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Creating custom layout themes (FileMaker Pro Advanced)

FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Pro Advanced use a variety of layout themes to describe the colors, patterns, fonts, and borders of text, fields, and parts in a new layout.

A theme is an Extensible Markup Language (XML) document that can be read and edited in a text editor (such as Notepad for Windows or BBEdit for Mac OS X) or XML editor (such as XMLSPY or XMetaL).

You can customize an existing theme or create your own, and then use the New Layout/Report assistant to apply the custom theme when you create layouts for your databases.

You can modify attributes defined by the theme in Layout mode after the layout is created. However, you can’t apply a theme to an existing layout.

To modify a theme:

1.	Make a copy of one of the theme files in the Themes folder.

Windows: FileMaker Pro Advanced\Extensions\English\Themes\

Mac OS X: FileMaker Pro Advanced/ FileMaker Pro Advanced.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/Themes/

Important  The total number of theme files is limited to 50.

2.	Rename the copy and include the .fth extension with the new filename.

Keep the new file in the Themes folder. For the New Layout/Report assistant to display a theme option, the theme file must reside in the Themes folder and it must have the .fth filename extension.

3.	Open the theme file in a text editor.

4.	Change the name of a theme by replacing the value of the THEMENAME element with a new name.

<THEMENAME VALUE="Purple and White Screen" />

Note  If your THEMENAME value contains any upper-ASCII characters, use the HINT attribute to ensure that the theme name will appear on both the Windows and Mac OS X platforms. For valid values for theme attributes, see Layout theme attributes (FileMaker Pro Advanced).

5.	Change the values of other elements and attributes.

For example, to change the background fill color of the body part in a layout to a light purple, change the color hexadecimal (hex) value to #9933CC:

<BODYPART>

<FILL COLOR = “#9933CC” PATTERN = “2” />

For guidelines on valid values for patterns and colors, see Using values for patterns and colors (FileMaker Pro Advanced).

6.	Remove any elements that you don’t want to specify.

Be sure to remove the entire single-line or multi-line element including its start and end tags. For more information, see Removing elements from theme files (FileMaker Pro Advanced).

7.	Scroll down to the next FMTHEME element and repeat these steps to change the THEMENAME value and other elements.

8.	Save the file in text format with the filename extension .fth in the Themes folder inside the FileMaker Pro Advanced folder.

Each new THEMENAME value will appear in the New Layout/Report assistant as a Layout Theme option.

9.	In FileMaker Pro Advanced, click New Layout/Report in the status toolbar (Layout mode) to use your theme.

Follow the instruction in the New Layout/Report assistant. The third panel presents you with a list of themes to select from. Names of custom themes appear as options in the New Layout/Report assistant.

If your new themes don’t appear in the New Layout/Report assistant, you might have made a syntax error. For information about checking for theme file errors, see Troubleshooting custom layout themes (FileMaker Pro Advanced).

Notes

•	A FileMaker theme is not a stylesheet and does not contain positioning information for objects on a layout.

•	A theme file can contain more than one theme. For example, the Blue_gold.fth file contains two themes: “Blue and Gold Screen” (for viewing onscreen) and “Blue and Gold Print” (for printing).

•	You can add comments to your XML theme files by enclosing the information in comment tags:

<!- - my comment here - ->

FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Pro Advanced will ignore any unknown (but syntactically correct) XML elements you may choose to include. This allows your theme files to be backward and forward compatible with other versions of FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Pro Advanced.

•	For more information about:

•	XML and its uses, see www.filemaker.com/support/technologies.

•	Publishing your database on the web in XML format, see the FileMaker Instant Web Publishing Guide, available at www.filemaker.com/documentation.

•	FileMaker Pro Advanced may not be available in all of the shipping languages of FileMaker Pro.