User Interface

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User Interface
Sunday, February 5, 2017PrintSubscribe
Page Icons

In Touch UI apps, icons can be assigned to pages in order to convey additional meaning to the users. Up to five page icons will be displayed in the Quick Launch area at the bottom of the sidebar.

Icons displayed in menus and Quick Launch area of the sidebar.

Let’s customize the default Northwind app. Initially, this app does not have any icons assigned to pages. Only “Apps” and “Settings” icons are displayed in the Quick Launch area.

Default Northwind app has no page icons assigned.

Pressing the “Apps” button will reveal a site map with no icons.

The "Apps" menu will display the site map.

Let’s assign some icons to the primary pages in our app to help the user find them quickly.

Start the Project Designer. In the Project Explorer on the right side of the screen, double-click on Customers page node.

The Customers page of the sample Northwind app.

Icons can be defined by specifying the icon library plus the icon name. Replace spaces with dashes.

Let’s assign the “group” icon from the Material Icons library.

Property Value
Icon / Custom Style material-icon-group

Press OK to save the page. Double-click on the “Orders” page, and make the following change.

Property Value
Icon / Custom Style material-icon-shop

Save the change, and double-click on “Products” page to set an icon.

Property Value
Icon / Custom Style material-icon-local-offer

On the toolbar, press Browse. When generation is complete, the app will open in the default browser. Notice that the first three page icons are displayed in Quick Launch. If the “apps” button is disabled or moved to the toolbar, an additional page icon will be displayed. If “Settings” button is disabled, another icon slot will become available.

Notice that some themes will emphasize the Quick Launch area if at least one page icon is defined. Page icons will also be displayed in toolbar menu dropdowns.

Icons have been assigned to pages. Icons are added to the Quick Launch area of the sidebar.

Pushing the hamburger button in the top left corner will expand the sidebar. The Quick Launch area will rotate to fit horizontally.

Expanding the sidebar will rotate the Quick Launch area.

Press the “Apps” button to reveal the site menu. Notice that pages with an assigned icon will be placed in a grid at the top of the menu.

Activating the "Apps" menu will display a grid of icons representing pages.

Pressing “More” will reveal the full site map. Icons will be displayed next to their assigned page.

Pressing "More" from the "Apps" menu will display the site map.

Friday, February 3, 2017PrintSubscribe
Custom Logo and Theme

Universal Business Apps (UBA) created with Code On Time are designed to run on desktop and mobile devices.  UBAs may be packaged as native applications and also work in the web browser in online and offline modes. Each app store dictates certain user interface requirements. The new theme framework of Touch UI 2017 makes it easy to fulfill them.

Native applications are distributed through app stores of the operating system verndors. These app stores have a common requirement not to place your logo directly in the user interface, making it visible at all times. The focus must be on application functionality rather than on company branding.

At the same time, it is important to keep the user aware of your brand. Touch UI makes this easy.

Consider the following logo of a fictitious company:

image

Let’s incorporate this logo into an application created with Code On Time or Cloud On Time.

Creating a Theme Accent

The default theme of the application is Light with Aquarium accent.

image

We will choose Social accent as a basis for the customization.

image

Create a copy of the file ~/touch/touch-accent.social.json and name it touch-accent.acme.json. Open the new file in your favorite text editor.

image

Change the “name” to “Acme”. Find and replace the color #3b5999 with #006940 everywhere in the file. Change header.icon.default from #eee to #ee3a43.  Also change the value of properties button.promo.icon.default and buttons.menu.icon.default to #ee3a43.

Both #006940 and #ee3a43 represent the codes of the main colors used in the log. You can use the standard CSS color names, such as “green” and “red”.

Save the file, switch back to your application, proceed to Themes section under Settings, and select the new theme “Acme”.

image

The application colors will change to match the branding of our fictitious company. It only took a few minutes to give your app a branded look-and-feel.

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Changing Application Name

The name of the app needs to be changed as well. By default, the name will be derived from the page header text specified in the project settings. If the project’s settings for the header is blank, then the name will read as “Code on Time” or “Cloud On Time”.

image

There is configuration file in the root of your project, called ~/touch-settings.json. It controls the application behavior and appearance. Open the file and specify appName property to provide a name for the app.

image

Do not use the brand name there. Instead specify the name that reflects the purpose of the app. Let’s use Inventory Manager for this example. Save the file and refresh the page. The new app name will be visible in the top left corner of the toolbar.

image

Explicit Branding

The best place to display your branding is the Splash Screen and Account Manager.

The splash screen is displayed briefly when the user starts the app.

image

The picture on the left side of the screen and the application name can be replaced with alternative images.

Add a new configuration element splash to the file ~/touch-settings.json, as shown in the screenshot below.

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Properties logo and background must reference the high-resolution images for the branding of your app. You will need to keep the balance between the quality of the images and their size.

The duration property controls the duration that the splash screen is displayed to users in milliseconds.

Restart the app and see the splash screen displayed.

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Your branding is also displayed when the user is automatically logged into the app, or when account manager is activated.

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Disabling Themes in Settings

If you do not wish the theme and accent to be changed by the application users, then add settings section to the ~/touch-settings.json with theme option disabled.

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Additional settings options can be disabled as needed. The property settings.disabled will prevent the user from modifying any settings.

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Further Customization

If your projects requirements call for a prominient display of branding, then you can add a logo to the application toolbar with the help of CSS. Create a file under ~/touch folder with the following rule:

image

This result of customization is shown next.

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Wednesday, February 1, 2017PrintSubscribe
New Theme Engine in Touch UI 2017

A new theme engine in Touch UI is included with the release 8.5.12.0. The brand new themes provide a modern look-and-feel for your line-of-business universal apps. Designed to work with both Desktop and Mobile devices, Touch UI offers a universal solution to application developers. Your end users can point with a mouse or a stylus and click or touch the responsive user interface elements.

The user inteface is customized with themes and accents. A theme provides the main color scheme. An accent provides additional color adjustments. The themes are CSS-based. The new release will ship with a single Light theme.  Additonal core schemes are expected to become available in the future. Accents are JSON files describing particular colors and other properties that will customize the theme. Release 8.5.12.0. ships with 35 accents. Developers can make a copy of any existing *.json accent under ~/touch folder and replace the colors with those that are matching the application requirements. Developers can standardize on a particular theme and accent for their app by deleting the standard themes and accents that are not needed.  The upcoming CoT v9 will also include an interactive theme builder that will allow producing custom accents within the live app.

The screenshots of the new Light theme with Citrus accent are below.

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This is the new Azure accent for the Light theme:

image

The new Grapello accent in Light theme in the screenshot showing a modal form:

image

The new Plastic accent demonstrates interactive filtering in Light theme:

image

The new Berry accent demonstrates the view selector in Light theme:

image

This is the Light theme with Dark Knight accent on a small screen:

image

The user interface theme is constructed at runtime by applying properties defined in the JSON configuration of the accent to the chosen color scheme of the theme.

This is the actual configuration file for the Citrus theme.  You can create a new accent by making a copy of an existing one and replacing it’s colors.

JSON:

{
  "name": "Citrus",
  "color": "#FFA500",
  "header": {
    "background": "orange",
    "backgroundTransparent": "transparent",
    "border": "#FFA500",
    "paddingTop": 0,
    "icon": {
      "default": "#000",
      "hover": null,
      "selected": null,
      "backgroundOpacity": null
    },
    "text": {
      "default": "#000",
      "hover": null,
      "logo": null,
      "hoverBackground": "rgba(0,0,0,0.05)",
      "selectedBackground": "rgba(0,0,0,0.08)"
    },
    "split": {
      "background": null,
      "icon": { "default": null }
    }
  },
  "panel": {
    "icon": {
      "default": "#0a6332",
      "hover": "#003D00",
      "selected": null
    }
  },
  "buttons": {
    "promo": {
      "background": "#FFA500",
      "icon": {
        "default": "#000"
      },
      "menu": {
        "icon": {
          "default": null,
          "hover": null
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "sidebar": {
    "full": {
      "background": "#0a6332",
      "border": "#0a6332",
      "selectedColor": "#fff",
      "text": {
        "default": "#eee",
        "hover": "#fff",
        "active": null,
        "static": "#80ba99"
      },
      "icon": {
        "default": "#fff",
        "hover": "#FFA500",
        "active": null
      },
      "toolbar": {
        "background": "#0a6332",
        "border": "#0a6332",
        "selectedColor": "#fff",
        "icon": {
          "default": "#fff",
          "hover": "#FFA500",
          "active": null
        }
      }
    },
    "mini": {
      "background": "#0a6332",
      "border": "#0a6332",
      "selectedColor": "#fff",
      "icon": {
        "default": "#fff",
        "hover": "#FFA500",
        "active": null
      },
      "toolbar": {
        "background": "#0a6332",
        "border": "#0a6332",
        "selectedColor": "#fff",
        "icon": {
          "default": "#fff",
          "hover": "#FFA500",
          "active": null
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

 

The user interface elements and behavior are customized via the new ~/touch-settings.json configuration file in apps created with Code on Time 8.5.12.0.

JSON:

{
  "defaultUI": "TouchUI",
  "appName": "Inventory Manager",
  "map": {
    "apiKey": null
  },
  "charts": {
    "maxPivotRowCount": 100
  },
  "ui": {
    "theme": {
      "name": "Light",
      "accent": "Aquarium",
      "preview": null
    },
    "displayDensity": {
      "mobile": "Auto",
      "desktop": "Condensed"
    },
    "list": {
      "labels": {
        "display": "DisplayedBelow"
      },
      "initialMode": "SeeAll"
    },
    "menu": {
      "location": "toolbar",
      "tiles": null
    },
    "actions": {
      "promote": true
    },
    "transitions": {
      "style": "slide"
    },
    "sidebar": {
      "when": "Landscape",
      "mini": true,
      "apps": true,
      "toolbar": true,
      "icons": true
    },
    "toolbar": {
      "apps": true
    },
    "apps": {
      "location": "toolbar"
    },
    "showSystemButtons": null,
    "smartDates": true
  },
  "settings": {
    "enabled": true,
    "options": {
      "displayDensity": true,
      "theme": true,
      "transitions": true,
      "sidebar": true,
      "labelsInList": true,
      "showSystemButtons": true,
      "promoteActions": true,
      "smartDates": true,
      "initialListMode": true
    }
  },
  "membership": {
    "enabled": null,
    "profile": "view switch login logout",
    "help": true,
    "accountManager": {
      "enabled": true
    }
  },
  "help": true
}