What is a palette?

A palette is part of a Template Package, it can also be part of an application, and it contains ready-made components that you can drag onto a screen to add content such as data entry forms or maps. Our Palettes have been designed to create responsive screens, meaning that your application will adapt to the device you are viewing it on.

What

do the items in a palette look like?

See About Template Packages for an overview of the styling or to see the examples in an application for:

• Theme 2.1
  • open the Theme 2.1 app and select one of the options to see an example.
• Theme 2
  • Go to the repository → Packages → Theme 2.
  • Open the T2 - Example Dashboard
  • Click the Generate Data button if there is not data displayed.

Using a Palette

Palettes are divided into logical groups, such as complete screens or tiles (which make up sections on a screen. 

Adding Screen Content

1. Content is added by dragging palette items onto a screen and dropping them.
2. Where appropriate PhixFlow highlights the area onto which it is recommended the selected item be dropped, as shown below. This is known as a Preferred Parent.
3. Image Modified

Before we look in more detail at using a a palette, it helps to understand structure of a typical screen, this is illustrated below. Click on the image to enlarge it.

Image Modified

How do I Rearrange Components?

Click on any item on your screen, and it will be highlighted in the layouts section on the left. To move components within the Layouts, drag it to the desired position.

1. Move it next to: dragging items onto another item will place it next to it.
2. Move an item inside anotheranother: Hold shift + drag the item onto the item you would like to place it in.

Changing Direction

Typically, components designed to house other components, such as a Tiles, will use CSS Flex to handle the layout of their content. This means content is set out in rows or columns. Newer Palettes items will contain an arrow in their icon to indicate the direction of content. You can change the direction using the layout properties.

To do this:

1. Select the item on the screen.
2. In the properties window that opens, click on the Styles tab.
3. Scroll down to the Direction settings:
   1.  
4. Set the desired properties:
   1. Direction: row or column layout, defined as the main axis.
   2. Wrap: Whether or not the content should wrap around to the next line.
   3. Justify: the alignment along the main axis. For example, Flex Start will align a row to the left. 
   4. Align: the alignment perpendicular to the main axis. For example, Center will align items between the top and bottom of a row, or the for a column it aligns them between the left and right hand sides. 

See Component Properties for more details

How do I Add

Tiles?

To add a component to a tile, SHIFT+drag them into the tile body.

If you want more structure to your tile, add the Field Collection component to add a column to the tile. You can add a column with:

• a fixed width, designed to contain a set of fields.
• an Auto Size column, which will take up all available space.

How do I Add Buttons?

To add buttons to your application, use the Theme 2 – Buttons palette.

This palette contains all the buttons used in the theme components, so that you can add and adapt them for your application. Buttons include

• Windows Controls – Primary
• Windows Controls - Secondary
• Go Buttons, a compact and simple button used for triggering an action.
• Filter Buttons with Totals which work in conjunction with a grid to filter the results displayed. The total value on the filter is provided by a card container that returns a single value in an attribute called Count. You need to configure the filter and connect it to the button.
• Tile and Window Buttons these are collections of CRUD (Create, Read, Update and Delete) buttons contained in an area, to provide an instant button bar. They have conditional formatting applied to them so that the appropriate buttons are displayed according to what the user has selected. For example, a record must be selected for the delete button to be displayed.
  • Tile Buttons must be put inside a tile. Link them to CRUD actions on the data displayed in the tile.
  • Window Buttons must be placed at the top level of the dashboard and are intended to perform actions on everything displayed on the dashboard.

Can I Add Components to Theme 2?

Whenever you have to set up a component, such as a new area or button, decide if you might need the same thing again. If so, create a template of the component, so it is ready to use. Otherwise you have to repeatedly combine the building-block components and set the properties to recreate the component. Once you have a template, you can add it to Theme 2. 

For example, you create a Field Column that is auto sized to use all the available space. To add this to Theme 2.

1. Find the component in the repository. Right-click and select Copy as a template
2. PhixFlow adds the component to the applications repository folder called Templates.
3. Optionally, drag the component from Templates folder in the repository, to the  Theme 2 package. 
4. To make it available to other application designers, drag it to a palette. This can be either one of the existing Theme 2 palettes or a custom palette you have already created.

Can I Change Theme 2?

It may be necessary to update Theme 2 so that it reflects the design you want for your application. For example, you might want to add your own company and application logos, or change the background colour to one that matches your corporate colours.

Before making any changes, consider the impact this will have on the template. For example, if you want to change an area component to have a blue (#2E2F4D) background, consider if you want all areas added from the palette to be blue.

• If you do, update the area Shared Style so that all areas inherit the new CSS property. This is a global change to the palette.
• If not, you could change the background colour by adding a new CSS Property or a Style Setting to the component. This is a local or object level change.  
  Even if you think you only want to change one object, consider creating a Shared Style that you add to the object. This means it is easy to apply to any other components that you decide need to be blue. 

If you want to change the background colour everywhere in the palette, not just on areas, consider creating a new template and palette.

Tiles need to sit within the Tile Container, this ensures they layout responsively and looks the way we intended. To add a tile simply drag it onto any complete screen and drop it on the highlighted tile container.

If you have created a screen from scratch make sure you add a tile container before adding tiles.  

Adding content within a Tile

To add a component into a tile use SHIFT+drag and then drop the item in the desired location.