19 Customizing the Oracle Fusion Applications Skin

This chapter describes how to use Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF) Skin Editor to change the look and feel of Oracle Fusion applications.

This chapter includes the following sections:

Section 19.1, "Introduction to Skinning Oracle Fusion Applications"
Section 19.2, "Creating a Custom Oracle Fusion Applications Skin"
Section 19.3, "Applying a Custom Skin to Your Oracle Fusion Applications"

19.1 Introduction to Skinning Oracle Fusion Applications

If you want to make changes to the appearance of Oracle Fusion Applications pages, such as changing the logo or changing the colors to make the pages adhere to your company's corporate brand, use ADF Skin Editor to create a custom skin based on the Oracle Fusion Applications Skin Extension (fusionFx-simple) and apply that skin to your Oracle Fusion applications. You can apply a custom skin to the whole site, to specific products, or specific end users. The changes that you make using custom skins are maintained through future patches and upgrades of Oracle Fusion Applications.

The fusionFx-simple skin extension is a special type of cascading style sheet (CSS) that enables you to customize the appearance of Oracle Fusion Middleware Extensions for Applications (Applications Core) components, ADF Faces components, and ADF Data Visualization components. Figure 19-1 shows an example of an application that has been skinned using the fusionFx-simple skin extension.

Figure 19-1 Example of a Skinned Application

19.1.1 Before You Begin Customizing the Oracle Fusion Applications Skin

Before you implement customizations in applications, you should be familiar with the ADF skinning framework and how to use it to create a custom skin, as described in the "About Skinning a Web Application" chapter in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Skin Editor User's Guide for Oracle Application Development Framework.

You should also be familiar with how to use the editor to work with Applications Core components as described in Skinning Oracle Fusion Applications, which is available at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/fusion-apps/tools/downloads/index.html.

You will need to do the following before you can begin customizing the Oracle Fusion Applications skin:

Download ADF Skin Editor from Oracle Technology Network (OTN) at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/adf/downloads/index.html
Install and start ADF Skin Editor as described in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Installation Guide for Oracle Application Development Framework Skin Editor.
Choose Check for Updates from the Help menu to install the most current release of the Oracle Fusion Applications Skin Extension (fusionFx-simple) as described in the "Working with Extensions" section in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Skin Editor User's Guide for Oracle Application Development Framework.

19.2 Creating a Custom Oracle Fusion Applications Skin

To create and modify a custom skin for your Oracle Fusion applications, use ADF Skin Editor to create a project, add a skin based on the fusionFx-simple skin extension, and modify the ADF Faces component, ADF Data Visualization component, and Applications Core component styles.

Task: Create a Custom Oracle Fusion Applications Skin

You create a skin by creating a new application in ADF Skin Editor and then creating a new ADF skin file in the project. Ensure that you set the project's target application release to the Oracle Fusion Applications release. When you create the ADF skin file, select the appropriate fusionFx-simple version from the Extends dropdown list. Make a note of the family name from the Create ADF Skin File dialog. You use this name when you apply the skin to your Oracle Fusion applications.

Task: Modify the Component Styles in the Custom Skin

As described in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Skin Editor User's Guide for Oracle Application Development Framework, use ADF Skin Editor to change the look and feel of ADF Faces and ADF Data Visualization components. The fusionFx-simple skin extension additionally enables you to modify Applications Core components, which define how the Oracle Fusion Applications template and extensible components appear. You find the Applications Core components by expanding Style Classes in the Design view.

For information about modifying the look and feel of Applications Core components, see Skinning Oracle Fusion Applications, which is available at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/fusion-apps/tools/downloads/index.html.

19.3 Applying a Custom Skin to Your Oracle Fusion Applications

When you are ready to apply your custom skin to your Oracle Fusion applications, you deploy the custom skin to an ADF Library JAR file. You then copy the custom skin JAR file plus supporting JAR files to the installation directories of the applicable Oracle Fusion applications, restart the applications, and set the profile option to use the custom skin.

Task: Deploy the Custom Skin to an ADF Library JAR File

Deploy the skin project to a JAR file that can be included in an application.

To create the JAR file:

Right-click the skin project, choose Deploy, and choose New Deployment Profile to display the Create Deployment Profile dialog.
Select ADF Library JAR File from the Profile Type dropdown list.
Set the Deployment Profile Name to a name that begins with Xx_. The Xx_ prefix signifies to future patches and upgrades that this deployment is customer-provided and must not be touched.
Click OK.
Right-click the skin project, choose Deploy, and choose the profile name to display the Deploy profile name dialog.
Click Finish.
Right-click the skin project, choose Deploy, and choose profile name to JAR file.

Task: Add the Custom Skin JAR Files to Your Oracle Fusion Applications

You must make the custom skin JAR file and skin support JAR files available to Oracle Fusion Applications before you can apply the skin.

Copy the following JAR files to the WEB-INF/lib directory of every Oracle Fusion application:

skin-editor-installation-dir/jlib/adf-richclient-fusion-simple-version.jar
XxApplCoreSkin.version.jar. Download this JAR file from OTN at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/fusion-apps/tools/downloads/index.html
The ADF Library JAR file for your custom skin.

After you add the custom JAR files, you must stop and restart the Oracle Fusion applications as described in the "Starting and Stopping" section in the Oracle Fusion Applications Administrator's Guide.

Task: Apply the Custom Skin to Your Oracle Fusion Applications

You use the Manage Profile Option Values page in the Manage Profile Options task from the Setup and Maintenance work area to apply your custom skin to Oracle Fusion applications. You can set this value at the site, product, or user level. You typically set the option at the site level, however, if you want to test the skin, you can set it at the user level.

To use your custom skin, change the value of the FND_CSS_SKIN_FAMILY profile option to the skin family attribute that you set when you created your skin. If you do not know the skin family attribute, you can find it in the skin project's trinidad-skins.xml file.

Note:

If you set the profile option at the site level, but you did not copy the necessary skin JAR files into the WEB-INF/lib directory of every Oracle Fusion application, the applications with the missing files will be displayed with a simple skin that has a basic black-and-white look.