Intersoft Support Center

Create Simple Project using WebStyleManager

This topic provides a step-by-step instruction on how to use WebStyleManager with Intersoft controls.

To create and configure a new ISTheme project for a Web application.

  1. Open WebStyleManager and click New Project from the File menu.

    New Project


  2. In this tutorial, the WebDesktopSamples will be used as a sample project. Next, fill in the fields of the WebStyleManager as shown below.

    First, we put in the name of the Web application. Then, we specify the Web Path of the Web application. If you put in the correct Web path, the Physical Path will automatically be filled.

    Fill in the fields


  3. Click the Edit Theme List link to edit the theme list and the Theme List Editor will be shown.
    Click the Add Theme button and enter WebDesktopNewTheme for the new theme. After you finish adding the new theme, click OK to save the list.

    Theme List Editor


  4. Now, the name of the new theme we defined in the Theme List Editor should be available in the Theme Name DropDownList. Select WebDeskotpNewTheme from the Theme Name.

    Select a Theme


  5. Select Enable Theming checkbox to use theme for this Web application.
  6. Select all Checkboxes that are available in the CSS Optimization group.

To create a new theme definition for Web application.

  1. Select the WebDesktopNewTheme node and click the Add Group button to add a new group. A theme definition may contain one or more group for better organization purpose.

    WebDesktopNewTheme


  2. Create a new group as the Default group and select WebDialogBox from the Add Component DropDownButton.

    Create the a default group


  3. Add the page 'WebPad.aspx' from the 'Add Control' DropDownbutton. As explained in Using Theme Editor topics, you add a page to override the styles that are defined in Components node for this specific page. You can set the Enable Theming property of the page to false to enable/disable theming for the page.

    Add Page


To create a new style for a component or control.

  1. Enter 'WebDialogbox_Blue.isl' as the layout file name in the DataFile property and click the Edit Style button to proceed to creating a new style. The WebStyleManager confirms if the theme file (WebDesktopNewTheme.theme) should be saved before proceeding. Click OK to proceed.

    Create New Style


  2. The dialog box below informs that you do not have this file and you are going to create a new file with this file name.

    Create New Layout File


  3. Click OK and the Style Editor dialog will be shown. Select the WindowStyle node which is the child of the Styles node in the Style treeview and change the Normal BackColor to #C0C0FF.

  4. You may also change other styles as needed. Remember to click the Save button before previewing the style, otherwise the changes will not be shown in the Preview tab. Then, click the Preview Tab to preview the new style.

    Blue Style


  5. Click Save to save the new style and check the 'Include behaviors when saving style' CheckBox if you want to include behaviors settings in the layout file as well. You can modify the behaviors by selecting the WebDialogBox node in the treeview and modify its properties through the PropertyGrid.
  6. Click Close to go back to WebStyleManager's Theme tab.

To configure styles of a Web application using WebStyleManager.

Configuring styles for Web application is actually defining styles for components that are used in your Web application. For instance, in the previous tutorial "Creating New Style" you already created a new style for the WebDialogBox component, that means you already configured all the controls of WebDialogBox type in your Web application to use that new WebDialogBox style. You can, however, override that style by creating a new style for a specific page or control. The same rule applies to all other components.

To configure the style of a specific page or control.

  1. Click on the ~/WebPad.aspx page node and select the dlgBoxAbout control from the Add Control DropDownButton.

    New Style for dlgBoxAbout


  2. Enter the DataFile file name for the new layout. The DataFile here is the file name of the layout file (*.isl) of the control. You can select an existing layout file or just enter a new file name. If use an existing layout file, the file will be copied to the WebDesktopNewTheme directory. On the other hand, if you enter a new file name a layout file will be created, also in the WebDesktopTheme directory.

    Select DataFile


  3. In this case, enter a new layout filename 'MyAboutDialogBoxStyle.isl' and click Save. Then click the Edit Style button to start editing the style. A dialog box will show up and informs that the layout file is not found and therefore we are going to create a new layout. Click OK to proceed.

    Create a new layout file


  4. The style editor window is displayed and we can start editing the new style. Modify some styles and then click the Save button so the changes can be reflected on the preview.



  5. Click the Preview tab to preview the changes.



To deploy the newly created ISTheme project file to the Web application.

  1. After we finish with defining a new theme and creating a new style/layout file. We are ready to deploy the theme project file.

    Deploying Project


  2. Confirm the deployment by clicking OK.

    Confirm Deployment


  3. Confirm overwriting by clicking OK. If the Web application has already had an istheme.config file inside, you need to overwrite the file since one Web application can contain only one istheme.config file (Theme project file).

    Confirm Overwriting


  4. A dialog box informs that the project file has been deployed successfully.

    Project File Deployed


Previous Next