styles

 

One of the new features of FileMaker Pro 13 is that Themes now have Styles which let you change and update the attributes of text, buttons, headers, footers and more on layouts or throughout your solution. In following posts I will go further into detail and show more advance and time saving techniques.

The Styles tab is located on the second tab of the inspector. One of the first things you’ll notice is the the Theme you are using at listed at the top. Clicking the icon to the right displays options choose from. Note the center of the icon will turn red if changes have been made to the theme.

theme_menu
  • Save Changes to Theme – Save changes made to the default theme as a custom theme. Note that this updates the entire solution with the updated styles on all layouts.
  • Save as New Theme – Changes made to a theme will be saved out as a new theme.
  • Rename Theme – Change the name of a theme.
  • Revert Changes to Theme – Reverts all styles back since the last saved changes.

 

Selecting the checkbox next to Show All shows a list of all the Styles available with the theme. I have attached a few images showing available styles for a theme.
show_all_1show_all_2show_all_3

 

Clicking a button object in a solution highlights only the available styles for that button.

button_selected

If Show All is unchecked, it only shows the available styles for the object that is selected.

button_styles

The icon to the right of a selected style has a popup with another set of options. Note the center icon turns red if a changes to the selected style have been made.

style_options

  • Save Changes to Current Style – Updates the style on the current layout, Save Changes to Theme would carry across the solution.
  • Save as New Style – Create a new style with a custom name.
  • Rename Style – Change the name of the Style. Note that style name Default cannot be changed but a new style could be created.
  • Revert Changes to Style – Reverts selected style back since the last saved change.
  • Delete Style – Delete the selected style.

 

 

After creating or updating styles, click the top drop down to Save Changes to Theme and they will be applied across all layouts with the same theme in the solution. Changing or modifying styles does’t modify the default theme it only creates a custom version of the theme when saved.

Watch for FileMaker Pro 13 – Stylin’ Part 2 that will include a Demo File with other advantages to using Styles and how to import from another solution.