How to change theme in Ext-Gwt (GXT) application

Some time ago Sencha company included new theme in their GXT library. It’s called SLATE and can be viewed in GXT Explorer demo on this site: http://www.sencha.com/examples/explorer.html. I’ve been searching, but I coudn’t find any clear information in web, how to made my gwt app to change theme to new skin instead of standard BLUE or GREY themes. After short investigating I realized, that everything is easy, but only if You keep standard paths in Your app to css/images.

First of all You have to copy to Your’s project directory some directories from GXT example zip file (can be downloaded here: http://www.sencha.com/products/gwt/download.php). Those directories are: css (with BLUE/GREY theme’s csses), images (all gxt standard images) and themes (new SLATE theme). They can be found in resource directory in gxt-x.x.x zip file.

Now, after copying directories to own app in gwt html entry point file it has to be placed following line:   < link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”css/gxt-all.css” /&rt;   That’s all. Nothing more gxt’s csses have to be included (instead of what I’ve found on internet). Why ? Becouse we will switch theme in java code later. In apps entry point java file in onModuleLoad() method we need to insert some code. We want to tell GXT, that we will be using SLATE theme as default, but we would like to change it later. This is made by passing ‘false’ parameter in .setDefaultTheme(..) method. Code for this:   ThemeManager.register(Slate.SLATE); //register non standard theme // Theme.GRAY.set(“file”,”css/gxt-gray.css”); //set custom css’es path for grey theme // Theme.BLUE.set(“file”,”css/gxt-all.css”); //set custom css’es path for standard blue theme // Slate.SLATE.set(“file”,”gxt/themes/slate/css/xtheme-slate.css”); //set custom path for SLATE theme GXT.setDefaultTheme(Slate.SLATE, false); //set default theme to new SLATE skin

That’s not all. If we would like to rearange our paths (i.e. by moving themes/images/css directories in other places) we have to uncoment commented code and set proper paths.

Because we would like to allow user to switch theme by own. We have to add somewhere in our app’s panels ThemeSelector which will do all work. It’s very easy. Just add somewhere this code:

  [ourContainer].add(new ThemeSelector());

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I'm sitting in a train to Charleroi, looking through a window at the Denmark landscape, street lights flashing by, people comming home from work, getting out for a Friday night party, or having a family dinner. To my left, guys from SoftwareMill are playing cards.
I don't really see them. My mind is busy elsewhere, sorting out and processing last two days in Antwerp, where 3400 developers, from 41 different countries, listened to 200 different sessions at the Devoxx, AFAIK the biggest Java conference this year.