Don't use Default theme styles
One of the great things about FileMaker Pro is it starts you off with a completely blank slate. One of the bad things about FileMaker Pro is it starts you off with a completely blank slate.
Yep, that's right, there are things in FileMaker's UI which non-intentionally urge you to do things which may not be as helpful in the future. Of course, some of this comes down to learning as much as you can about how things work. Which, is likely why you'll be watching this video.
In this episode, we take a look at FileMaker's themes and styles and how they relate to the Default styles which all layout objects start from. FileMaker defaults to the Default styles and that may not be the best way to start a new layout design. In this video, I answer the question about using the Defaults for your actual design and what you may be missing if you choose to use the Default style within your layouts. Want the most leverage possible? Well, you may need to stop using the Default styles - sort of.
Comments
Great explanation
Themes have been one of those things that I have never spent much time getting to learn about using correctly, but was always on my bucket list. Knowing how passionate you are about themes, this was the video that I knew I needed to watch.
And now it all makes sense on how to use them correctly.
Thank you
Nate
Some remarks on 'Cascading'
Thank you for the very instructive tutorial.
First a question:
Is there a way to access the CSS in a meaningful way? As I mention later on, WebDirect is very restrictive in applying the FileMaker theme, but a work-around would be to display a form in a webviewer and pass the results to FileMaker (that's another tutorial). Using the CSS as a startingpoint could ease that process.
I have been using themes and styles for a long time now and I never realised the potential of the 'cascading' part of the styles.
You correctly make the point that one should not use the default style directly for layouts, as these defaults should be used to change 'global' settings to the theme instead. Good point, but I think that are many more settings that 'trickle down' to individual styles other than font, fontsize, style and corner radius of fields! It also applies to very important settings such as padding.
I would strongly encourage everyone to experiment with a pristine, blank document and just see what's happening to your styles when you start modifying them. Investing a few hours may save you days of work later on.
Three more things that need mentioning:
- also included in the css styles are the 'internal' paragraph settings, such as space between lines and extra space before and after paragraphs. And a very powerful one: the tab positions (left, right, centered, decimal points...). Being able to change the style using a scriptstep would open up a very powerful layout feature!
- many CSS features do not translate to WebDirect, which is unfortunate. This severely limits the use of WebDirect for filling out forms etc.
- last but not least: the css styles include graphics for buttons, but only PNG and JPG, not SVG... Someone at FileMaker must have had a bad day when they decided on which featureset to use, back in the days when they introduced the SVG buttons in FMP14. It is sad that even now, when SVG is practically all over the place, Claris still did not correct this.
Copy and paste styles between themes?
I use themes extensively and over the years, I have accumulated a collection of button styles with icon graphics (png). I prefer these over the 'SVG-buttons' because they can be changed globally in one move over the complete FM solution. Saves me tons of time. When I have some new button styles, I copy the buttons to an existing file, but I still have to apply style names to them one by one. Is there a way to copy just some particular styles from one theme to another (in another file)?