Welcome to Creating a Theme
You can edit and save a new theme in the preferences editor. Click "Menu Circle" ==> "Preferences"
to open the preferences window.
Editing the Theme
The theme properties are only listed in the lower part of the preferences tree under "Appearance (Theme)".
These categories describe all the colors and styles displayed in the program. There are two main types of appearance descriptors used throughout the different properties.
Area Appearance
This describes how to draw the background of a fill area in a chart or table and what color to draw the text in the area. Not all areas have text and for those the text color will be ignored. You can create gradient effects in an area or add a background graphic/texture.
Back Gradient Style - This defines how to draw a background color gradient.
BackColor - The main color of the background if set for solid, one of the color edges if set to a gradient.
BackColor Alpha - This determines how transparent the background is. 255 = no transparency, 0 = 0 fully transparent. This is not supported in DirectX draw modes.
BackColor2 - Ignored if the background is set to solid, one of the color edges if set to a gradient.
Back Texture - A pull down of various textures bitmaps that can be added to the background.
Text Color - The color of the text if the area supports it.
Line Appearance
This described how to draw lines on the chart.
Line Color - The color of the line on the chart.
Line Color Alpha - This determines how transparent the line is. 255 = no transparency, 0 = 0 fully transparent. This is not supported in DirectX draw modes.
Line Style - This sets the line to draw as a solid, dotted, dashed, or mixed line.
Line Width - The width of the line in pixels.
Theme Line Color - You can select the line appearance of a number of lines defined in the theme. This allows a line to use a theme color which may need to be changed depending on the background of the theme. It also allows consistency throughout the program, for example you can make all lines related to the Fibonacci number 38.2 all be the same color and style.
Buy Sell Colors
These are the default colors for a buy, sell, or neutral study condition.
Chart
This section describes how to color the chart.
Chat
This section describes how to color the chat window.
Draw Tools
This section will set the color, width, style, and transparency of all the draw tools. See "How To Use Draw Tools" for a description of the draw tools.
Fibo Levels
This section allows the standard definition of what a line should look like for each Fibonacci level when using Fibonacci tools. Then whenever you use a study or draw tools using a Fibonacci level you can reference one of these entries so that all studies or draw tools using that Fibonacci level have a consistent look and feel.
Fractals
This section allows the standard definition of what a line should look like for each member of either Fibonacci series or a PhiCube series. Then whenever you use a study using a fractal input instead of numerical input you can reference on of these entries so that all studies using that fractal have a consistent look and feel.
Popups
This describe the appearance of the chart popups when the mouse is hovered over a color bar or a support resistance line.
Property Table
This describes the appearance of a property table which is the panel on the right in the picture above.
Rainbows
This describes how to color a PhiCube Rainbow chart. This is only available in a PhiCube based teams.
Slide Show
Pause Back Color - The background color behind the run button when running a slide show and it has been paused.
Play Back Color - The color behind the play button when it is running.
Style
This is a style file that determines how all the user interface (UI) features of the program will be colored and shaded. These can be chosen from a pull down. If you wish to creates your own style contact the administrator.
Tables
This describe how to color the tables in the program such at a watchlist, prism, quotelist, portfolio trades and holdings, etc.
Header Appearance - This describes how to color a column header.
Row Selector Appearance - This is how to color the row header in a table.
The rest of the field are self explanatory.
Title Bars
This describes the base color of a chart title bar. The color of the title bars gives information about its current state. This color will also be seen as a gradient with green positive and red negative price change if Display Price Change is set to True in the preferences.
Default Active Title Appearance - This is the color of the title bar when the current chart window is the active window. The window can be made active by clicking the mouse in it.
Default Title Appearance - This is the color of the title bar when the current chart window is not the active window.
Request Active Title Appearance - This will be the color of an active chart window title bar when it is requesting a new stock and waiting for the data to return from the data vendor.
Request Title Appearance - This will be the color of a non active chart window title bar when it is requesting a new stock and waiting for the data to return from the data vendor.
Share Active Title Appearance - This will be the color of an active chart window title bar when it is being shared for others to view.
Share Title Appearance - This will be the color of a non active chart window title bar when it is being shared for others to view.
View Active Title Appearance - This will be the color of an active chart window title bar when it is connected to someone share.
View Title Appearance - This will be the color of a non active chart window title bar when it is connected to someone share.
Window Panel Colors
This describes the text and background color for non chart windows.
Saving a New Theme
After creating a theme you can save it by selecting the save button in the toolbar at the top of the preferences manager.
This will bring up a save file dialog. Type in the new name for the theme and select Save.
You can now user your new theme by changing the preferences theme display to the name of your theme.
Sharing a New Theme.
You can share your theme three ways but first make sure the program is using the theme you want to share in preferences theme display.
Copy the Theme to Chat - Click the "Copy Theme to Chat" button and a link to the theme will be placed in the chat channel. Anyone who clicks in the link will have the theme loaded into their program.
Copy Theme to Forum or Blog - Click the "Copy Theme to Forum or Blog" button and a link to the theme will be copied into the clipboard. You can then paste the link into a forum or blog and whenever anyone clicks on the link while in the program it will add to their program.
Upload to the Server -(Team administrators only) You can add the new theme to the files download section under Site Management.
Click "Add Theme", select the theme file and click save, the file will be uploaded to the server and whenever anyone in the team logons, a copy will downloading into their themes subdirectory.