Creating a skin

Create a skin to specify the presentation aspects of your application.

Records can be created in various ways. You can add a new record to your application or copy an existing one. You can specialize existing rules by creating a copy in a specific ruleset, against a different class or (in some cases) with a set of circumstance definitions. You can copy data instances but they do not support specialization because they are not versioned.

A Skin rule has a single key part:
  • Identifier—Enter a name for the skin that begins with a letter and that uses only letters, numbers, and hyphens.

The class hierarchy is not relevant to rule resolution for skin rules. Time-qualified circumstances are not supported for skin rules. When searching for a Skin rule, the system completes rule resolution as follows:

  • Filters candidate rules based on a requestor's RuleSet list of RuleSets and versions
  • Finds circumstance-qualified rules that override base rules
  1. Click Create > User Interface > Skin.
  2. In the Label field, enter a name that indicates the purpose of the skin.
  3. Specify the context for the skin record.
  4. Click Create and open.
  5. Use the tabs of the Skin rule form to complete the following tasks:

    • Set the component styles—Define the styles for components such as layouts, controls, and reports. You can define various style formats for each component and reference the formats on property panels in sections, harnesses, and controls.

    • Add mixins—Mixins define a reusable typography, border, or background style, or a combination of these styles. Use mixins to enforce consistency across your user interface, maximize re-use, and minimize future maintenance.

    • Include styles—Use the Included styles tab to add additional style sheets to the skin. You can also enable and disable automatic generation of the work form CSS on this tab.