• From a terminal window cd to the example apps directory:
  

  cd /home/idv/idv/ucar/unidata/apps/example

• View the idv.rbi file:

  less idv.rbi

  and note the skin entry:

    <!--The different user interfaces available  -->
    <resources name="idv.resource.skin">
      <resource
         location="/ucar/unidata/apps/example/resources/skin.xml"
         label="Example>Example UI">
       <property name="view_class" value="ucar.unidata.idv.MapViewManager"/>
      </resource>
    </resources>
  
  

• We're going to change the example skin.
  • cd into the resources directory and bring up the skin.xml in an editor.
  • We're going to add a label above the view. Change the following xml:

               <idv.view place="Center" class="${view_class}"/>
    

    To:

            <panel layout="border" place="Center">
               <label text="Example Skin" fontsize="24" place="North"/>
               <idv.view place="Center" class="${view_class}"/>
            </panel>
    

  • Test this real quickly with the XmlUi:

    java ucar.unidata.ui.XmlUi skin.xml

  • If it is correct then run the example idv:

    java ucar.unidata.apps.example.ExampleIdv

• Note that this skin is not the default.
  • Go up a level to the example directory.
  • Edit the idv.rbi file and add the property line to the skin entry:

    <property name="default" value="true"/>

    e.g.:

        <resource
           location="/ucar/unidata/apps/example/resources/skin.xml"
           label="Example>Example UI">
         <property name="view_class" value="ucar.unidata.idv.MapViewManager"/>
         <property name="default" value="true"/>
        </resource>
    

• Save the idv.rbi file and run the ExampleIdv again.
• Note that there are still the system skins available.
  • Go back to the example idv.rbi file and add a loadmore="false" to the resources tag:

    <resources name="idv.resource.skin" loadmore="false">

  • Run the ExampleIdv again. Note that there is only the example skin.
• Now, one more thing. Let's write a little Java code.
  • Go to the example skin.rbi and change the label tag you added to be example.label:

    <example.label text="Example Skin" place="North"/>

  • Bring up the ExampleUIManager.java in an editor.
  • Look for the doMakeIdvXmlUi method. Notice we create our own IdvXmlUi object. So far it does nothing.
  • Let's add some code that can handle this tag. e.g.:

    public Component createComponent(Element node, String id) {
        String tagName = node.getTagName();
        if(tagName.equals("example.label")) {
            JLabel label = new JLabel(XmlUtil.getAttribute(node, XmlUi.ATTR_TEXT));
            label.setForeground(Color.red);
            return label;
         }
         return super.createComponent(node, id);
    }
    

  • Compile and run the ExampleIdv
• Clean up our changes. Remove the loadmore="false" attribute and the default property from the idv.rbi
• One more thing, let's look at the ExampleUIManager again and see how we can skip this whole skin thing if needed.
  • Look at the method:

        public IdvWindow createNewWindow(List viewManagers, boolean notifyCollab,
                                         String title, String skinPath,
                                         Element skinRoot) {...}
    

  • This method is responsible for creating the GUI windows in the IDV.
  • Note the code in there that allows us to skip or not skip the skins:

            if(!testNewWindow)  {
                return super.createNewWindow(viewManagers, notifyCollab,title, skinPath, skinRoot);
            }
    

Unidata IDV Workshop for version 6.0 > Java Developer Topics > IDV User Interfaces