Changing Look and Feel of Seam Gen-ed apps

[jfrankman]

In order to get a jump start with Seam a few months ago we used the Seam Gen tool to generate an applicaiton from our database. We are at a point now where we would like to modify the way the application looks. Specifically we are trying to shrink the size of the generated Edit pages to fit more fields into a smaller area. It looks like this will require use to modify the css and/or templates that the seam gen tool created. However, I wanted to probe for any tips or advice from anyone before we get started.

Also, is there an easy way to change the css dynamically based upon user actions on a "settings form" of some kind?

[thejavafreak]

"jfrankman" wrote:
In order to get a jump start with Seam a few months ago we used the Seam Gen tool to generate an applicaiton from our database. We are at a point now where we would like to modify the way the application looks. Specifically we are trying to shrink the size of the generated Edit pages to fit more fields into a smaller area. It looks like this will require use to modify the css and/or templates that the seam gen tool created. However, I wanted to probe for any tips or advice from anyone before we get started.

I use the h:panelGrid for this. It is much easier than using html table and css. You can define how many columns you want and how the column look like with the css.

"jfrankman" wrote:

Also, is there an easy way to change the css dynamically based upon user actions on a "settings form" of some kind?

Check point 14.4 in the document. Is that what you're looking for?

[jfrankman]

Thanks for the response.

On the second point what I am looking for is the possibility of having a "screen size" drop down with with the options small, normal, and large. When a user selects "small" the css and/or html would be modified to make the text and input fields smaller.

[pmuir]

As Joshua said, take a look at Seam's support for themes, and the theme selector component.

[jfrankman]

I am still figuring out all the components used by Seam. Where do I learn about "themes". Where does a theme fits within all the components used by Seam. Is it a richfaces thing, a JSF thing, Seam concept, etc? I checked out chapter 18 of the Seam Manual, but there was not very much there explaining what themes are and how to use them.

Thanks for the help.

[pmuir]

Seam thing. The blog example uses them.

[jfrankman]

Thanks for the help. I will start doing some research. If anyone has suggestions or links for where to start it would be appreciated.