Change icons on screen tabs in Siebel Open UI

Have you ever tried to add or change icons on screen tabs in Siebel HI application?

Before that,

Do you think, we can configure screen tab icons in Siebel HI at all?

And what about Siebel Open UI?

Answer is YES!

We can add or change icons on screen tabs in Siebel HI as well as Open UI application.

There are two ways to change screen tab icons in Siebel –

1. Repository Dependent Process – Configure Bitmap category and Bitmap in Siebel Tools

2. Repository Independent Process – Find out the image name and replace it with custom image

We all like fast and non srf solution, isn’t!

Here, we will discuss about repository independent process in details. Though we will brief you about srf dependent process also but main focus will be on non srf solution.

You may think, what is the use or business value of changing screen tab icons?

Well,

It’s not like that it does not have any business value. Better user experience is also a business value, right?

You know, image can engage users more than just a text.

Even we have seen a customer who asked to replace all texts from screen tabs with images completely just for better user experience.

So,

Steps for non srf solution to change icons on screen tabs in Siebel HI or Open UI:

Step 1. Find out the image name, responsible to display icon on screen tab

You already know how to find out any element or object in Siebel Open UI, right?

If not, you must go through our Open UI training articles, particularly Siebel Open UI theme customization.

Here we will change screen icon for ‘Account‘ tab.

So, right click on ‘Account‘ screen icon and click on ‘Inspect Element‘ to launch inspector.

Under Elements tab, you should see highlighted ‘img‘ html tag. Once you keep the cursor over that highlighted script, you will see a popup of that image and icon on screen tab will also be highlighted.

Now seeing the image, you can tell the image file name and size.

For ‘Account‘, image file name is ‘accounts_icon.gif‘ and size is ‘16X16‘ pixels.

Image size is important because we have to replace this image with same size image. Otherwise Siebel will not display the icon properly.

For this tutorial, we have got a custom image with 16X16 pixels.

If you want to increase the size for screen tab icons, then you have to modify CSS rules.

You can test it by updating CSS properties inline using browser developer tool.

On the right hand side, you can see few CSS properties from theme-base.css file, right?

Just change the height parameter from 16px to any other value and see, icon size is changed. Likewise you can test font size, padding, line height also. To know more about theme related configuration, read our article on Siebel Open UI theme.

Anyway, back to our topic.

So far, we know what is the image name and where to find it.

Step 2. Verify custom image

Same as application loading image, screen tab icon also has size limit. From the previous step, we have got to know that best fit image size is 16X16 pixels.

To resize custom image, you can use any third party tool like Microsoft Office picture Manager, Picresize.

Also don’t forget to save it with .gif format.

Step 3. Replace the out of box image

Now,

Copy your custom image file under ‘IMAGES‘ folder.

For dedicated client, copy the image under ..Client\PUBLIC\<lang>\IMAGES.

For web client, copy it under Siebel Web Server\PUBLIC\<lang>\images.

Do not delete the out of box image!

Before copying the custom image, rename the vanilla one. So that, if it requires, you can always get the vanilla image.

Step 4. Verify Siebel Open UI application

Now clear browser cache and relaunch Siebel Open UI application, you should see the new icon.

Simple and easy!!

But,

It has a drawback 🙁

What will happen if the same vanilla image has been used in other place/s as well?

In this scenario, vanilla image will not appear in any other place as you have changed the name.

But,

Good thing is that, we have never faced such issue but it may occur. In this case, you have to go for srf dependent process to change icons on screen tabs.

So, just a brief about Repository Dependent Process.

First, find out the ‘Bitmap Category’ and ‘Bitmap’ responsible to display the icon.

If the screen tab has icon, it will have ‘Bitmap Category’ also.

So navigate to Siebel Tools -> Screen and search for the screen.

From ‘Bitmap Category’ property in Screen object, you will get the category name.

If there is no category associated, you have to create a new one.

So copy the category name and query for the category under ‘Bitmap Category’ object.

Come down to the ‘Bitmap‘ child object and query with Name = Screen Tab Icon. If it is not there, then we have to create a new one with image name.

Name: Screen Tab Icon
Filename: Custom image file name

Do not forget to copy the custom image under ‘IMAGES’ folder as specified in step 3.

Compile all changes and launch the application. You must see the custom icon instead of vanilla.

Good enough!

If you have any question, please let us know.

Also if you want us to discuss any business scenario in this ‘Configuring Siebel Open UI‘ series, please leave your comment below.

Don’t forget to leave your feedback in the comment section!

Keep in touch, follow TechOneStop on Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn / Google+.

<< Change application default loading image       Highlight required fields in Siebel Open UI >>

Watch our YouTube Video on how to configure Siebel Open UI to change icons on screen tabs: