Summary (Will be Updated)
Reusing Styles and Creating Custom Templates in Python Script VPF Forms
Hello, everyone! In this lesson, we're going to tackle how to reuse styles and create custom templates for your VPF forms in Python Script. This will allow you to maintain consistency across your forms and make updates in one centralized location.
Adjusting Relative Paths for Resources
First off, we need to adjust our relative paths to ensure our resources are always correctly referenced, no matter where they're called from.
I'm going to start by copying these three paths:
Path one is what we get as our regular path. Then, we get the root folder of our extension, and path three completes the path to our resources. This way, you'll always get the same path from any button.
I'm feeling a bit lazy, so I'll use ChatGPT to help refine this code. I'll paste it here and say:
"I have the first path, what I get in every button. Then I need to get path two, which is the root of my PY extension. And then we need to add the other folders to always end up in the resources XAML file. Make it with Python using the os package."
ChatGPT provided a script, but I don't like how it handles the root path. It's not efficient if there are different amounts of folders. So, I'll adjust the code to ensure it scans for that extension folder correctly.
Here's the refined code:
Now, let's incorporate this into our code:
Creating a Base Class for Reusability
To avoid repeating code, we'll create a base class that includes our common functionality.
In our Library folder, I'll create a new file called VPFBase.py. I'll copy over some code from my EOForms extension to save time.
Here's the base class:
Now, in our lesson module, instead of basing our class on Window, we'll base it on EO_VPF_Base:
This way, we don't have to repeat the resource path code in every form—we just inherit it from our base class.
Testing the Implementation
Let's create a new button and test our implementation.
When we click on the button, the form loads with our styles applied. This confirms that our base class is working as intended.
Benefits of This Approach
By creating a base class, you:
Reduce Code Duplication: Common functionality is centralized.
Maintain Consistency: Styles and resources are consistent across all forms.
Simplify Updates: Change the style in one place, and it reflects everywhere.
Conclusion
That's how you reuse your styles and create a custom template that you can reuse for all your VPF forms in Python Script. You can build on top of that and include even more functionality, and you can also change your styles to anything you want. Now, you'll have only one place where you can put your styles, and then you can update it there, and it's going to be applied to all your forms.
We're pretty much done with this module, but I have one more lesson where I want to take one of our forms that we made in previous lessons. I'm going to style it by only using AI chatbots—I'm not going to do anything manually. This will be a great transition to the next module as well, where I will create even more things with AI.
I want to wish you happy coding, and I'll see you very soon in the next lesson