= Admin Designer Toolkit :page-layout: base :toc: preamble :source-language: java :icons: font :linkattrs: :sectanchors: :sectlink: :numbered:

:doctype: book :tip-caption: :bulb: :note-caption: :information_source: :important-caption: :heavy_exclamation_mark: :caution-caption: :fire: :warning-caption: :warning:

The aim of this application is to make it easier to customize http://github.com/adminfaces/admin-theme[Admin theme^] and http://github.com/adminfaces/admin-template[Admin Template].

== This project is deprecated

Admin Designer is not maintained anymore, the easiest way to customize the theme is making the changes directly in admin-theme project.

== What is it?

This the same http://github.com/adminfaces/admin-showcase[Admin Showcase^] application with admin template and admin theme bundled inside instead of being project dependencies.

It uses http://thorntail.io/[ThornTail^] to run the exploded application so one can change the theme or template and see the modifications without needing to restart the application.  

== Objectives

The initial idea was to speed AdminFaces development but it turns out that it can easy contributions from non Java developers (like designers and frontend developers) as the project is about front end components and layout.

Also another great feature of Admin Designer is the possibility to download the customized project as a maven project.

[IMPORTANT]

The downloaded project is the https://github.com/adminfaces/admin-starter[Admin Starter^] with modified admin theme and template embedded in the project.

NOTE: This is the most flexible approach but at the same time you lose the updates on Admin Theme and template projects because you don't depend on them anymore.

== How it works

. First download Admin Designer from github releases https://github.com/adminfaces/admin-designer/releases[here^];

. Now in application root directory start it by running the command: +

./mvnw thorntail:run (or mvnw.cmd thorntail:run) <1>

<1> To use mvnw (maven wrapper) you just need Java installed (JAVA_HOME pointing to a JDK). + . Edit any less file in directory https://github.com/adminfaces/admin-designer/tree/master/src/main/resources/less[src/main/resources/less^]. . Now to compile the application using: +

./mvnw compile (or mvnw.cmd compile)

TIP: If you don't want to compile every time you change a less file, use the flag -Dlesscss.watch=true. Or use a tool like http://brackets.io/[brackets^] with https://github.com/jdiehl/brackets-less-autocompile[less extension^] installed. + . Finally when you're done you can download the customized theme or template packed as jar files or even download it as a zipped maven project; + image::designer.png[]

The changes made to less files should be visible in running application http://localhost:8080/showcase

NOTE: There is no need to stop and run the application again.

You can see this workflow in the following video: https://youtu.be/X1UEpN942s0