Introduction

Meridix Studio has support for branding/theming through a Theme provider pipeline.

The web UI layout CSS is not part of the default theming support but it can be altered if desired by overriding CSS rules in on of the themable CSS files.

The following parts of the system can be customized to give your Meridix installation a different look and feel

Logotypes
Fonts
UI colors
Icons
Page sections/containers
Menus (only apperance not content)
Report chart colors
XLSX / XLS exported charts colors
XLSX / XLS Call specification export
Module names (multi language support)
Report names (multi language support)
Subscriber type names (multi language support)
Link URLs (e.g. support link)
Help section iFrame content

The login page is fully customizable where the complete page can be changed to match your companys profile.

Getting started

Overview

A theme in Meridix studio is a set of files (css, images, scripts) that is contained in a directory with a specific structure (see below). There is a default theme folder that the systems uses in no other theme is defined. If a custom theme is defined but a requiered resource is not included the system fallback on the default theme resource. This means that you can choose to only include the resources that you have changed in the theme structure.

The custom themes should be created in the defined structure (its recommended to use the default theme as a template) and depending on the custom theme location zipped (GZIP) into a compressed file with the name ThemeName.zip where ThemeName is the name of the Theme.

Custom theme location options

There is three ways that the theme resources can be exposed to the Meridix installation.

Locally on the server

The folder (not zipped) should be defined locally under the installation root under the folder [drive]:/[webapp_path]/Themes/ThemeName
In this case no ThemeUri needs to be defined.
This option is not available on Meridix hosted installations

On external server as a zipped archive

The zipped theme file should be available to the Meridix server on a public accessible URL. When a theme is set in Meridix Studio the system downloads and extracts the custom theme to an internal temporary folder and loads the resources from that folder for future requests. When uploading a new version of an existing theme append an incremented version number in the theme name to bypass the internal theme cache that caches a loaded theme for a minimum of three hours. Ex: ThemeName_V1.nominify.noclientcache.nogzip.zip.

On external server as folder structure

The theme folder (not zipped) should be available to the Meridix server on a public accessible URL where each individual resouce can be accessed with the uri [ThemeUri]/[ThemeResourceRelativePath] ex: http://cdn.mycompany.com/Themes/CustomTheme/css/base.css where the http://cdn.mycompany.com/Themes is the ThemeUri part and CustomTheme is ThemeName and css/base.css is the ThemeResourceRelativePath.

In this case each time a resource is requested by the Meridix UI the system loads the resource from ThemeUri/ThemeName URL internally and the caches the resource for future requests.
This way is only recommended during developent because it requiers the Meridix installation to make several HTTP requests to get the theme content. But its the easiest way to design new themes since you can change the content on server controlled by you and they will be used by the Meridix installation.

Should not be in a production environment since it forces the server to make several HTTP requests to get the resources. So when you have used this method during the design phase compress the folder to a zip file solution

Configure Meridix Studio to use a custom theme

Only users with the role System Administrators can change theme settings

To change the current theme settings login into your Meridix installation and go to Administration->Settings->Theme settings

The following settings can be changed

Theme name
The name of the theme if not set or an empty theme is defined it will use the Default theme. (Default = "Default"). This value is case sensitive.

Theme base URL
The base URL location of the theme [folder/zip-file]. This URL have to be accessible by the Meridix studio server through HTTP(s). Ex: http://mycompany.com/meridixthemes/

Theme package type
Zipfile = The theme content is zipped
Folder = The theme content is available as a folder/directory structure

Theme server cache duration
The number of seconds that the server caches the theme resource before going to the source (external http url). This value can be set to small (ex: 2 seconds) during the design phase to prevent stale data being sent to the client. Default value is 7200 seconds.

Theme client cache duration
The number of seconds that the clients are requested to cache the theme resource before going to the source (external http url). This value can be set to small (ex: 2 seconds) during the design phase to prevent stale data being used by the client. Default value is 7200 seconds.

Disable minification
The system minifies css and javascript files by default. This setting allows you to disable this feature.

Disable Gzip compression
The system gzip compress all resources before sending them to the clients. This setting allows you to disable this feature.

So if your custom theme is located on the publicly available URL http://mycompany.com/meridixthemes/customtheme1/ the Theme name should be custometheme1 and the Theme base URL should be http://mycompany.com/meridixthemes/

When you have changed the theme settings you need to logout of the system before you can see your changes. Depending on the theme name (.noclientcache etc) the old theme resources can be cached both locally or on the server for a while. You may also need to clear your browser cache to force a new GET request for previously cached resources.

Theme resource structure

The folder (zip file) should be structured as below:

The default theme can be downloaded here and be used as a template. (download and unzip to a local folder and make your changes)

config
- ui_colors.json
css
- css/base.css
- help_popup.css
- login_page.css
images
- favicon_default.ico
- flag_eng.png
- flag_swe.png
- icon_{description}_{size}.png (multiple)
- ....
- load_animation_{description}.gif (multiple)
- ....
scripts
- login_page.js
telerik
- common
  - grid
- css
  - Calendar.Metro.css
  - ComboBox.Metro.css
  - Grid.Metro.css
  - Input.Metro.css
  - Menu.Metro.css
  - TabStrip.Metro.css
  - TreeView.Metro.css
- metro
  - Calendar
    - sprite.gif
  - ComboBox
    - rcbSprite.png
  - Grid
    - AddRecord.gif
    - Cancel.gif
    - Delete.gif
    - Edit.gif
    - export.gif
    - Filter.gif
    - loading_small.gif
    - MoveDown.gif
    - MoveUp.gif
    - PagingFirst.gif
    - PagingLast.gif
    - PagingNext.gif
    - PagingPrev.gif
    - Refresh.gif
    - rgDrag.gif
    - SingeMinus.gif
    - SinglePlus.gif
    - SortAsc.gif
    - SortDesc.gif
    - sprite.gif
    - Update.gif
  - Input
    - sprite.gif
  - Menu
    - rmExpandArrows.png
  - TabStrip
    - TabStripStates.png
  - TreeView
    - LoadingIcon.gif
    - PlusMinus.png
    - TriState.png

Branding and theming