Appearance

The planner draws everything through a set of appearance objects — one per visual area. Each groups the fills, strokes, and fonts for that area, so you restyle the whole component by configuring objects rather than handling draw events. Use this guide to give the planner a branded look: colored items with a distinct selected state, a readable grid with greyed inactive hours, a styled timeline header, and a coordinated selection overlay. For per-pixel control beyond these objects, the planner also exposes OnBeforeDraw* / OnAfterDraw* events — see Custom drawing.

Appearance objects

Property	Type	Styles
ItemsAppearance	TTMSFNCPlannerItemsAppearance	Item body and title fills, strokes, fonts, and per-state variants.
GridCellAppearance	TTMSFNCPlannerGridCellAppearance	Active/inactive cell fills and grid lines.
TimeLineAppearance	TTMSFNCPlannerTimeLineAppearance	Timeline header fonts, fills, and the current-time color.
PositionsAppearance	TTMSFNCPlannerPositionsAppearance	Resource/day header fills and fonts.
GroupsAppearance	TTMSFNCPlannerGroupsAppearance	Group header fills and fonts.
FullDaysAppearance	TTMSFNCPlannerFullDaysAppearance	Full-day band fills and fonts.
SelectionAppearance	TTMSFNCPlannerSelectionAppearance	The time-range selection overlay.

Fills, strokes, and fonts

Most appearance members are one of three TMS graphics types:

• TTMSFNCGraphicsFill — a Kind (gfkSolid, gfkGradient, gfkTexture, or gfkNone), a Color, a ColorTo for gradients, and an Opacity.
• TTMSFNCGraphicsStroke — a Kind (gskSolid, gskDash, gskDot, … or gskNone), a Color, and a Width.
• TTMSFNCGraphicsFont — a Color, Name, Size, and Style.

Set Kind to gfkSolid / gskSolid whenever you assign a color; a fill or stroke left at gfkNone / gskNone draws nothing regardless of its color.

Styling items

Item colors come from each item, not from ItemsAppearance: when the planner draws an item it takes the fill kind, stroke, and fonts from ItemsAppearance but then sets the fill color from the item's own Color (and SelectedColor / ActiveColor / DisabledColor per state). Seed those colors for every new item through DefaultItem, or set them per item — see Items.

ItemsAppearance owns the shared baseline the items draw against — the fill kind (solid vs gradient), the stroke, and the default Font / TitleFont — plus the item-area extras: the dependency link lines (ShowLinks, LinkStroke) and the move/size/delete handles. The snippet below seeds a shared item color through DefaultItem and enables link drawing through ItemsAppearance:

procedure TForm1.StyleItems;
begin
  Planner1.BeginUpdate;
  try
    // Item colors come from each item's own Color/FontColor; DefaultItem seeds
    // them so every new item shares one look (see the Items guide for per-item
    // and per-state colors).
    Planner1.DefaultItem.Color := gcCornflowerblue;
    Planner1.DefaultItem.FontColor := gcWhite;

    // ItemsAppearance sets the shared baseline the items draw against - the fill
    // kind (solid vs gradient), default fonts - and owns the item-area extras.
    Planner1.ItemsAppearance.Fill.Kind := gfkSolid;
    Planner1.ItemsAppearance.Font.Size := 12;

    // Dependency link lines are drawn only when ShowLinks is enabled.
    Planner1.ItemsAppearance.ShowLinks := True;
    Planner1.ItemsAppearance.LinkStroke.Color := gcDimgray;
  finally
    Planner1.EndUpdate;
  end;
end;

Grid cells and the timeline header

GridCellAppearance.Fill paints the active hours and InActiveFill paints the greyed hours outside the active range. The VerticalStroke, HorizontalStroke, and HorizontalSubStroke members draw the grid lines. TimeLineAppearance styles the time labels through its LeftFont / RightFont and sets the current-time indicator color with CurrentTimeColor (default gcOrange):

procedure TForm1.StyleGridAndTimeline;
begin
  Planner1.BeginUpdate;
  try
    // Active hours vs. greyed inactive hours.
    Planner1.GridCellAppearance.Fill.Kind := gfkSolid;
    Planner1.GridCellAppearance.Fill.Color := gcWhite;
    Planner1.GridCellAppearance.InActiveFill.Kind := gfkSolid;
    Planner1.GridCellAppearance.InActiveFill.Color := gcWhitesmoke;

    // Hour grid lines.
    Planner1.GridCellAppearance.HorizontalStroke.Kind := gskSolid;
    Planner1.GridCellAppearance.HorizontalStroke.Color := gcGainsboro;

    // Timeline header text and the current-time indicator color.
    Planner1.TimeLineAppearance.LeftFont.Color := gcDimgray;
    Planner1.TimeLineAppearance.LeftFont.Size := 11;
    Planner1.TimeLineAppearance.CurrentTimeColor := gcRed;
  finally
    Planner1.EndUpdate;
  end;
end;

Header areas

PositionsAppearance and GroupsAppearance style the resource/day and group headers respectively. Both expose TopFill / BottomFill, TopFont / BottomFont, and TopStroke / BottomStroke (the top/bottom split matches the Layouts set, e.g. [pplTop]). FullDaysAppearance styles the full-day band the same way. For example, to give day headers a branded bar:

{ Inside your form's OnCreate event: }
Planner1.PositionsAppearance.TopFill.Kind := gfkSolid;
Planner1.PositionsAppearance.TopFill.Color := gcRoyalblue;
Planner1.PositionsAppearance.TopFont.Color := gcWhite;

Selection overlay

SelectionAppearance styles the overlay drawn while the user selects a time range. Give its Fill a low Opacity so items underneath stay visible, and match the Stroke color:

{ Inside your form's OnCreate event: }
Planner1.SelectionAppearance.Fill.Kind := gfkSolid;
Planner1.SelectionAppearance.Fill.Color := gcDodgerblue;
Planner1.SelectionAppearance.Fill.Opacity := 0.25;
Planner1.SelectionAppearance.Stroke.Kind := gskSolid;
Planner1.SelectionAppearance.Stroke.Color := gcDodgerblue;

Global font

Each appearance object owns its own fonts, so changing the typeface everywhere would mean touching ItemsAppearance.Font, TimeLineAppearance.LeftFont, PositionsAppearance.TopFont, and the rest one by one. GlobalFont does it in one place: assign its Name, Size, Color, or Style and the planner propagates each attribute to every appearance font at once. Leave an attribute at its default (Color at gcNull, an empty Name) to leave that aspect of the per-object fonts untouched.

procedure TForm1.ApplyGlobalFont;
begin
  Planner1.BeginUpdate;
  try
    // GlobalFont propagates each attribute to every appearance font
    // (items, headers, time-line, groups, full-day) in one place.
    Planner1.GlobalFont.Name := 'Segoe UI';
    Planner1.GlobalFont.Size := 11;
    Planner1.GlobalFont.Color := gcDarkslategray;
    Planner1.GlobalFont.Style := [TFontStyle.fsBold];
  finally
    Planner1.EndUpdate;
  end;
end;

Tip

GlobalFont is an override layer. Set the family and size globally, then still fine-tune an individual font (e.g. a larger ItemsAppearance.TitleFont) afterwards — the per-object change wins for that one font.

Putting it together

This example combines item, grid, timeline, and selection appearance into one coordinated dark theme:

procedure TForm1.ApplyDarkTheme;
begin
  Planner1.BeginUpdate;
  try
    // Grid surface.
    Planner1.GridCellAppearance.Fill.Kind := gfkSolid;
    Planner1.GridCellAppearance.Fill.Color := gcDarkslategray;
    Planner1.GridCellAppearance.InActiveFill.Kind := gfkSolid;
    Planner1.GridCellAppearance.InActiveFill.Color := gcBlack;
    Planner1.GridCellAppearance.HorizontalStroke.Kind := gskSolid;
    Planner1.GridCellAppearance.HorizontalStroke.Color := gcDimgray;

    // Items: the fill color comes from each item, so seed it through DefaultItem.
    Planner1.ItemsAppearance.Fill.Kind := gfkSolid;
    Planner1.DefaultItem.Color := gcCornflowerblue;
    Planner1.DefaultItem.FontColor := gcWhite;
    Planner1.DefaultItem.SelectedColor := gcOrange;
    Planner1.DefaultItem.ActiveColor := gcOrange;

    // Timeline header.
    Planner1.TimeLineAppearance.LeftFont.Color := gcGainsboro;
    Planner1.TimeLineAppearance.CurrentTimeColor := gcOrange;

    // Time-range selection overlay.
    Planner1.SelectionAppearance.Fill.Kind := gfkSolid;
    Planner1.SelectionAppearance.Fill.Color := gcOrange;
    Planner1.SelectionAppearance.Fill.Opacity := 0.3;
    Planner1.SelectionAppearance.Stroke.Kind := gskSolid;
    Planner1.SelectionAppearance.Stroke.Color := gcOrange;
  finally
    Planner1.EndUpdate;
  end;
end;

Pitfalls

• Item fill color always comes from the item, not ItemsAppearance. Setting ItemsAppearance.Fill.Color does not color the items — the planner overrides it with each item's Color. Use DefaultItem.Color to seed a shared color, or set Color per item (see Items). ItemsAppearance.Fill still controls the fill kind (e.g. gradient) and stroke.
• A selected item that is also the active item uses ActiveColor. Selecting an item makes it the active item, which draws with ActiveColor, not SelectedColor. Set both if you want one selection color.
• gfkNone / gskNone paint nothing. Assigning a Color without setting Kind to a solid (or other visible) value leaves the fill or stroke invisible.
• Active vs inactive fill. Hours outside TimeLine.ActiveStart..ActiveEnd use GridCellAppearance.InActiveFill, not Fill. Style both or the greyed band will not match your theme.
• Batch appearance changes. Wrap multiple assignments in BeginUpdate / EndUpdate for a single repaint.

Related API

• TTMSFNCPlanner — ItemsAppearance, GridCellAppearance, TimeLineAppearance, PositionsAppearance, GroupsAppearance, FullDaysAppearance, SelectionAppearance, GlobalFont

See also

• Items — per-item colors and visual states
• Timeline — the active range that drives the inactive fill
• Custom drawing — OnBeforeDraw* / OnAfterDraw* events for per-pixel control