What is a Palette?

A palette contains ready-made components that you can drag onto a screen canvas to add content. Palette components can be simple, such as a data field. They can also be multi-component layouts that provide sections of a screen with a header, data display and action buttons. Layouts can even be a complete screen. Layouts and components can display data, enable application users to enter data, or can display information from external sites, such as a Google map.

You can create your own layouts and add them to palettes. However, we recommend you start with the palettes designed by the PhixFlow team. These layouts are designed to create responsive screens that will rearrange to suit the size and aspect ratio of the device on which the application is running.

Before we look in more detail at using a a palette, it helps to understand structure that the components of a typical screen , this is illustrated below. are grouped into containers which form layers, as shown in the following image.

• Click on the image to enlarge it.

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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 another: Hold shift + drag the item onto the item you would like to place it in.

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.

• Download for printing: PDF Quick Reference Sheet.

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Moving Components

It is not always easy to see how components are grouped into containers when working on the screen canvas. We recommend that to move any component or layout, you use the 

On the screen canvas, click the component you want to move

PhixFlow highlights the component in the layout panel. This means you can easily decide if you need to move just the component, or if you need to move its containe. You can also see where in the layer you need to move it to ensure it has the correct parent container.

In the layouts panel, drag the selected component to its new position in the list.

If you want to move components within the screen canvas, PhixFlow needs to know whether the drop location should be

• a sibling component, that the dragged component goes next to.
  In this case, simply drag and drop a component.
• the parent container, that the dragged component goes into.
  In this case, press the Shift key as you drag and drop the component

Using Tiles 

Anchor
Tiles Tiles

The Theme 2.1 palette includes sections for complete screens and for tiles. The complete screens have tile containers, in which the responsive design settings are configured. When you drag a tile from the palette onto the screen canvas, PhixFlow highlights suitable tile containers where you can drop the tile.

If you create your own screen, to use tiles from the palette, you must first provide a suitable tile container by:

• either dragging in a tile container from the palette
• or adding an area component and setting the responsive design options; see Using Size and Position for Responsive Design.

Adding Components to a Tile 

Anchor
EditPalette EditPalette

To add a component into a tile that you have added to your screen, Shift-drag the component from the palette and drop it into the tile.

Changing a Tile's Layout Direction 

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LayoutDirection LayoutDirection

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. Palettes items icons 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:

Tile containers and tiles use the CSS Flex option to specify the layout of contained components as being in either columns or rows. In the palette, the icon for a tile has an arrow to show which direction its contained components will flow.

To change the flow direction:

1. Click on a component on screen to find it in the layers panel.
2. If necessary, identify the container for the component and its siblings.
3. Right-click the name of the parent and click 

   Insert excerpt
   _edit _edit nopanel true

   .
4. PhixFlow opens the component properties. Click the 

   Insert excerpt
   _property_tabs _property_tabs name style nopanel true

5. Scroll down to the Direction section:
   Image Added 
6. Set:
   • Direction: either Row or Column. This provides the main axis along which components flow.
   • Wrap: whether or not the content should Wrap around to the next line.
   • Justify:
   the alignment
   • how components align along the main axis. For example, Flex Start
   will align
   • aligns a row to the left. 
   • Align:
   the alignment
   • how components align perpendicular to the main axis. For example, Center
   will align items
   •  
     • for a row: aligns components between the top and bottom of a row
   , or the
   • • for a column
   it
   • • : aligns
   them
   • • components between the left and right
   hand sides. 

1. • • of the column.

See also:

•  Component properties
• Using Size and Position for Responsive Design.

Editing the Palette

Warning
Editing the a styles of any item in the palette will impact affects all items using this style!that use the style. This includes items already added to a screen both in your application and those used by others in your organisation.

There are two ways to edit the palette the items,

Editing the Whole Palette: you may wish to change the style of all items in a palette, for example to add a company logo or change the colour scheme to that of your company

.

To perform these changes:

Select the item in a palette, right click on it and select edit.

To edit an item held within another item, such as editing a header on a complete screen,

right click on the outer item and select find in repository.

drill down to find the item and double click to open its properties.

Click on the styles tab.

Edit the styles and save your changes.

Editing palette items in isolation

 If you want to edit a palette item so that it does not change existing items the best method to do this is create a style to override any existing style.

1.  Select the item in a palette, right click on it and select edit.
2. Click on the Styles tab
3. In the shared styles section, click the add button
4. Complete the shared style as required
5. Save all your changes.

• Here is a worked example:

• Iframe
  src https://www.youtube.com/embed/X8A_8l4rSMM?rel=0 width 560px height 315px

Creating New Items

To change an aspect of the style of all components in a

Palette

see Adding to a Palette.

Creating a New Palette

see palette

for example to add a company logo or change the colour scheme to that of your company. To perform these changes:

1. Select the item in a palette, right click on it and select edit.
2. To edit an item held within another item, such as editing a header on a complete screen, 
   1. right click on the outer item and select find in repository.
   2. drill down to find the item and double click to open its properties.
   3. Click on the styles tab.
   4. Edit the styles and save your changes.

See also

• Adding to a Palette.
• Creating a Palette