Customizing themes with Restyle

Restyle can utilize user-supplied themes.

These themes are stored in the Restyle Configuration Store.

Restyle Themes

A Restyle theme is a JSON-formatted document containing configuration elements that control how Restyle updates the design elements of a Notes database. A JSON schema, describing the structure of a Restyle theme, is used to validate a theme document before Restyle uses it.

Prerequisites

  1. HCL Domino Designer installed on your machine.
  2. Understand the JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) format at a basic level.
  3. A JSON-compatible editor.
  4. A local replica of restyle.nsf. For more information, see Restyle Configuration Store.

Exporting Themes from Restyle.nsf

The best way to create a custom theme is to start with an existing theme and modify it as needed. Export a theme and the theme schema from restyle.nsf by following these steps:

  1. Create a directory to use as a destination for the theme and schema files.
  2. Launch Domino Designer.
  3. Open the local replica of restyle.nsf.
  4. Navigate to Resources/Files and double-click the Files entry.
  5. Select reserved/schema/theme-<version>.json and click Export. This is the "theme schema".
  6. Select the directory created in step 1 and click Save to save the schema file.
  7. Select any document under reserved/theme to use as a starting theme and click Export.
Note: The file names contain the sequence 2f instead of the '/'. Since you aren't importing these files after changing, you can rename to remove the 2f if desired.

Creating a theme

  1. With your JSON-capable editor, open the exported theme and Save As a new theme, for example: my_custom_theme.json.
  2. For best results, configure your editor to associate the theme schema with your new theme. This provides auto-complete functionality and validates the document before Restyle uses it.
  3. Modify the theme document as needed.
  4. Import the new theme into restyle.nsf:
    1. Launch Domino Designer.
    2. Open the local replica of restyle.nsf.
    3. Navigate to Resources/Files and double-click the Files entry.
    4. At the top of the "Files" collection, click New File Resource.
    5. Enter theme/my_custom-theme.json (or whatever you named your theme filename) as the name.
      Note: The "theme/" prefix is required to allow the Restyle feature to find the custom theme.
    6. Enter a user-friendly display name as the alias value.
    7. Comment is not currently used but may be useful for documentation purposes.
    8. In your JSON editor, select the entire document and copy to the clipboard.
    9. Paste the contents of the clipboard into the newly created file resource in Domino Designer.

Verify your changes are available

  1. Using Notes, select a database template to restyle.
  2. Click File > Application > Restyle to display the restyle options.
  3. Your custom theme should appear in a dropdown under the built-in theme choices.