Creating Custom Skins

You can create your own skins to customize the look and feel of your portal.

TIP: Because skins contain many settings, consider copying and renaming an existing skin file, and then using a text editor to edit its properties, rather than constructing a new skin file from scratch. You can copy the default skin file from Default Skin File.

DivePort skins are text files that specify the properties for display elements such as fonts, images, and colors. The default skin file (default.txt) contains annotations that describe the various properties and how their values are formatted. When you create a custom skin, any properties that you do not set are inherited from default.txt.

Additionally, you can create CSS files that define the appearance of a specific area on the portal. Place these files in the DI\Solution\webdata\<diveport>\customizations\skincss directory, and add them as a comma-separated list to the skin at the includeCssFiles= property line.

IMPORTANT: If you use a custom CSS, DI cannot ensure that your DivePort will display exactly the same after a DivePort upgrade. You might need to make adjustments to your custom skin.

To create a custom skin for DivePort:

  1. Do one of the following
  2. Copy and rename an existing skin file (recommended).
  3. Create a new text file.
  4. Use a text editor to specify the values of the properties for the skin.
  5. Save your skin file on the DivePort server in the \DI\Solution\webdata\<diveport>\customizations\skins directory.
  6. The new skin is added to the list of available skins presented in the portal.

You can apply the skin at the portal or environment level, or to a user or group.

Inheriting properties from other skins

In DivePort 7.1(27) and later, you can use the inheritFrom tag in the custom skin file to inherit properties from a DivePort built-in skin or a skin located in the webdata/<diveport> folder.

For example, if you want your custom skin to inherit properties from the built-in DIUX skin, include the line:

inheritFrom=DIUX

Any properties that appear in both files use the setting in the skin that contains the inheritFrom tag.

Using the custom skin in NetDiver

When launched from DivePort, NetDiver uses the same custom portal skin if the following conditions are met:

  • The netdiver.skin parameter is set to the name of the custom skin in the NetDiver context xml file
  • A copy of the custom skin is located in the \webdata\<netdiver>\customizations\skin directory

See also: