AX1482

Setting the skin for an Axiom form

The skin sets the surface look and feel of an Axiom form. The goal of the skin is to promote a consistent overall appearance across all of the forms used at your organization, by defining certain high-level design elements. The skin also determines which styles are available for use in the form.

Generally speaking, Axiom Software is designed to work best with a single primary skin. The current primary skin is Axiom2018. This skin contains the latest Axiom Software design elements and styles. By default, all newly created forms use this skin. All other skins are primarily intended to support backward-compatibility.

The Axiom2018 skin and the legacy skins are not designed to be interchangeable. Generally speaking, you cannot change the skin from Axiom2018 to a legacy skin (or vice versa) and have the form continue to display as expected. The primary differences between skins are the row and column styles used by Formatted Grid components, but other component styles may not be recognized when the skin is changed. Unless the form is very simple, changing the skin requires additional manual adjustments so that the form uses the styles expected by skin. Also, newer components may not have been optimized for use with legacy skins. For more information on converting an existing legacy form to use the new Axiom2018 skin, see Migrating an existing form to use the Axiom2018 skin.

Setting the system default skin

Each system has a default skin that is applied to newly created forms. The system default skin is specified using the WebClientSkin property in the system configuration settings. By default, this property is set to Axiom2018, which means that when a new form is created, the Skin property for the form is automatically set to Axiom2018.

If desired, you can edit this property to specify any skin that is available to be selected for an Axiom form. However, this is primarily intended for backward-compatibility, so that systems that were created using an older skin can continue to use that skin until they are ready to migrate their forms to the current Axiom default skin.

For more information on editing the system configuration settings, see System configuration settings.

Setting the form-level skin

When a new form is created, the Skin property for the form is set to the system default skin. This means that all new forms use the system default skin to start, though this can be changed on a per form basis as needed. By default this skin is Axiom2018, though your system may be configured to use a different skin for backward-compatibility reasons.

Under most circumstances, it is not necessary to change the skin for an Axiom form. However, you may need to change the skin if you are migrating an existing form from using a legacy skin to the latest Axiom default skin.

To set the skin for an Axiom form:

  1. From the top of the Form Assistant task pane or the Form Designer dialog, click Edit form properties.
  2. In the Form Properties dialog, select the desired skin from the Skin drop-down list.

TIP: You can also change the skin by editing the Skin field at the top of the Form Control Sheet. In this case you must type in the desired skin name.

The skin is loaded when the form is opened and cannot be changed dynamically during the current session.

Migrating an existing form to use the Axiom2018 skin

If you have existing forms that you want to migrate to the Axiom2018 skin, some manual adjustments will likely be necessary after changing the skin.

At minimum, you will need to do the following after changing the skin:

  • If the form uses thematic Formatted Grid components, you must update the row and column styles in the grids to use the new styles supported by the Axiom2018 skin. These new styles allow you to directly apply certain formatting features, to more precisely control the formatting in the grid. For more information, see Using row and column styles with Formatted Grids. The previously assigned row and column styles will not be recognized by the Axiom2018 skin. Until the styles are updated, the grid will display as if it has no formatting.

  • If the form uses h1-h5 styles for Label components, these styles are not supported by the Axiom2018 skin. You must update the labels to instead use the new styles for font size and font color.

  • If the form uses a Wizard Panel component, you must change the style on the grid or panels that provide the wizard contents from wizardpanel-content to docked-to-container. The Wizard theme is no longer necessary; the necessary design elements for the wizard are provided by the Axiom2018 skin.

All other component-level styles from the legacy skin should be recognized by the Axiom2018 skin and continue to display as expected. However, it is a good idea to thoroughly review the form after changing the skin to detect any small formatting changes that may impact component display, and adjust the form accordingly.

The older the form, the greater the chance that additional manual adjustments will be required after changing the skin to Axiom2018. Older forms may use out-of-date designs that do not take advantage of the latest enhancements, and some of these out-of-date designs may impact the display. It is a good idea to review the entire form as part of the migration and identify any areas that could benefit from adopting new features.

Lastly, if the form is old enough that it is still using a spreadsheet-formatted grid instead of a thematic grid, the grid should be updated as part of the migration. For more information, see Migrating spreadsheet-formatted grids to thematic grids.

Skin examples

The following skin examples are provided to give an idea of the colors and styling used for each of the skins delivered with the Axiom Software platform.

Axiom2018 and Axiom

  

Metro
     

Uniform

  

Blue Opal
     

Black

  

Moonlight