Author
Christopher Szu, Engineer, Potix Corporation

Date
Jun 21, 2016

Version
ZK 8.0.2

Introduction

In the previous smalltalk, we covered how to build ZK custom theme using the newly introduced ZK Theme Template. If you are not familiar with ZK Theme Template, we recommend a quick read through.

Before ZK Theme Template came along, one situation that often troubled ZK developers is upgrading their ZK custom theme to match the ZK version of the application. Since there were no mechanism or tools provided officially, upgrading had become a difficult task.

To mitigate the difficulty, we have built ZK Theme Template with git, making it much easier to switch between versions as we leverage the versioning capabilities of git.

In this smalltalk, we will show you how to build your custom theme based on any version of ZK, and how to switch to a different version.

Steps to Upgrading Your Custom Theme

Follow these steps to upgrade your own custom theme based on ZK's new theme template.
We will assume you have already cloned ZK Theme Template and ran the init script. Please refer to the previous smalltalk for more detail.

After git clone and init script, you should have a custom theme based on the master (newest) branch of ZK Theme Template. But since we are going to check out another revision, we should commit the changes made by init.sh script.

➜ git status
On branch master
Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/master'.
Changes not staged for commit:
  (use "git add/rm <file>..." to update what will be committed)
  (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)

        modified:   pom.xml
        modified:   readme.txt
        modified:   src/archive/metainfo/zk/config.xml
        modified:   src/archive/metainfo/zk/lang-addon.xml
        deleted:    src/org/zkoss/theme/___THEME_NAME___/Version.java
        deleted:    src/org/zkoss/theme/___THEME_NAME___/___THEME_NAME_CAP___ThemeWebAppInit.java
        modified:   version

Untracked files:
  (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)

        src/org/zkoss/theme/biggerToolbarButton/

no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")
➜ git add -A
➜ git commit -m "init biggerToolbarButton theme"

Line 19: for this demonstration, the theme is going to be called "biggerToolbarButton"

Remember your theme version should match the ZK version of your application. For this demonstration, we will assume ZK version is 7.0.2 initially and upgrade to 7.0.8 later.
Switch to ZK 7.0.2 with the following command.
```
➜ git checkout -b custom-theme v7.0.2
```
- This will create a branch called "custom-theme" based on ZK 7.0.2 tag "v7.0.2"
We will make two changes, one of them will cause git merge conflict when we perform the upgrade later. This is what ZK toolbar component looks like in ZK 7.0.2.
For the first change, we'll edit src/archive/web/js/zul/wgt/less/toolbar.less, the style file for ZK toolbar component.

Change the line-height of the ZK toolbar button content
from

.z-toolbarbutton-content {
	.fontStyle(@baseTitleFontFamily, @fontSizeSmall, normal, @baseTextColor);
	padding: 2px;
	line-height: @baseLineHeight + 6;
	vertical-align: middle;
	position: relative;
	text-shadow: 0 1px #FFFFFF;
	white-space:nowrap;
}

to

.z-toolbarbutton-content {
	.fontStyle(@baseTitleFontFamily, @fontSizeSmall, normal, @baseTextColor);
	padding: 2px;
	line-height: 36px;
	vertical-align: middle;
	position: relative;
	text-shadow: 0 1px #FFFFFF;
	white-space:nowrap;
}

since ZK did not change the toolbar button content between 7.0.2 and 7.0.8, this change should not cause any git merge conflict.

For the second change, we'll edit different part of the same toolbar.less.

Change the button height of the ZK toolbar component
from

.z-toolbarbutton {
	display: inline-block;
	height: @baseButtonHeight;
	border: 1px solid transparent;
	//omitted for brevity
}

to

.z-toolbarbutton {
	display: inline-block;
	height: 40px;
	border: 1px solid transparent;
	//omitted for brevity
}

If you build the theme right now, you'll get a ZK 7.0.2 based custom theme. But since we want to upgrade to ZK 7.0.8, let's just commit the changes for now.
```
➜ git add -u
➜ git commit -m "made some changes"
```

Let's upgrade from current version ZK 7.0.2 to ZK 7.0.8.

➜ git tag -l
v7.0.0
v7.0.0-Preview
v7.0.0-RC
v7.0.1
v7.0.2
v7.0.3
v7.0.3.1
v7.0.3.2
v7.0.4
v7.0.5
v7.0.5.1
v7.0.5.2
v7.0.6
v7.0.6.1
v7.0.7
v7.0.8
v8.0.0
v8.0.0-RC
v8.0.1
v8.0.1.1
v8.0.2
v8.0.2.1
v8.0.EL.2.2
➜ git fetch origin v7.0.8
➜ git diff HEAD v7.0.8
...
diff --git a/src/archive/web/js/zul/wgt/less/toolbar.less b/src/archive/web/js/zul/wgt/less/toolbar.less
index 72e90d6..b3b51e5 100644
--- a/src/archive/web/js/zul/wgt/less/toolbar.less
+++ b/src/archive/web/js/zul/wgt/less/toolbar.less
@@ -57,7 +57,6 @@
 // Toolbarbutton
 .z-toolbarbutton {
        display: inline-block;
-       height: 40px;
        border: 1px solid transparent;
        .borderRadius(@borderRadiusSmall);
        margin: 0 2px;
...
➜ git merge v7.0.8
Auto-merging src/archive/web/zul/less/_zkvariables.less
Auto-merging src/archive/web/js/zul/wgt/less/toolbar.less
CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in src/archive/web/js/zul/wgt/less/toolbar.less
Automatic merge failed; fix conflicts and then commit the result.

Line 17: the tag name for ZK 7.0.8 is "v7.0.8"
Line 25: "origin" is being used here, but you should replace that name with whatever name you used for the ZK Theme Template repository.
Line 36: ZK 7.0.8 removed the height attribute of .z-toolbarbutton class, but we've also made a change to the height attribute; this will surely cause a git auto merge conflict later on.
Line 44: git is letting us know it cannot figure out how to automatically merge the change ZK 7.0.8 and we both made .

As you can see, our second change creates a git auto merge conflict with ZK 7.0.8. To resolve this conflict, simply open toolbar.less in your editor of choice, and make the following changes.
```
// Toolbarbutton
.z-toolbarbutton {
	display: inline-block;
<<<<<<< HEAD
	height: 40px;
=======
>>>>>>> v7.0.8
	border: 1px solid transparent;
	.borderRadius(@borderRadiusSmall);
	margin: 0 2px;
```
- Line 4-7: We can see that there is no height attribute in v7.0.8, but in the HEAD revision there is. Since we decided that the change is needed, we will keep the height attribute.

After removing the conflict message in toolbar.less, this is what we have now.

// Toolbarbutton
.z-toolbarbutton {
	display: inline-block;
	height: 40px;
	border: 1px solid transparent;
	.borderRadius(@borderRadiusSmall);
	margin: 0 2px;

Now we can finish the merging process by committing the changes we've just made.

➜ git status
On branch custom-theme
You have unmerged paths.
  (fix conflicts and run "git commit")

Changes to be committed:

        new file:   src/archive/web/js/zkmax/inp/ext/icons-black-2x.png
        new file:   src/archive/web/js/zkmax/inp/ext/icons-black.png
        new file:   src/archive/web/js/zkmax/inp/ext/icons-white-2x.png
        new file:   src/archive/web/js/zkmax/inp/ext/icons-white.png
        new file:   src/archive/web/js/zkmax/inp/less/tbeditor.less
        new file:   src/archive/web/js/zkmax/inp/less/timepicker.less
        new file:   src/archive/web/js/zkmax/layout/less/rowlayout.less
        modified:   src/archive/web/js/zul/grid/less/grid.less
        modified:   src/archive/web/js/zul/inp/less/combo.less
        modified:   src/archive/web/js/zul/mesh/less/paging.less
        modified:   src/archive/web/js/zul/sel/less/listbox.less
        modified:   src/archive/web/js/zul/sel/less/tree.less
        modified:   src/archive/web/js/zul/wgt/less/caption.less
        modified:   src/archive/web/zkmax/less/tablet/_calendar.less
        modified:   src/archive/web/zkmax/less/tablet/_combo.less
        modified:   src/archive/web/zul/less/_reset.less
        modified:   src/archive/web/zul/less/_zkmixins.less
        modified:   src/archive/web/zul/less/_zkvariables.less
        new file:   src/archive/web/zul/less/font/_animated.less
        new file:   src/archive/web/zul/less/font/_bordered-pulled.less
        new file:   src/archive/web/zul/less/font/_fixed-width.less
        new file:   src/archive/web/zul/less/font/_larger.less
        new file:   src/archive/web/zul/less/font/_list.less
        new file:   src/archive/web/zul/less/font/_mixins.less
        new file:   src/archive/web/zul/less/font/_rotated-flipped.less
        new file:   src/archive/web/zul/less/font/_stacked.less
        modified:   src/archive/web/zul/less/norm.less

Unmerged paths:
  (use "git add <file>..." to mark resolution)

        both modified:   src/archive/web/js/zul/wgt/less/toolbar.less
➜ git add -u
➜ git commit

Line 39: The file with merge conflict will be marked "both modified"

Now we're done with the upgrade. Run mvn clean package to build your newly updated custom theme and test it out in your application. After our changes applied, this is now what the toolbar buttons look like (slightly bigger).

Known Difficulties

Although this new approach gives ZK developers more freedom to create their own theme, there are still some inconveniences.
ZK developers not familiar with git might find all the git commands intimidating, so here is the official git book and documentation for reference. Alternatively, you can use your favorite GUI git tools like sourcetree to eliminate the need to type in commands manually.
One thing to bear in mind when upgrading version is that some ZK bug fixes might include adjustments in .less files, so if you were to remove any existing styles, make sure they don't break your application before continuing.

Existing Custom Themes

Many ZK developers might already have an existing custom theme not based on the newly introduced ZK Theme Template, so one might ask is it possible to adopt the new structure of ZK Theme Template? Or is there a way for old custom themes to be converted into ZK Theme Template format? Stay tuned for the next smalltalk where we will investigate the possibility of upgrading your current custom theme to adopt the new structure of ZK Theme Template.

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Contents

Introduction

Steps to Upgrading Your Custom Theme

Known Difficulties

Existing Custom Themes

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