ScaleNine

I just finished up a theme based on the soon to be released Yahoo Messenger for Windows Vista. I know a lot of Mac users are anxious to see a release for Mac OS X. Maybe this will give them something to play with to sooth their tempered selves even though you can’t actually chat with this.

There’s a couple item renderers for the buddy list and the message display. Those two areas are also populated using XML.

You can download the theme, it’s source and the FLA from the homepage. Or, try the theme using the following url in your Flex 2 Application’s mx:Style tag:

Here’s a great example by Eylon Stroh of some skinning of a Flex 2 application. It’s taken a step further by using programmatic skinning. A hand-drawn feeling theme is on my “to be created” list, so it’s neat seeing something similar to what I had in mind.

Check out the source here : http://www.thebetterside.com/scrawl/srcview/

The FLAs for all the themes (all 3 of them) are now available for download from the homepage. A couple of them could probably use a little cleaning up. I’m going to try to make the FLAs for all future themes as well and hopefully people will let me know what they’re able to do with them.

I encourage the sharing of any themes that may develop out of the FLAs I make available.

I set up a quick system to allow ScaleNine themes to be used in Flex without having to download the source files from the homepage. Simply copy one of the following urls and paste it into the source attribute of a mx:Style tag in your working MXML under the Application tag. However, If you decide on using one of the themes I would suggest downloading the source for the theme you settled on and load it into your Flex project. A couple of weird things happen if you don’t do that, like disappearing images.

Obsidian Theme: http://try.scalenine.com/obsidian/obsidian.css

iTunes 7 Theme: http://try.scalenine.com/itunes7/jukebox.css

WMP 11 Theme: http://try.scalenine.com/wmp11/wmp11.css

Moxy CSS Theme: http://try.scalenine.com/moxy/moxy.css

Minty CSS Theme: http://try.scalenine.com/minty/minty.css

Shadow CSS Theme: http://try.scalenine.com/shadow/shadow.css

Darkroom Theme: http://try.scalenine.com/darkroom/darkroom.css

Vista Blue Theme: http://try.scalenine.com/vistaBlue/vistaBlue.css

Note: You must run/compile your project to see the theme get applied. It would be nice to see the theme change a project right inside Flex Builder rather than having to compile/run it. Maybe in a future release.

Originally the Obsidian theme was used as part of a quick experiment I did using Flickr (before their latest API version) and Ely Greenfield’s Display Shelf Component. I wanted to see what I could do visually with other Flex 2 samples I found. It’s neat seeing what a little stylin’ can do to dress up an app.

The app has a few bugs since Flickr changed to their api, but I thought I’d post it just the same. Who knows, maybe someone will download the source and fix the bugs.

Based on Rich Tretola’s example mentioned in my last post, I created a Theme Swapper app using the Flex 2.0.1 runtime CSS feature. It swaps between three of the graphical themes I created (Obsidian, iTunes 7, and WMP 11 themes).

See it here: http://scalenine.com/samples/themeSwapper/themeSwap.html or view the source.

I found a great example by Rich Tretola on how to switch styles at runtime in Flex 2.0.1. I think I might try to put together a quick example too using the themes I created.

I finished the Windows Media Player 11 Theme for Flex 2. You can see it in action or download the source zip file. Alternate background, button, combo box and control bar skins were created for different needs/applications (ie. content areas versus button bars). I included the MXML file as a reference and notes in the zipped source file.

Click here to learn how you can try this theme without downloading any files.

I came across a post by Derek Wischusen who added a “Download CSS” button to the Flex 2 : Style Explorer created by Adobe Consulting. It’s a great tool to learn how to style Flex 2 apps with CSS.

See it here: http://www.flexonrails.net/stylescreator/public/

Based on the quick drop down sample I made a while ago, I am going to create a Vista:Windows Media Player 11 theme. Once I wrap that up I think I’ll create some themes using only CSS.