User Interface

Long dark winter nights are calling for a different kind of GUI. Here comes the “Dark” theme.

Place the following in ~/touch-settings.json to lock-in the Dark theme with the Bitter Sweet accent.  This configuration will also disable “Settings” option in the GUI.

{
  "ui": {
    "theme": {
      "name": "Dark",
      "accent": "BitterSweet"
    },
    "transitions": { "style": "slide" }
  },
  "settings": { "enabled": true }
}

This is the “Light” version of the same app. It works best if you use the device in the bright light.

Light and Dark theme are provided to give developers more options to express themselves and to allow upcoming native apps to have day and night time versions of the GUI, while still enabling rich customization with accents.

Accents do look more dramatic with the “Dark” theme. Try building your own theme accent now!

Dark theme with Construct accent in the app created with Code On Time.

Dark theme with Construct accent in the app created with Code On Time. The context menu is open.

Dark theme with Construct accent in the app created with Code On Time. The sidebar is hidden and the tab bar is displays icons for frequently used app pages.

Dark theme with Aquarium accent in the app created with Code On Time.  The form is open and context menu of the form is also visible.

Dark theme with Aquarium accent in the app created with Code On Time.  The form view is open and the "Data View" field is visible in the form.

Dark theme with Verdant accent in the app created with Code On Time.  The sidebar is expanded.

Dark theme with Modern Rose accent in the app created with Code On Time.  The app is displayed in a small form factor.

Dark theme with Modern Rose accent in the app created with Code On Time.  The navigation menu is open.

If Settings option is enabled, then users can access the themes and accents at runtime.

Page of an application built with Touch UI represents an individual mini-app, also known as Single Page App or SPA. Shared navigation system of application links together multiple SPAs.

Developers can assign icons to individual pages to signify their purpose. Icons are displays at the bottom of the sidebar on the left side of the page and in the drop down menus at the top of the page.

The sidebar provides easy access to the first three or four pages with icons, which works great on larger screens. The sidebar is not visible on the smaller devices. Touch UI introduces a new method of providing quick access to important pages called Tab Bar.

Tab Bar is automatically displayed at the bottom of the screen whenever the sidebar is not visible

Tab Bar disappears as soon as the sidebar becomes visible, which may happen if device orientation has changed or when the app window is resized.

The width of tabs will automatically increase on large screens.

Tabs automatically expand and collapse. Some tabs may be shifted off-screen when the minimal tab width is reached. The invisible tabs are replaced with “More” button if there is not enough space to fit all of them at the bottom of the screen. Invisible tab icons are displayed when “More” button is activated on the Tab Bar.

If you do prefer not to have the Tab Bar then turn if “off” by entering the following configuration property in ~/touch-settings.json file:

{
  "ui": {
    "menu": {
      "tabbar": false
    }
  }
}

If you love the Tab Bar, then consider enabling this feature on any screen size by settings ui.menu.tabbar to true.

{
  "ui": {
    "menu": {
      "tabbar": true
    }
  }
}

This setting will remove icons from the sidebar and transfer them to the permanently visible Tab Bar at the bottom of the screen.

Page icons will be visible on a screen of any size.

Notifications displayed in the app will move the Tab Bar and the “promo” button upwards.

The tab bar will slide down to the bottom of the screen when the notification is dismissed.