You are viewing the documentation for Blueriq 17. Documentation for other versions is available in our documentation directory.
A custom MVC UI theme can be created if the use of default Blueriq themes is not desired. This could be the case if for example you want to create your own client application and Extending themes is not sufficient.
Introduction
The MVC UI has two default themes (Forms theme and Dashboard theme) and has support for custom made themes. A theme is basically a set of files and some configuration that consists of the following components:
| Description | Location | |
|---|---|---|
| Index file | StringTemplate index file | JAR or spring.config.additional-location |
| Web resources | JavaScript, CSS, images, etc. | JAR or spring.config.additional-location |
| Configuration | Properties in the aquima.properties file | spring.config.additional-location |
A theme can be part of a custom plugin JAR (for example the Dashboard plugin) but can also just be a collection of files located in spring.config.additional-location.
Getting started
The base of a theme is the index file from which the main page is build. Blueriq uses a template engine called StringTemplate to make server properties available in the client.
A default Blueriq index page is injected with a template context that features the following properties:
| Property | Type | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|
| theme | String | Name of the theme currently selected | |
| apiBasePath | String | Base path for the web API | |
| webResourcesBasePath | String | Base path for web resources | |
| extensions | Object (ExtensionContext) | Contains all registered CSS and JavaScript files | |
| cssExtensionUrls | String[] | URLs to all registered CSS files | |
| jsExtensionUrls | String[] | URLs to all registered JavaScript files | |
| sessionId | String | Current session id | |
| currentPageJson | String | Current page in JSON format | |
| developmentMode | boolean | Indicates whether or not the application runs in development mode | |
| sessionTimeout | int | Configured session timeout in seconds | |
When creating a custom theme you need to provide a StringTemplate index file.
Creating the index file
The index file is the starting point of a custom theme and is a StringTemplate template that follows a certain structure. For full details on the StringTemplate syntax and usage please check the official documentation.
A StringTemplate index file in Blueriq has the following structure:
Basic index file structure
delimiters "$", "$" main(context) ::= << [HTML] >>
First the delimiters to use around StringTemplate variables are set to "$" instead of the default "<" ">" delimiters to be able to use variables within HTML. StringTemplate uses a function call to generate the template: main(context). The context object that is passed with this function call contains all properties as described above. In the function body (between "<<" and ">>") the actual index page is placed, which is a full HTML page.
In this example "main" is used as template function name, but this can be customized. See the Configuration section below for more information.
Save the custom index file as a .stg file so it is recognized by StringTemplate.
Installation
Installing your custom theme is easily done by putting all files in the spring.config.additional-location folder. For example when a theme is created named "custom_dashboard" which consists of an index file, a JavaScript file and a CSS stylesheet, installation would be as follows:
- Create a UI/mvc folder in
spring.config.additional-locationand put the custom index file (for example custom_dashboard.stg) here. - Create a webresources/mvc folder in
spring.config.additional-locationand put the JavaScript and CSS files here (optionally in /js and /css subfolders). - Add a configuration section for your custom theme to aquima.properties in
spring.config.additional-locationroot, as described in the Configuration section below.
Configuration
In order to configure your theme so it will be known by the Runtime several properties must be set. The following example shows properties for registering a theme named "custom_dashboard":
Properties for registering a custom theme
mvc.themes=custom_dashboard mvc.custom_dashboard.templateGroupFile=UI/mvc/custom_dashboard.stg mvc.custom_dashboard.templateName=main
The mvc.themes property specifies the name for the theme which will be displayed in the Runtime theme selector. The other two properties specify which StringTemplate index file should be used and which StringTemplate function should be called to render the index page (see "Creating the index file" above). The path to the index file is relative to either the JAR or the spring.config.additional-location folder. When a filename is specified which is located in spring.config.additional-location and that is already loaded from a JAR, the file from spring.config.additional-location will be used and the file from the JAR will be overridden. More information about overriding existing themes can be found on Extending themes.
Overview
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