Sports Themes

[Roket21]

I am an ESPN junkie..........ok whatever.

I love Firefox. However, I was always kind of letdown that the Addons site never had any sports related theme even though there is Sports section. I always wanted a sports related theme. I think that sports fans are left out of the Firefox rush even though they are the next technology adopting group after the early adopters. Many of my friends and me love a certain team and would like to show our support while using Firefox. I was wondering if someone could develop a series of sports themes. Or better yet, contact someone at Mozilla to suggest partnering with different sports related businesses like the NFL, NBA, ESPN, Nike, etc. Firefox did had a start in doing so with the World Cup add-on and should continue to do so. I would do this myself, however, I don't have the skill to do this.


I was thinking about like a simple themes like placing the team logo in the background of the toolbars and menus, maybe using a simple button theme. Just thinking. And hoping that someone will do this!

[Frank Lion]

"I would do this myself, however, I don't have the skill to do this...."

Wow! ...never seen anybody write that here before!

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=345753

Good luck.

[Roket21]

I did read the sticky on how to make a theme, but I am afraid that I don't understand it. I even tried to follow it to the best of my understanding, but it didn't work out. I kept crashing Firefox. I really am sorry that I was not able to understand the tutorial, but I do have to say that I really am not a coding type of person and I believe that many of those who you wish to use Firefox are not also. I was just suggesting if someone could help out the users out there who would like such a thing. I really did try to find the appropriate location to voice my request and I hoped that this was the right place.

[Miamoto]

It's the right place, and your right about the lack of sports themes. I personally can't find the time to do much of anything nowadays. Maybe you could make the image changes you would want, then collab with a coder that could make the required CSS changes and package the theme.

[Frank Lion]

I did read the sticky on how to make a theme, but I am afraid that I don't understand it. I even tried to follow it to the best of my understanding, but it didn't work out. I kept crashing Firefox. I really am sorry that I was not able to understand the tutorial, but I do have to say that I really am not a coding type of person and I believe that many of those who you wish to use Firefox are not also. I was just suggesting if someone could help out the users out there who would like such a thing. I really did try to find the appropriate location to voice my request and I hoped that this was the right place.

Not a problem, don't worry about it.

The main problem is that no themer (unless they are a big fan of a club) is going to spend the time it takes to make a proper theme, to end up with just a few thousand people using it.

Special corporate versions of themes can be made (I do this myself), but it's not cheap and the organisation or club normally approaches the themer. You can see why, you'd be sending out endless letters, etc, otherwise.

But...there is another way. You will have to look up all the terms that I use for yourself in the Knowledge Base link on the right, but if all you just want a sports toolbar background, this is what you do.

Paste the following code into your userChrome.css, below the namespace and save :

Code: Select all

 
/* Frank's quick change Toolbar Background*/
  menubar, toolbox, toolbar {
   background-image: url("file:///C:/V.png") !important;
   background-color: none !important;
   background-position: center center;
   }

Now find your picture (which really needs to be long and thin) and call it, 'V.png'. If it's a .jpg, then just change it to V.jpg in the code above. Put this image into your C Drive on your PC.

This is what it will look like :



This was all done very quickly just using the pic you see below the toolbars, but you get the idea. If the image is not long then it will repeat itself, so you will probably have to resize it, etc. You can also see (this is the default FF2 theme) that you need a theme with strong coloured buttons.

Good luck. OK?



EDIT Changed above code slightly, to take into account more non-default themes.

[Cato62]

Nice work, Frank!

I, too, have been wanting to "tinker" with something like this, but my knowledge is minimal at best.

Is there a way of modifying the code so that two images can be used, tiling alternately between the two images all the way across the toolbars?

Thanks in advance!

[Frank Lion]

Nice work, Frank!

I, too, have been wanting to "tinker" with something like this, but my knowledge is minimal at best.

Is there a way of modifying the code so that two images can be used, tiling alternately between the two images all the way across the toolbars?

Thanks in advance!

There are ways to make the css code do almost anything you want. But my advice, especially when you're starting out, is not to.

I always look for graphics solutions to every theme problem first. All the effects that you see in my stuff are graphics, the code is just there to hold the stuff in the right place. Plus, working with graphics is a lot more fun.

I'd suggest that the only thing you should touch in the above code, if need be, is this line :

background-position: center center;

...that how I move the image about. I've got nine positions to choose from, depending where I want the image to be, such as : 'background-position: left center;' ..or...'background-position: bottom right;' ...etc. See? already it starts to get complicated, doesn't it. So here's a better way :

Take your example above, start with a blank image, about 1200 pixels wide and about 200 pixels high (depends on your screen res) then paste onto that the images that you want. Save your results, but don't close your graphics program so that if you get the positions wrong, you can move the stuff about again. Now try out your image by naming it, as above. Just keep doing that until you're happy with it.

You can see that by doing it this way, you can easily have alternate images or anything you want. Like a CD cover? try stretching it to the size of your blank and see what it looks like. Loads of effects and all done just with that simple code above.

Here's a quick pic to try out, it's only about 900px wide (it was a background test shot of mine) but it will get you started.

http://img55.imageshack.us/img55/9569/m ... lidni3.jpg

Good luck and have fun.

[Cato62]

Thanks for the information, and the idea, Frank! I'll give it a shot and let you know the results.

Thanks again for all of your guidance.

[Frank Lion]

*** Edited above code slightly, to take into account more non-default themes.

[Roket21]

Thank you very much, Frank. I really appreciate the help. I was really just looking for something like this. I just threw in the other corporate ideas just to see if someone was interested. Thank you again for your help.

*/skedaddles happily away to make his first "theme!"/

[Cato62]

Thanks for the direction, Frank! My wife loves her new Raiders toolbar!

[Frank Lion]

Did this a bit quick, but I know backgrounds can be a swine, if you're not used to doing them.

This is a general background to lay your sport images on (I thought sports, sky, grass, etc...you get the idea, haha)

Might be no good for you, but it's here is you want it.

[Cato62]

Thanks Frank! This, too, will be fun to play with!

[bobray1014]

Hey, just found this. I feel your pain on the lack of sports themes Roket21. I do have the capability to build one so I decided to something about it. I just build my first one but I am having severe problems packaging it correctly. When I do install my theme, firefox doen't do or show anything which is why I think I am doing something wrong.

Anyway, if anyone can help with this please the thread i started on nov 4th titled Theme Development.

If I can get this working I think I can start cranking them out pretty quickly. Thanks!

Bo

[iBuzz]

Hi,

I know this is quite an old post, but I followed the instructions and there still is no change to the toolbar background. I'm currently using Firefox version 3.0.11 with the Vista on XP theme, would this negate the code added to userChrome.css.
BTW I'm not sure whether userChrome.css should replace userChrome-example.css or can they both exist in the chrome folder?

I appreciate any help offered.