Loading Themes without Restart.

[ShareBird]

Hmmmm.... IMHO, override is not really a good idea at all... I remember some extension was using to override, I guess richlistitems, don't remember, causing a lot of headaches...
The problem with this practice and some other issues related to companions and SwitchThemes is not that they break SwitchThemes, but that they break a feature from Firefox and Thunderbird: the Dynamic Skin Switch (dss). Users are able to change the preference extensions.dss.enabled to true to get this feature. It has never really worked well, but it seems we will maintain it (just have a look on the core code how frequently this preference is going to be checked).
SwitchThemes just use this feature and an existing function (reloadChrome) combining them with the session store service to do the job...

I agree that the about:home should be skinnable, is there already a filed bug on it?

[jivko]

Works fine with me.I'm using Firefox 5.Good job.

[patrickjdempsey]

I agree that the about:home should be skinnable, is there already a filed bug on it?

I remember there being one during Firefox 4.0 development, but I'll have to dig for it.

[ShareBird]

Maybe this one?
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=655934

[patrickjdempsey]

That's a nice one, not the one I was thinking of though. I remember there being a request for about: pages to have better theming options and I think just about every single except about:home made it. And thank you for the information about DSS... I'm going to look into overlays or userContent stuff and see if I can find an alternative way to handle it, might have to just make a companion Stylish like mcdavis has been doing.

[ShareBird]

And thank you for the information about DSS... I'm going to look into overlays or userContent stuff and see if I can find an alternative way to handle it, might have to just make a companion Stylish like mcdavis has been doing.

Unfortunately, the last time I've tested mcdavis companion, it was running into this issue (he is already working on this)... Noia4 has the same problems.

Notice that I am also dealing with the style sheet service, but I unload every style sheet when changing the theme. ClassicCompact also found a solution for this problem.

[mcdavis]

This might be the one you're talking about:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=563723#c83

See the discussion that begins with 'Are there any platform styling differences? Do we actually want this to be modifiable by themes?'

[patrickjdempsey]

Thanks mcdavis. Although I personally think the argument "the current page doesn't do that" is not only short sighted, but neglects the various extensions, userStyles and independent websites dedicated precisely to providing a different look to the Google home page... as well as the fact that about:home will eventually be a full UI unto itself and will *need* to be themable.

[mcdavis]

Thanks mcdavis. Although I personally think the argument "the current page doesn't do that" is not only short sighted, but neglects the various extensions, userStyles and independent websites dedicated precisely to providing a different look to the Google home page... as well as the fact that about:home will eventually be a full UI unto itself and will *need* to be themable.

Yep, I agree with that. And I always wondered what the big deal was about getting about:support to include one in-theme file. That's pretty simple .. why was that even controversial? ::shrugs::

The only thing we need to watch for is dynamic content in about:home, cuz then we would not know what's going to be in that spot or how to theme it. It seems like they're going that way. Something I'm keeping an eye out for ...

[patrickjdempsey]

My theme has one shared import file for the various "about" pages and the individual "about" support pages are pretty minimal after that... I'm not sure what the big deal is either. The only thing I can think is that some devs are still holding onto Chrome vs. Content separation as far as themes go and ignoring the fact that In-Content-UI basically broke that forever, even if the argument was theoretical at best long before In-Content-UI became the standard. Personally, I'd rather look at a UI that makes consistent sense... which for me means one theme designer putting their personal touch on every aspect. In other words, if Stephen Horlander or Alex Faaborg is supposed to be *the* design lead, then let him be the design lead and let him put his touch on everything instead almost everything being designed by a committee of programmers. It's also a little sad to me that Mozilla puts so much importance on the design ideas of Opera and Chrome and IE instead of *in-sourcing* the veritable gold mine that is Firefox Themes. I mean if it's valid research to try out new features in Chrome then why isn't it valid research to take a look at what the most popular Firefox themes are doing?

Sorry to hijack the Switch Themes thread with off-topic discussion, I'm just frustrated that Firefox has in only a few years changed from a browser I was perfectly happy using with no extensions to a browser that I will never use again without a custom theme and my handful of required extensions.

[ShareBird]

Just to post here a working version from Switch Themes:
www.silvermel.net/dev/xpi/switchthemes_ ... _r5304.xpi

[patrickjdempsey]

Bravo! It still requires the double-restart before it starts working, but it runs beautifully after that!

[jivko]

Sweet

[ShareBird]

Don't forget guys (and girls) the most interesting feature of it. Place the "Reload Chrome" button inside any toolbar, make your edits in your theme (assuming your workflow is based in an uncompressed version of it, what I highly recommend) press the button and BUM!!!

[ShareBird]

I've noticed that the SwitchThemes extension stopped to work on Firefox 16.0. Here is an updated version:

http://www.silvermel.net/dev/xpi/switch ... _r5688.xpi