Skins?, Themes?,Styles?,Controls? I'm lost and need help.

[dpgriffith]

Hello, hope someone can help out.



I have spent the better part of 2 days trying to figure this out.

Maybe what I am trying to do is not even possible.



I am trying to create my own Theme/Skin/Style not sure the term to use here. I have some images and want to use them for backgrounds, Controls etc.



Example:

I scanned one of my remotes and have it saved.

I ripped out images of the buttons on the remote and saved them.

I wanted to use the remote as the background and place a button on top of it with the image/size intact of the saved button image.



I can't seem to get this to work as it seems to not be the same size and after several attempts to create new theme/skin/style only defaults seem to show up.



I don't know if this is enough information so if it isn't let me know.



I have little hair left to pull out so please help me save what I do have!



Thanks

David Griffith

[ScottBot]

David,



Just for the sake of terminology, Skins are collections of graphics and styles (fonts, colors, etc) that can be grouped to help make consistent looking Themes. A Theme is the user interface that you create that contains buttons, gauges, etc. When adding a control to a Theme, it will allow you to select defaults from any of the existing Skins on your system.



I'm not sure exactly where you are having trouble, so I'll just explain what I would do if I were you.

• First get all of your new images and place them into a new subdirectory under the \HouseBot\Config\Themes directory. The images can be BMP, JPEG, or PNG. PNG is the best format, as it gives you the best color depth with the smallest size and it supports partial transparencies
• Some controls (like buttons) have more than one image stored in the image file, so format them correctly. For example, buttons have both the pressed and normal image states in the same file. See Common Button Image Format in the online help for info on how button images are setup. If you don't set them up this way, your buttons will be chopped in half.
• When you create a new Theme, it will create the default panel with a default background image. To select your own background image, click on the Background tab of the Panel Property window (floating property window). Click the Select button and then select the Select Other Image File button. This will allow you to navigate to your new background images and swap it out.
• When you add a new control (button for example), it will use the last Skin that you used by default. When you get to the point where you are selecting an image for the button, select the image but also check the Use image not in skin checkbox before continuing. Then it will prompt you for an image. This is where you would select one of your new button images.

Now if you have a large Theme to create, you don't want to be constantly searching and selecting your new images. To create your own skin, check out the online help where it talks about Creating Skins under the Skins section. Once you have your own skin setup, your new control images will appear in the list and you can select them like any other skin image. If you'd like to share the skin you can export it and post it here.



What I usually do is to create a dummy theme where I have a single panel that includes EVERY control image that I want in the skin. I don't take a lot of time to setup the property association correctly or layout the controls nicely, just get the controls to look right. Then I save that to a Skin and use the new Skin to create my real Theme.

[dpgriffith]

Thanks Scottbot I think I'm slowly gaining ground.



When I get something completed I will post it although most of it is very specific to my equipment.



David