have a window and make that window parent of all required controls. Unfortunately, this isn't easy to do.
I suggest you, since you are learning, to drop the idea. Instead, learn what you can achieve with existing set of features provided by MFC/Win32. With MFC/Win32, you would, mostly need to derive/subclass a class/window to get something fancy (such as colored list-control).
I created a page.i want to change the background of Textbox when theme of emulator is changed to light.The letters cant be visible while changing the themes.is there any solution?
If you use the default TextBox control inside Visual Studio it is fully theme aware. If you have set the colours yourself then you need to perform the theme aware changes in code behind.
For more information, please see the following :-
http://www.developer.nokia.com/Community/Wiki/ThemeawareWindowsPhoneapplication
I assume you are referring to TextBlock rather than TextBox (as the latter automatically has style support).
You should never declare a TextBlock without a Style attribute, such as Style={StaticResource PhoneTextNormalStyle}. A full list of available styles can be found on MSDN: Theme Resources for Windows Phone
Also of relevance is: How to: Apply Theme Resources for Windows Phone
NB: Due to the way Mango was designed, backing into your application after changing themes will not apply the new theme. You will need to restart the application to see the changed theme.
Update
Based on your screenshots, you have two choices:
Reskin ("Edit Template" in Blend) each of the controls that you use to redefine a style in which the various colour-related properties are hardcoded
Use an alternate, lighter, background image when in the white theme in order to improve the contrast. I've blogged about how you can define theme-aware resources (and also mentioned it on other SO questions).
Put simply, you can either submit to the theme or force it to remain the way you want it.
We can set a theme as default to our application.When we log in our application the phone theme will be changed to its suitable theme and when we log out change back to original
here s the link .
I'm joining an Eiffel project that has a horribly outdated GUI design. The GUI is built with EiffelVision2 and the application is Windows platform only.
how can I change the look/design of the widgets, like defining shape and color of scrollbars, buttons, window borders and so on?
thank you!
I think this can be done using manifest file.
For instance, https://svn.eiffel.com/eiffelstudio/trunk/Src/Eiffel/Ace/ec.exe.manifest allows EiffelStudio to have nicer look than default classic theme.
You can check similar question/answers from http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/eiffel_software/message/8791
I apologize, this may sound like it has been asked before, but the answers I found do not seem to work in my case.
Is there a way to set the default powerpoint options (fonts, shapes, colors, fills, thicknesses etc) in the registry options, rather than jumping through hoops (saving a default theme via Slidemaster, which is the current way suggested my MS). I find that each time I manage to set my own default theme to propagate across all newly created PPTX files, Microsoft finds a way to enforce its default themes. The current recommended method of creating a default theme through SlideMaster only seems to work when I do file_new_custom theme, and set that as a default. But it does not seem to work for 'blank presentation', and for creating a new file with *pptx extension outside of PowerPoint. Actually, I would much prefer if the entire theme selection window never appeared, all I need is a blank white screen, with the settings I know and like.
Thank you in advance!
Is there a way to set the default powerpoint options (fonts, shapes, colors, fills, thicknesses etc) in the registry option
No. These are all "presentation-level" defaults, not "application-level". They travel with and can be different for each PPTX file or template/theme file.
What you can do is create your own default presentation, the one you get when you choose new blank presentation. I've got an article about this on the PPT FAQ site I maintain:
Create a default "blank" presentation with your own defaults
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00245_Create_a_default_-blank-_presentation_with_your_own_defaults.htm
You'll also want to read this:
Set default text and drawing shape styles
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00039_Set_default_text_and_drawing_shape_styles.htm
If that still leaves questions, post back (and please indicate the version of Office you have ... e.g. Windows Office 365 or whatever ... platform and version. It matters.)