Overview

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.

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   Edit.
   If you need to find a child component, such as a header on a complete screen, right-click on the parent and select  Find in RepositoryThis lists all the child components. Double-click the specific component to open its properties.
2. In the component properties, click on the  Style tab.
3. Edit the style properties to have the required settings; see Style properties.
4.  Save 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 a component and select   Edit.
2. In the component properties, click on the  Style tab.
3. In the Shared Styles section, click  Add New.
4. Edit the shared style properties to have the required settings; see Style properties.
5.  Save 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 as a template component; see Making Template Components.

To add a template component to a palette:

1. Open the repository.
2. Navigate to the palette and right-click select edit.
3. Drag the 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 components from a palette, right-click on the item in the palette and click  Delete. This does not remove the component from the repository.

Creating a New Palette

1. In the repository navigate to your Application → Palette section and select  Create New.
2. PhixFlow opens a properties tab for the palette. Name the palette and save it.
3. Click the  Templates icon to display the available templates. If you have not created any templates yet see Making Template Components.
4. Drag the templates into the palette properties →  Component section.
5. 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  Create New.
2. Create your package and complete the details.

3. 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

From version 9.0 onward, 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 →  Style tab.

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  Style tab.
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.