Other Change colors and fonts of the B4A and B4J IDE's

[HotShoe]

I have written a windows 32bit program that reads your b4x.xml files and allows you to change colors and the overall font of the IDE environments. Operation is simple and straight forward, and does not require any other libraries or installation.

This version works for older b4a IDE's (1.90 and up) and the new version 4.30 IDE. This version also works with B4J and B4I, and it allows you to copy the color and font configurations between any of the IDE's via the Copy button. Since this version merges color sets only, it should be compatible wish future versions as well. It only writes the values that are present in the .xml file or leaves unknown values unchanged.

The linked .zip file includes a readme file and sample b4a xml files named B4A-sample-2.70.xml, B4A-sample-3.8.xml, etc., that can be renamed and dropped into your b4a installation folder. It contains the current file that I use on my installation. Be sure to make a backup copy of your current b4a.xml file before you use this or any program that can change it.

Select which program you want to modify with the buttons at the bottom right. You can select b4a, b4j, or b4i and the correct config will be loaded.

Just click any of the colored panels to change the color for that item. Click the text button to change the overall font and size. You can click the share button to make a copy in a folder and file name of your choice for posting your own creations.

The actual modifications the your b4a.xml file are not done until you click the Save button, just clicking Close will NOT save any changes. The program tries to guess your install directory based upon the registry entry for b4a, but if it can't, just click on the browse button beside the b4a folder edittext to choose the location of your b4a, b4j, or b4i install folder.

Each time you save your b4x.xml file a copy of the new colors is saved as well so that the Last button can reload those colors when the next upgrade of an IDE comes out.

Unzip the b4acolors.zip to any folder you wish and look through the readme file. You can set a shortcut to the program or run it via windows explorer. Be aware that B4xColors should be run as administrator so that it can modify the b4x .xml files.

The file can be downloaded here

I hope you find this useful

--- Jem

 

[thedesolatesoul]

Nice work!
It will be useful to add it to a tools section on the Wiki so these things dont get lost.

 

[Mahares]

Very nice work HotShoe. Everything must be OK in OKC. What would really make it safer is if you have a button that says: 'Use Default' to allow the user to go back to the original Erel default values. This way, you do not have to tamper with changing the B4a.xml file name manually.

 

[Theera]

Hi Jem,
I would like too,but my computer warnned this. Hey, I think that you forget reset to default Erel's.

 

[mangojack]

Well done HotShoe ..

Theera, I dont believe there is a problem with the zip file, That is just a generic warning message from googles chrome browser ?

Cheers mj

 

[HotShoe]

Theera,

I can assure you that the zip file and program are safe to download and run, but I understand your concern. In the end, only you can decide if you trust the software or not.

Thanks,

--- Jem

 

[HotShoe]

New version to support 2.70 is now available.

--- Jem

 

[positrom2]

Having installed B4A in a different location, C:\Programme\Anywhere Software\Basic4android. Trying to change to that path I get the error "invalid filename".
Regards,positrom2

 

[HotShoe]

New version that supports B4A 3.20.

 

[HotShoe]

New version that supports B4J and B4A.

--- Jem

 

[Erel]

Nice. Note that there is no product named Basic4JavaFX. It is B4J.

 

[HotShoe]

My bad, I thought I saw that in one of the threads. It is changed now.

Thanks,

--- Jem

 

[Erel]

Don't worry. If I remember correctly I posted this name in the past. I later decided that B4J is better as B4J is not really tied to JavaFX.
Console apps and server apps do not use JavaFX at all and it is also possible to add support for a different UI frameworks in the future.

 

[HotShoe]

Added a new version supporting b4a 3.50.

--- Jem

 

[JakeBullet70]

Thanks Jem.

 

[HotShoe]

New version supporting b4a 3.80.

--- Jem

 

[JakeBullet70]

Thanks Jem

 

[MaFu]

Thank you.
But i have one wish:
a configuration file to set the correct paths for B4A and B4J.

 

[HotShoe]

This is a new version of b4acolors. It adds better b4a.xml location via the Windows registery. The .xml file format has not changed for b4a 3.82, so this or the old version will work with 3.82.

--- Jem

 

[HotShoe]

OK, This is version 2.3.5 of b4a_colors. It adds the program version to the top title bar, and it adds a Merge Last button. The new button reads the last color values that were saved, and merges those into the new b4a.xml file. The last colors are automatically saved each time you click the Save button.

The routine does not care if new styles have been added. It just parses the new xml file and replaces the styles in the NEW file with the same styles in the LAST saved file.

I have tested this with xml files from version 2.70 and up, testing each against version 3.82 of b4a. This will hopefully make upgrades much less painful to keep your favorite IDE colors.

--- Jem