Overview

Creating your own palette or adding your own templates to existing palette can help you save time and effort. PhixFlow is installed with two palettes that can be used to You can make changes to the palettes, by adding components or removing them. You can also change the appearance of components in a palette, for example to use corporate colours.

You may prefer to leave the palettes supplied by PhixFlow unchanged and instead create your own palette items. Additional palettes can be installed, via Template Packages, for more detail on how to do this see About Template Packages.

Creating a Palette

To create a palette:

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Changing Styles

To change a palette component without affecting any existing uses of it, create a style that overrides the existing style.

1.  In the palette, right-click on a component and select  

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2. PhixFlow opens a properties tab for the palette. Name the palette and save it.
3. In your application navigate to theIf you need to find a child component, such as a header on a complete screen, right-click on the parent and select 

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   This lists all the child components. Double-click the specific component to open its properties.
4. In the component properties, click on the 

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   layer

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   Template section, click the  button to see all the templates in the repository.
5. Drag components into the Component list.
6. Optionally set up Default Components.
7. Optionally define Palette Groups.
8. Save your palette.

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2. Edit the style properties to have the required settings; see Style properties.

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    your changes.

To change an aspect of the style of all components in a palette, for example to add a company logo or change the colour scheme to that of your company:

1.  In the palette, right-click on

1. a component and select  

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You can also configure PhixFlow to use automatically your prefered palette; see application properties → Basic Settings → Default Component Palette.

Default Components

For any screen that you design, there are common elements, such as forms, true/false fields, or fields for specific types of data, such as long strings or floating point numbers. After you have added these to the Components section of the palette properties, use the Default Component section to select which of the components you want to use for the base components. PhixFlow displays these in a "Base Component" palette. 

2. In the component properties, click on the 

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3. In the Shared Styles section, click

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4. Edit the shared style properties to have the required settings; see Style properties.

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    your changes.

The following video shows how to do this.

Adding Components

If you have a component that you want to add to a palette, you must first save a copy it as a template component; see Creating Layout TemplatesMaking Template Components.

To add a template component to a palette:

1. Open the repository tab and palette tab.
2. Navigate to the palette and right-click select edit.
3. Drag one of the tabs Palette tab into the workspace to show the tabs side-by-side.
4. From the repository branch → Template, drag a template from the repository into a palette or open one of the groups and add it there.

Removing Components

To remove items components from a palette, right-click on the item in the palette and click 

You can group components into sub-sections of a palette; see Palette Groups, below.

Creating a New Palette

1. In the repository navigate to your Application → Palette section and select 

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For palettes supplied by PhixFlow, this URL links to the help page about the palette.

If you create your own palette, add a link to additional information to help people to use your palette.

1. PhixFlow opens a properties tab for the palette. Name the palette and save it.
2. Click the 

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    icon

1. to display the

Components

The grid contains a list of components that this palette contains. To add a component to the list:

Default Components

You can select a  template to use by default for common form fields.

Add a template:

This section has a toolbar with standard buttons. The grid contains a list of the groups this palette contains.

Use palette groups to organise your templates, making it easier to find what you need. For example, Theme 2 has 3 palettes. The Theme 2 - App Builder palette has different components grouped together.

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We recommend you have a guiding principle for creating groups. For example, Theme 2 is organised with the most complete components, such as entire forms, first. Individual data fields are last. The groups in between have container components that you add to a screen first, then the tiles or tile elements that need to be dropped into a container.

To add a group to the list:

1. Click available templates. If you have not created any templates yet see Making Template Components.
2. Drag the templates into the palette properties →  Component section.
3. Optionally, define Palette Groups and drag templates into the groups.

This creates a palette to which you can add components. This is only available to your application.

Sharing a Palette

If you want to share your palette with other applications, move the palette and template components from your application into a package that the other applications use. You can then set some components to be defaults.

1. In the repository expand Packages and select 

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2. PhixFlow opens the Palette Group properties.
3. Set the name and order. Add the components you require.
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Pallet Group Properties

This section has a toolbar with  standard buttons. 

Drag in the templates you want to appear in this group.

Tooltip Enter a tooltip. This will be displayed when a user hovers their mouse pointer over the palette group.

Description Enter a description for this palette group.

Description

Can I Add New Components to a Theme?

Yes. Whenever you want to reuse an item severlhave 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.

1. Create your package and complete the details.

2. Optionally, to make this a template package, tick Template; see Understanding Template Packages. Then specify the components you want to use as default components in the Template Details section.

Setting Default Components

When you create a new application you select a template package. PhixFlow uses the information in the template package to configure the default components. When creating a screen, if you drag in a table or attribute, PhixFlow uses the default component for forms, true/false fields, or fields for specific types of data, such as long strings or floating point numbers.

You can see which default components have been set in Application Properties → 

To change the default palette or components for your application:

1. In the repository, expand Applications.
2. Double-click on the application name. 
3. Click the

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4. Scroll down to Default Components.
5. Select the palette or components you want to use.
6. Save your changes

Next time you drag a table or attribute onto a screen canvas, PhixFlow uses the default components you have set.