UI5ers Buzz #07: LESS Effort – Find your LESS Theme Parameters

Do you remember the last time you searched for the best-fitting semantic LESS theme parameter for your new custom control? With release 1.48 of UI5 you can now use the new theme parameter tool. In the blink of an eye you can search, filter, and preview theme parameters. Keep in mind that currently you can only use the full capability of theme parameters in libraries using the SAPUI5 or OpenUI5 build.

Picture 1: Overview of the new theme parameter tool

When it comes to finding a theme parameter, a lot of questions come up: Which parameter should I use if there is more than one option? How does the color change based on the theme that I’m using? What do the different parameter classes mean, and which class is preferable?

We have now introduced a new tool so that the answers are easy to find.

Before, you could find theme parameters in a sample in the Explored app of the Demo Kit where you had a subset of the basic theme parameters. You could see the parameter name and also a sample display, but you couldn’t search for a specific parameter or even filter the whole collection.

In the new theme parameter tool, you can filter by various criteria:

– Control groups

– Characteristics

– Theming

Or enter a search term, such as “sapuishellbackground” to narrow down your result list.

You want to see what the color of your chosen theme parameter looks like in a specific theme or how the complete app style changes when picking a different theme? No problem! We’ve added a dropdown list where you can choose one of the supported SAP themes:

Picture 2: Dropdown list with themes
As soon as you select a theme, you can directly see what you get. Voilá! The app adapts to give you a preview.

To get information about the semantic parameter structure, just click the Information button in the Class column in the table. You can also group the list by class. Click the Group by class button to arrange the list so that the preferred parameters are at the top of the list, allowing you to quickly see which parameters to use first.

How are we doing? Let us know by leaving a comment here.

The next post of our UI5ers Buzz blog series will cover SAPUI5 and OpenUI5 download options.

Previous Post: UI5ers Buzz #06
Talk to you soon,
Annika

Annika is an apprentice for IT specialist for application development at SAP. During her time there, she gets to know different departments and she is currently working in the UI5 environment. Because she just started her career, she tries out a lot of different technologies and had not yet decided what suits her most.