Project Skin Options Editor
- 4 minutes to read
This topic describes how you can use the built-in Project Skin Options Editor to easily customize skin options in your application project and persist them between your development sessions. Refer to the How to Modify Skin Options Applied to the Application Project topic, to learn more.
The Project Skin Options Editor is a design-time editor that allows you to:
Specify whether the currently active application project supports skins.
Specify which built-in skins are included into the application as resources.
Store your skin options to a .SKINCFG file located alongside your project file.
How to invoke the Project Skin Options Editor
To invoke this editor, do one of the following:
Double-click any TdxSkinController component within your project.
Click the “Modify Project Skin Options” item within the TdxSkinController component’s context menu.
Click the Project | Modify Skin Options item within the IDE’s main menu.
The Project Skin Options Editor is automatically invoked before the IDE refreshes a unit’s ‘uses’ clause if any of the following conditions are met:
The project’s .SKINCFG file is not yet created.
After installing the maintenance update, the updated ExpressSkins Library version contains new skins. These skins will be highlighted in bold and enabled by default in the “Available skins” list.
How to disable the Project Skin Options Editor
To disable the Project Skin Options Editor and prevent it from appearing, remove the “ExpressSkins Library Uses Clause Auto Fill Helper” design-time package from the IDE via the Component | Install Packages menu item. To re-enable the editor, use this menu item to add the dcldxSkinsDesignHelperDXX (dcldxSkinsDesignHelperCXX for C++ Builder) package to the IDE.
Project Skin Options Editor UI
Element | Description |
|---|---|
Enable skin support | If enabled, skin painter units and skin units are automatically added to the ‘uses’ clause of all opened units containing skinnable controls and belonging to the currently active project. A skin painter unit is added only if a corresponding “ExpressSkins Library Uses Clause Auto Fill Helper” design-time package is loaded. Skin units are added only for skins that are checked within the “Available skins” list. |
Notify about new skins | If enabled, the Project Skin Options Editor is automatically invoked when the installed ExpressSkins Library contains new skins. Otherwise, the Editor is not shown, and new skins are automatically enabled within the project, if all skins are enabled in a .SKINCFG file. If one or more skins are disabled in this file, new skins will be automatically disabled in your projects. |
Available skins | Lists all skins whose design-time packages are loaded in the IDE. You can select skins for which skin units will be automatically added to the ‘uses’ clause. |
Default | Enable this option to store skin options to the registry, and make them default. These options will be applied, by default, to all new projects. In addition, the Project Skin Options Editor won’t be automatically invoked in new projects if you specify default skin options unless the “Notify about new skins” option is enabled. The Default option value is persisted to a .SKINCFG file, to indicate whether a list of enabled skins matches the default list stored in the registry. If the lists don’t match, the Default check box will have the grayed state. Opening a project with a .SKINCFG file containing the enabled Default option automatically replaces the list of enabled skins in the project with the default list. Note Opening a project with a .SKINCFG file containing the enabled Default option on a machine that has missing default skin option registry entries, recreates these entries based on the .SKINCFG file. |
Select All | Checks all skins displayed in the list. |
Select None | Unchecks all skins in the list. |
OK | Applies all pending changes to skin options and closes the Project Skin Options Editor. This automatically creates a .SKINCFG file or updates the existing file according to the changes made. The file is created with the active project’s name at the project file’s location. After this, skin options stored in this file are used to determine units to be added to the ‘uses’ clause of any unit with skinnable controls opened in the IDE. |
Cancel | Discards all pending changes to skin options and closes the Project Skin Options Editor. If the editor is invoked for the first time in your project, closing the editor applies the default skin options. This automatically enables skin support and all skins whose design-time packages are loaded in the IDE. |
Note that you need to manually remove all unnecessary skin units and skin painter units from the ‘uses’ clause if you do any of the following:
Unload painter or skin design-time packages.
Disable skin support for the project.
Uncheck skins, whose units have already been added to the ‘uses’ clause.