History |
Customizing the look of FirstClass
Creating custom column layouts
All containers have the following default columns enabled:
 Adding additional standard or customs columns allows users to customize their container layouts. There are other standard columns available in addition to the default ones that are displayed, as well as custom ones that you can create.
The difference between custom columns and the additional standard columns is that custom columns allows you to set specific guidelines for how the columns are displayed. For example, you can customize the name of the column, what goes in it, the alignment, height, width etc. You can even specify the icon and text that will be displayed in Icon view. This is useful for creating applications or databases.
 Note Custom columns can't be added to calendars or contact databases.
The fastest way to add or remove standard or custom columns is to choose Select Fields from an open window's context menu. Choose which fields to add or remove from the container, and the order in which they will be displayed.
Custom columns can be set for container templates (all member containers inherit the column layout) or for individual containers.
Custom columns are created using column documents in a manner similar to rules. A column document is created in the Rules & Resources folder of a container or container template. Once the custom column rule is created and saved, FirstClass compiles it and adds the newly created columns to the parent container, in the order they appear in the column document.
A Rules & Resources folder can contain multiple column documents. In this case, columns are added in the order column documents appear in the Rules & Resources folder. The first column document defines how custom rules will work with standard columns in this container.
Column documents, like all FirstClass documents, can also be attached to messages and sent to other users for use in their containers.
Setting custom columns
1 Open the conference or container template.
2 Choose Collaborate > Rules for a conference, or click Resources for a container template.
3 Click New Custom Column Rule on the Rules & Resources folder's toolbar.
4 Fill in the Custom Columns form (the column document).
Using custom resources
Where default resources reside and how the server accesses them
FirstClass stores the standard shipping images, pictures, icons, forms, language strings, and help files for the client and Internet Services in the FC Resource Registry located on the administrator's Desktop.
NoteThis is the default setup for an English FirstClass site. Sites with a different default language will have the appropriate language names.
FirstClass server serves out resources from:
Putting custom resources on your server
If you use custom resources globally (for all of your sites), we recommend placing them in English Resources (or the linguistic equivalent), since resources contained in this location are not overwritten during an upgrade process. To do this,
Custom resources intended only for specific sites must be stored at the site level. If you use custom pictures or images, place them in the site-specific Images folder in the same location as the site templates. If Internet Services cannot find a picture or image in the site-specific Images folder, it will look in the Resource Registry, as per the Internet Services hunt chain.
For custom icons or custom language strings and forms, create either an Icons.rez or lang.rez file respectively and place it in the site folder at the same level as the site templates. For information on creating resource files, see the FirstClass Designer help in Customization Tools.
For custom resources for particular conferences, or groups of containers (container templates), upload the resource to the conference or container template's Rules and Resources folder. The resources will download automatically when the conference is opened.
For custom resources for an individual user, upload the resources to the user's Mailbox Rules and Resources folder. The resources will download automatically when the Mailbox is opened.
Making server resources available to users
Resources stored in a container's Rules and Resources folder are applied as soon as the user opens the container.
Resources stored in the FC Resource Registry are not available to users (for example, they do not show up in menus) until users do one of the following:
• log in with a settings file that contains the resources
• work with objects that use these resources
• type the resource names in appropriate fields, such as an "Image" field.
As soon as a user works with an object that uses a resource stored in the FC Resource Registry, that resource is added to the user's settings file. Then the resource is available to the user, and will show up in the user's menus.
To force FirstClass to add these resources to users' settings files, you need to make objects that use these resources available to users. For example, you might:
• post a message using a particular form to all users or to a conference
When users open this message, the form will be downloaded to their settings files.
• add a folder containing other folders that use certain icons to a conference.
When users open the parent folder, the icons for the folders inside will be downloaded to their settings files.
If users can't see resources
If someone sends a message using one version of a form, and the recipient has an older version of the form in their settings file, there may be inconsistencies when the form displays. Each user will see the form stored in their local settings file in the client.
To force FirstClass to use the new form, users can flush their caches. This removes forms and other resources from their settings files, allowing new resources to download as required.
| ||||||||||||||