1. Introduction

2. BCGSkin+ AppWizard

3. BCGSkin+ Manager

4. BCGSkin+ Download Center

5. How to add BCGSkin+ capabilities to your application

6. Skins Sharing

Introduction to BCGSkin+

Starting version 5.5 BCGControlBar Library introduces built-in support for the distributable skin technology ("BCGSkin+"). Application "skin" is a set of "rules" that describes the look and feel of each GUI element like buttons, grippers, menu items and so on. When an application is "skin"-enabled, the end-user has an option to change the application look and feel on the fly. 

Take a look at BCGIEDemo and Wordpad examples. "Options" page on the customization dialog has the new button "Visualizations".

BCGSkin+ is a set of services that you can leverage to easily develop custom application skins and share them with other developers and customers over the Internet. The open architecture and programmable interface allow the unlimited "skin" customization, the well known customization dialog automatically searches for the installed "skins" or invokes BCGDownloader that transparently handles connection to remote "skin" storage, as well as download and installation of the selected "skins". BCGDownloader uses XML to communicate with the web server, so, firewalls are not an issue. 

The same customization dialog allows to preview and instantly apply a certain "skin".  Each "skin" maintains the version and copyright information. Therefore, it is guaranteed that "skin" developers will be able to reserve their rights.

BCGSkin+ "skins" distributed in DLL's. Each DLL can contain one or more "skins". An individual "skin" is implemented as a CBCGVisualManager-derived class. BCGSkinWizard helps you to create a custom "skin" from scratch leaving on you just to implement the "skin" drawing code.

BCGSkin+ contains the following services:

• BCGSkin+ AppWizard

• BCGSkin+ Manager

• BCGSkin+ Download Center

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BCGSkin+ Architecture

The following chart shows the overall BCGSkin+ architecture:

Please, note, that the most parts are automatically handled by the framework. You only need to provide the framework with the remote and local URLs (but this is also optional, the default remote URL is http://www.bcgsoft.com/skins, the default local path is %CommonFiles%/BCGSoft/Skins).

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BCGSkin AppWizard

The following screenshot displays BCGSkin+ Application Wizard:

You may notice, that BCGSkinWizard will help you to fill your copyright information and to select the handlers to override.

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BCGSkin+ Download Center

The following screenshot displays BCGSkin+ Download Center:

Download Center connects to a remote "Skin" storage, retrieves the list of available "skins" with the preview using XML API and allows to download and install selected "skins". Developer can configure the access either to the global (provided by BCGSoft) or to a third-party "skin" storage.

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How to add BCGSkin+ capabilities to your application

The code is very simple! You just need to add the Skin Manager initialization to your application InitInstance and, optionally, initialize the  download center:
 

To invoke a skin selection dialog, you need either add BCGCUSTOMIZE_SELECT_SKINS flag to CBCGToolbarCustomize dialog or call CBCGSkinManager::ShowSelectSkinDlg.

The rest is handled by the framework!

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Skins Sharing

Have a cool BCGSkin? Interest to distribute this component? Write us and we'll post your skin.

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