The NGClient utilizes unprocessed CSS (3.0) to do all styling of solutions.

All possible CSS properties can now be used, like:

• All types of selectors
• Pseudo-classes

Solution StyleSheet

The stylesheet can be specified at solution level, it has to be stored in the media, for usage of images from media library do use relative URL's.

In the Solution Explorer Tree you can just create a new file (xxxx.css) in your media folder of your solution. Which can then be assigned with the stylesheet property of the solution node itself.

1. CSS Selectors

StyleSheets for the Servoy Smart and Web Client could make use of Servoy specific type selectors. In the NGClient, where the stylesheets are interpreted by the browser, these Servoy specific type selectors are not available. Below a conversion table from the Servoy specific type selectors to their NGClient equivalent. 

Also NGClient will output special classes for default components that can be used from solution css to easily style all components of same time. The name of the class is svy-componentName (so svy-label, svy-button, svy-calendar, svy-textfield...). Also, in NGClient we added two new classes: svy-layoutcontainer (for responsive layout containers) and svy-wrapper for wrapper div of the component (used in absolute layout).

1.1 Grid

The grid is based on UI-grid, there is a customizer that creates a stylesheet.

1.2 Tabpanel

Tabpanel is based on Bootstrap nav-tabs. To target the tabs, the following classes are available:

2. Changes from previous version

In NGClient, Sevoy specific selectors such as:

label.bold {
	font-weight: bold;
}

should become

.bold {
	font-weight: bold;
}

If there are cases where the bold class is defined for two different components and their implementation is also different, then the following example

label.bold {
	font-weight: bold;
}
 
field.bold {
	font-weight: 900;
}

should become 

.label_bold {
   font-weight: bold;
}
 
.field_bold {
   font-weight: 900;
}

After that, the styleClass property of the elements should be changed from "bold" to "label_bold" or "field_bold".

2.1 font-size

The "margin" css property should be changed with the "padding" property.

label {
	margin: 1px 2px 3px 4px; 
}

should become

.label {
	padding: 1px 2px 3px 4px; 
}

In the webclient, the font-size property is changed at runtime, so in order to keep the same runtime sizes in the NGClient, the css files should be updated using the following functions:

for sizes specified in pt:

ngclient_value =  3/4 * webclient_value

for sizes specified in px:

ngclient_value =  4/3 * webclient_value

For example:

field.label {
	font-size: 20pt;
}
 
field.textfield {
	font-size: 20px;
}

should become

.label {
	font-size: 15pt;
}

.textfield {
	font-size: 26px;
}

2.2 styleClass precedence over default servoy selectors (.svy-field, .svy-combobox, .svy-textfield, etc...)

In NGClient it is recomended that style classes that are used in the styleClass property of form elements should be added at the end of the css file. This way, if a style class (named myTextfield) has properties that override properties from .svy-textfield, then setting that class as the styleClass property will have the expected outcome. This is because myTextfield is located after .svy-textfield in the css file.

2.3 Using media file from css

In NGClient the css files are not being pre-processed on server, so using background-image: url("media:///<name>") does not work out of the box. However, using background-image: url("mymedia.gif") will work fine, if mymedia.gif exists in media files. 

2.4 Labelfor label in tableview

In WebClient and Smart Client you could use a labelfor label in order to style the table header. In NGClient, only text property and styleClass properties are applied. Using styleClass, you can style the header from solution css (so define border, background-color, background-image ..). For example, if the labelfor label has imageMediaID set to an icon settings.png (media). In NGClient, you should add a styleClass settingsBackground then add in solution css:

.settingsBackground
{
 background-image: url("settings.png");
 background-repeat: no-repeat;
 background-position: center;
 background-size: 16px;
}

2.5 Reconnecting feedback

When the NGClient detects communication issues with the server, a message is shown. This message can be styled and the text can be set using servoy i18n.

The message is a div styled using class svy-reconnecting:

.svy-reconnecting {
	color: red;
}

The message is defined by key servoy.ngclient.reconnecting:

Since Servoy 8.3.1 we added another class, svy-reconnecting-overlay, which is used to define the css transition. The transition also has a delay (default) half a second in order to avoid this message showing when there is a network hiccup. The delay can be changed from solution css:

.svy-reconnecting-overlay.ng-hide-remove {
  transition-delay: 10s !important;
}

2.6 Loading indicator

By default NGClient will set the wait cursor on the body and all its elements when a request to the server is done. This is done through the service: $sabloLoadingIndicator which can also be used by 3th party services (plugins) that want to set there own wait cursor. The service has 2 functions:

1> showLoading(): Call this when the loading indicator should show.

2> hideLoading(): Call this when the loading indicator should be hidden.

A call too showLoading() should always be in sync with a call to hideLoading() else the internal state will be wrong.

If you want to control what should be done when show/hide is called, so showing your own kind of loading (maybe a div) then you can add your own service with the name "loadingIndicator". This service should have those 2 functions, don't use this service directly to set or hide the indicator, always use the $sabloLoadingIndicator.

yourmodule.factory("loadingIndicator",function($window) 
{
	return {
		showLoading: function() {
			$($window.document.body).css({"cursor":"wait"});
		},
		hideLoading: function() {
			$($window.document.body).css({"cursor":"auto"});
		},
	}
})

2.7 File upload

The fileupload dialog uses the following keys for presenting its string values:

"servoy.filechooser.button.upload"

"servoy.filechooser.upload.addFile"

"servoy.filechooser.upload.addFiles"

"servoy.filechooser.selected.files"

"servoy.filechooser.nothing.selected"

"servoy.filechooser.button.remove"

"servoy.filechooser.label.name"

"servoy.button.cancel"

"servoy.filechooser.error"

3. Importing other .css files in the main solution .css

In the css file that you choose as a property of the solution you can also reference other .css files from solution media.

For example if you have another css file in media "stylesheets/ui_customisation.css" (the path is relative to the solution .css file that does the import) you can reference that by adding this line at the beginning of you solution's css:

@import "stylesheets/ui_customisation.css?t=##last-changed-timestamp##";
(...)

Note the "t=##last-changed-timestamp##" argument you need to add to the url, in order to discard the browser cached version of the css, when a new WAR is deployed (##last-changed-timestamp## will be replaced during WAR export with the last changed timestamp of the parent CSS)

4. Standard NG Client css

You might have noticed that when you want to create a new solution css file from solution - properties view, you have the option (default: checked) to create and import a "standard_ngclient.css". This file will contain - if you leave that checked - rules that will be helpful in most cases; they are here - in solution media - so that they can be altered/removed easier.

You don't need to read about this further if you already use it. But in case you already had your css set-up before the standard NG Client css was added (8.2.2) you might need to add some of the rules below (or create a new "standard_ngclient.css" file and reference/import it in your existing css)

4.1 Related to responsive layout and nesting of containers

In responsive layouts, when you nest multiple forms using tab panels or other types of container-components it may happen that a tab/child form that has in it directly "row" layout containers (so no root layout "container" or layout "container-fluid") shows unwanted scroll-bars. That happens because bootstrap requires that all 'row' divs must either be put in a 'container', a 'container-fluid' or in a 'column', while in the case of a tabpanel for example the parent DOM Element is just some intermediate div.

Because 'row' has negative margins of -15px and parent intermediate div might not have padding of 15px, the scrollbars can appear (if that div has overflow: auto). For example:

 container
   row
     column
       div style="overflow: auto" // the intermediate div of container-component
         row // results in a scrollbar because of margin -15px
           columns

The problem does not appear when a 'row' is inside a 'column', a 'container' or a 'container fluid' - because those have a padding of 15px defined. However, bootstrap doesn't allow nesting of containers in it's layout docs - so adding a container layout as root of child/contained form is not an option. But as the tabpanel might want to contain absolute forms as well (for example), that intermediate div cannot always set a 15px padding - as that might not be necessary... So we just need to change the margins of such rows as in the rule below (that is included already in "standard_ngclient.css":

div:not(.container):not(.container-fluid):not([class^="col-xs-"]):not([class^="col-sm-"]):not([class^="col-md-"]):not([class^="col-lg-"])
 > .row {
    margin-right: 0;
    margin-left: 0;
}