About UIX Style Sheets

ADF UIX provides the style definitions for an application's look and feel via XML style sheet language documents (.xss files). Each look and feel can define its own custom style sheet. The styles defined by the look and feel's custom style sheet are automatically layered on top of the styles defined by the parent look and feel.

For example, the styles in Base Look And Feel are defined by the base-desktop.xss style sheet. These styles are automatically available in all look and feels. When you define a custom style sheet for your look and feel, the styles defined by the custom style sheet override the corresponding styles defined by base-desktop.xss . The following code from base-desktop.xss shows a color that is used throughout the look and feel:


<!-- DarkBackground defines the primary color in the core (green) color ramp. -->
<style name="DarkBackground">
  <property name="background-color">#669966</property> 
</style>

You can override this style definition by adding an similar entry to your custom style sheet:


<!-- Change the DarkBackground color to "blue" -->
<style name="DarkBackground">
  <property name="background-color">blue</property> 
</style>

The styles that are used by the Simple Look and Feel are defined in simple-desktop.xss. Since the Simple Look And Feel is itself an extension of the Base Look And Feel, the styles defined by simple-desktop.xss are automatically merged on top of the styles defined by base-desktop.xss. If you create a custom look and feel that extends the Simple Look And Feel, your custom styles are layered on top of the merged results.

The oracle-desktop.xss contains the style definitions for implementing the Oracle Browser Look and Feel (BLAF). The PDA version of BLAF is defined in oracle-pda.xss. Note that oracle-desktop.xss and oracle-pda.xss now replace blaf.xss and pocketPC.xss, respectively, which were the style sheet documents provided in earlier releases of UIX. In this release, blaf.xss and pocketPC.xss are provided only for backward compatibility. Also note that custom style sheets are now automatically layered on top of the parent look and feel's style sheet. This means you no longer need to explicitly import the parent style sheet. So, for example, when extending the Base Look And Feel, your custom style sheet should not explicitly import base-desktop.xss. The styles that are defined by the parent look and feel's style sheet are automatically available.

The minimal-desktop.xss implements the Minimal Look and Feel, which is an alternate style to BLAF that uses smaller HTML content and less images. The PDA version of MLAF is defined in minimal-pda.xss.

All XML style sheet language documents are located in <jdev_install>/jdev/mywork/<Workspace_dir>/ <Project_dir>/public_html/cabo/styles.

At runtime, UIX determines the user's platform, browser, and locale using information provided with the HTTP request. Then UIX converts the style sheet documents into a browser, locale, and platform-specific CSS (cascading style sheet) that contains the parent style definitions plus the relevant environment-specific style definitions and any extended style definitions.

Summary notes:

The simple-desktop.xss, oracle-desktop.xss, and minimal-desktop.xss documents extend base-desktop.xss.
The simple-desktop.xss and base-desktop.xss documents are the parent style sheets for implementing your custom style sheets.
The oracle-desktop.xss and minimal-desktop.xss documents are provided for you to use "as-is", without customization. Oracle does not recommend that you extend or modify these documents to provide customized style definitions for your user applications. This is because the UI designs of these look and feels may change based on Oracle's own corporate UI requirements.
For an overview of the main UIX style elements used in a style sheet document, see About Custom Style Sheets.
See About Look and Feel Customization for information about providing custom look and feels.

For complete information about using UIX styles, and customizing and personalizing look and feels, refer to the ADF UIX Developer's Guide.