We need more themers.

[lynchknot]

Whatever lucx, I see a personality clash so don't bother replying and i'll ignore you as well. Go ahead an self-deprecate, i'm just being honest.

[GrooveSwitch.com]

Lynch, you do great work...but could stand a bit more humility and modesty. No offense intended, but it's far more becoming of one to not need constant reassurance.

For what it's worth, so that you don't feel totally dejected...your themes are fantastic and I use them quite often...they are part of the class of the field.

[lynchknot]

Lynch, you do great work...but could stand a bit more humility and modesty. No offense intended, but it's far more becoming of one to not need constant reassurance.

For what it's worth, so that you don't feel totally dejected...your themes are fantastic and I use them quite often...they are part of the class of the field.

could stand a bit more humility and modesty.

- you've got to be kidding. You don't know me at all. I can be honest with myself. Stating i'm not an artist is just being honest - not a request for reassurance. You got me mixed up with some other guy that has to prove he is right, and point out all your faults. I don't need reassurance. I don't care! I make themes for myself (icon addiction) - and share them because I have cable. If not for cable then I would keep them for myself. If that's how you and/or most of you feel - that I need humility and modesty - I will pull my site down. I could care less if you want my themes or not. It's my hobby, not a job. What matters to me is that I have the icons that I want on my browser toolbar. I don't want to wait around for somebody else to make it. If themes can help me pay for cable bill by those who click ads, well then great!

Besides this does not make sense. It is contradictory:

a bit more humility and modesty. No offense intended, but it's far more becoming of one to not need constant reassurance

...and just because I don't want to argue with someone does not mean anything. I don't like to argue or get into "debates" - can we drop this now?

My validation stems from being an overall good person and caring for those i'm closest to (my mom and family) - then my friends. My mom is devastated and lonely after my dad died. I take care of her needs as best I can as she is ill and frail (advanced diabetes and osteoporosis). Making themes is just a hobby.

*if I do seem short with people (too much information but anyway) perhaps it's because I have never experienced having a boil. I have one the size of a golf ball and it is extremely painfull. I can hardly walk right now. It is my right thigh. I do not have health insurance. I can only wait for it to heal.

[aconbere]

I have to stick up for lynchknot here, I've seem him be nothing but absolutely civil, in this thread and others. He doesn't go looking for compliments, people through them at him vorasciously. If you are presuming he's fishing for them, I believe your mistaken, people just love his themes enough and always want to post about them.

Anders

[ehume]

lynchknot is an artist, IMO. He has created many beautiful themes. He has also been generous in allowing others to update them. One quick way to get more themes for Firefox is to resurrect old lynchknot themes.

But the original point of this thread was not about lynchknot. It was aobut encouraging more people to develop themes.

My own thought is that coders may wish to frequent places where artists post their work. If the coders can match up with artists whose work they like, then they can form teams that can bring us more themes.

[My Left Hand]

if you have a better idea then let's see it - or describe it.

I cannot call myself a programmer, designer, or even an artist - I use other's art (for the most part) and throw together what appeals to me. hehe, I have no idea how to use the DOM inspector as well. Yeah, my themes are a css mess - but they work for me.

ehume, I have never unzipped or zipped a theme. I work right out of the JAR by double clicking and drag and drop

if i had a better idea or solution i would've stated it and i would've not said that i felt "this is a trend likely to continue."
i know people who're like you [strong in both areas], and i expect that you will eventually you pick one of those areas to specialize in for your graduate or post graduate studies. i've come from an industrial design background, but i've moved to film/video post production, motion graphics etc and web dev (which is the bread and butter for us).

This is not a problem, but the general structure of the visual communications industry. There are creative designers and productions artists; web designers and web developers. The design people make pretty visuals and rely on the production people to implement it because they have no interest in writing code or whatever technical implementation. And the coders don't care that something is the wrong shade of red or that the space between the letters T and e are too far apart.

So, the way to get more themers making more good themes is to pair up the pretty-picture-makers with the coding-is-fun-folks. I believe the Gerich and Horlander team is a fine example.

Then there’s the rare few who excel in both worlds and sound pretentious up on their high horse. Gee, I wonder who that could be.

i agree with some of what you've said, but not all. i'm not entirely sure i agree that it is the general structure of the visual communications industry. on small scale projects like web dev, yes, you've got the coders and artists. but as you move to larger projects such as 3d anim, motion graphics and post prod, you need people who can do both. have you ever played with code in maya or softimage? 3d artists NEED to do those things. combustion (or even high level ae) is far more technical than what you'd expect an artist/designer type person to use. and it's not that coders dont care about aesthetics, many of them cannot differenciate between good design and bad [without an instruction manual].

if the theming system was ideal, a user interface designer wouldn't have to depend on a coder.

[My Left Hand]

lynchknot is an artist, IMO. He has created many beautiful themes. He has also been generous in allowing others to update them. One quick way to get more themes for Firefox is to resurrect old lynchknot themes.

IMO lynchknot CAN become an artist, but he could also become a programmer. he's got a whole lot of potential thats for sure. and i agree that hes contributed to this community far more that many others have.

My own thought is that coders may wish to frequent places where artists post their work. If the coders can match up with artists whose work they like, then they can form teams that can bring us more themes.

if theres one site i can mention where professional artists (and not just kids who play with photoshop) hang out, it would be:
http://www.cgchannel.com

lynch, i suggest the next step is that you do not recycle any artwork/icons or anything at all for your next theme.
get out of the habit, because if you do decide to get into art/design, its not a good habit to keep.

[lynchknot]

*/sigh*/ - I appreciate the vote of confidence but really. Please stop talking about me. It embarrasses me. I am not one for any kind of spotlight. I'm just doing my thing (hobby)

My definition of an artist is one who can translate an image in his mind through his hands. The best I can do is stick figures. There is something lost between my mind and my hands. I do not have the talent.

It is the computer that has enabled me to create alongside of those who are truly gifted-using their works. I am being completely honest. All I do is cut and paste - whether it's an image or code. I have a hard time remembering code as it is. Honestly, the only talent I do have is utiilizing other's artwork to create something that appeals to me and, apparently, others.

As I have stated in the past, my computer experience began around April 2002 - so really, I do not know much but what I have learned are from these forums and other boards i'm a member of.

[pixelgeist]

We need more themers.

Okay; I'd like to become a themer, but how do I create FireFox themes? Is there a step by step manual? (I'm a HTML/ CSS/ Photoshop professional, but don't know how to make own FF themes.)

[lynchknot]

Why must you know how rather than investigating, experimenting, and discovering on your own. That is how I learned. It is rather fun this way. It's really not hard. Just take a look into the jar and you will see png images inside browser folder. Take them to photoshop and replace with your own images. That is the first step. Become familiar with browser.css (which is inside of browser folder) - notice that each image is assigned a location. The four px address will position the image as needed.

I don't zip or unzip (or rar) the file. I work directily out of the jar (dragging and dropping) sometimes stopping along the way to start my browser to check progress/

[pixelgeist]

Okay; but remember:

You say "we need more themers". If you really want more themers, then you should make it easy for them. Good GUI themes have the goal to augment the usability, the user-friendliness of FireFox. But today's ways of creating those GUIs are not user-friendly at all.

Is this the future?

[Sailfish]

At one time, way back when, there was a tool for developing themes. The problem was that the underlying structures of the mozilla code kept changing which quickly made the tool either a heavy maintenance item or moot. The latter was the easiest path.

The same is still true for Firefox and the other mozilla clients too. To answer your question, yes, I believe that creating themes will somewhat arcane for the foreseeable future.

As a matter of fact, while the Theme FAQ (1st thread of this forum) provides a lot of themeing tips, even it is somewhat outdated; although, still and excellent resource.

gl

[ehume]

One way of making a theme is adapting the default theme. There are other more comprehensive and, in coding, much more advanced. Compare Noia and Default, for example.

Although the code of the themes is not copyrighted, simple politeness would recommend getting the original themers' permission and giving credit somewhere.

[lynchknot]

Okay; but remember:

You say "we need more themers". If you really want more themers

hehe, it is not I who made the statement. I have no feelings on the subject. All I want are new and interesting icons to work with

[coda]

I've started and discontinued some themes for Firefox:
PlayStation 2: http://coda.co.za/archive/20030212/19:24:56
Untitled: http://coda.co.za/archive/20040614/13:58:03

They were both started pre-Firefox 1.0 and now I can't figure out how to create themes by working on them directly and seeing the changes dynamically, ie. without packaging and installing them first. Any help would be appreciated.