We need more themers.

Discuss application theming and theme development.
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xN8x
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We need more themers.

Post by xN8x »

This will probably be controversial, but I think we need more themers for all of the mozilla products. I think some more individuality and different styles would be nice. Maybe, with more themers U.M.O could get some themes in the "animals" "retro" "schools" "sports" and "retro" categories. Plus, with more people, the greater chance there is of themers raising the bar and making outstanding themes with some great ideas and techniques. I know that too many could end up in people flooding the mozilla apps with junk themes, but a few more wouldn't hurt.


Oh, and I may update my "green" and my "blackhat" themes to work with 1.0, so watch out for those.



Now... Let's get a little conversation going... state your opinions.
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lynchknot
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Post by lynchknot »

Here's all the themes I have that have not been updated yet. Wanna help?

Image
Image
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xN8x
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Post by xN8x »

I just might... Crystal sounds cool. So does mercury. If those two are for firefox, I might consider doing them. I always liked your themes, so it would be an honor to help with them. Evolution and HD Carbonfiber were my two favorites.
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chris-or-christopher
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I'd really love to see Coffeecup updated! ;-)

Post by chris-or-christopher »

I wish I could do more than just make the request--I know some things, I have some skills I could share!

Chris

Also: from a looooong time ago when Phoenix had just changed to Firebird there were two themes that I liked: Negative Modern and Celtic Knot.
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xN8x
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Post by xN8x »

When I started theming, all I knew was HTML and the basic layout and attributes of CSS. Now, I still only know HTML, the basic layout and attributes of CSS ( maybe a little more CSS), and a tiny amount of XUL attributes (hbox, vbox, w/e) and I made 3 themes. The best way to learn is to spend time on these forums and to decompile a theme and look at it's set up and interworkings. At first, I thought theming would be impossible, only the computer elite could do it, but I stumbled my way through making one and it started to get easier.
Firefox is the best browser known to mankind. 2 out of 3 geeks agree. <br>
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Check out my site, I made sure it was firefox compatible the easiest way I knew how; I developed and tested it using firefox. :)
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xN8x
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Post by xN8x »

Wow, I downloaded crystal from your site. From the preview image it looks great!
Firefox is the best browser known to mankind. 2 out of 3 geeks agree. <br>
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Check out my site, I made sure it was firefox compatible the easiest way I knew how; I developed and tested it using firefox. :)
lynchknot
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Post by lynchknot »

It's not updated. hehe, when I started I did not know what a png was. I learned that day. All of those themes are for firefox - yeah, there are some oldies there that have only seen phoenix.
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Post by xN8x »

I have it installed right now... It is pretty nice. It'd be great if it had forward and back buttons and a scrollbar... hehe... I'll Try to update it for 1.0 as faithfully as I can. BTW, what color should that menu hovers be? Right now they appear to be black, but my monitor is old and darkens things. Is there a certain hex value you'd want them to be?

EDIT: I'm gonna get going to bed. I'll check this post tomorrow.
Last edited by xN8x on November 30th, 2004, 9:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Firefox is the best browser known to mankind. 2 out of 3 geeks agree. <br>
<a href="http://nate.teamstortz.com/index.html">Nate's Corner of the Web</a>
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Check out my site, I made sure it was firefox compatible the easiest way I knew how; I developed and tested it using firefox. :)
lynchknot
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Post by lynchknot »

which one did you down? one is icons only. Funny that you got a hold of crystal because they are all online but with the wrong title. I made crystal downloadable recently because I was about to work on it next
Last edited by lynchknot on November 30th, 2004, 9:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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xN8x
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Post by xN8x »

I downloaded the other one
Firefox is the best browser known to mankind. 2 out of 3 geeks agree. <br>
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Check out my site, I made sure it was firefox compatible the easiest way I knew how; I developed and tested it using firefox. :)
lynchknot
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Post by lynchknot »

Crystal is fully skinned with, I think, the exception of scrollbars.
chris-or-christopher
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Post by chris-or-christopher »

Coffee cup: steaming or iced!

How much work is involved in updating a theme? I looked at some of the other threads and honestly my eyes glazed over when I saw the code (?) that was being posted.
lucx
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Post by lucx »

The issue is not that we need more themers, but rather, why there are so few themers. You need not travel far to find the answer: the Mozilla theme system (noun) is badly suited for themeing (verb).

May I direct your attention to another theme-capable browser with a highly-cultured name. http://my.opera.com/community/customize/skins/specs/
Simple, straightforward, easy.

If you want an Opera theme featuring John’sSuperDuperIconSet, all you need to include are John’sSuperDuperIcons. By stark-as-night-and-day contrast, the Mozilla way requires the entire bag of skin to be dragged with you. Opera falls back to the default skin if something isn’t included. Mozilla decides to cry if it can’t find what it needs and potentially hoses itself. Too much pampering is required.

Putting critical UI files in the skin is just unwise. Silly RDF references are best left in the bowels of the program, not puked up for all to see. Byzantine directory structures should be left for mazes and minotaurs.

Evidence is found in every person who says they don’t have the knowlege to dissect a theme. Frogs should be dissected. Not skin. Those that have cut through Mozilla skin know it is messy, requires gloves, and will squirt you in the face if you poke the wrong spot.
lynchknot
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Post by lynchknot »

Yeah but it's fun. It's like a puzzle. Skinning Opers is boring. Throw some icons and skin.ini file, zip it up and you're done


Creating a theme for Fx is not as hard as it, initially, appears. Yes, it takes some work and time but in the end, you feel like you created a work of art - rather than throwing some icons in a folder. If it's easy, there is not much reward/satisfaction.


I have yet to see an Opera theme that I like..
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dcNate
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Post by dcNate »

I'm actually working on a new Firefox theme right now as part of my senior honors thesis here at college. Any good tips for where to start? Right now I'm just making source buttons at a higher resolution in Fireworks, and then resizing them and photoshopping them into a plain browser window to see how they'd look. Is it as easy as just taking some other skin and replacing all the images (assuming the replacement images are the same resolution)? I'm looking forward to working on it. I just have the basic navigation buttons right now.
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