Your own theme workshop - for beginners

Discuss application theming and theme development.
Locked
User avatar
ehume
Posts: 6743
Joined: November 17th, 2002, 12:33 pm
Location: Princeton, NJ, USA

Re: Your own theme workshop - for beginners

Post by ehume »

mzfuser wrote:Where can I get a sample contents.rdf file for a Thunderbird theme?


Do Thunderbird themes use the contents.rdf method?

I have no clue. Better to ask this question as a separate thread on the forum.
Firefox: Sic transit gloria mundi.
mzfuser
Folder@Home
Posts: 1886
Joined: August 15th, 2004, 10:21 pm

Re: Your own theme workshop - for beginners

Post by mzfuser »

Apparently they do.

Any mods: is it ok if I posted a separate thread?
User avatar
LoudNoise
New Member
Posts: 39900
Joined: October 18th, 2007, 1:45 pm
Location: Next door to the west

Re: Your own theme workshop - for beginners

Post by LoudNoise »

Go ahead. Use Thunderbird in the topic please.
Post wrangler
"Choose between the Food Select Feature or other Functions. If no food or function is chosen, Toast is the default."
Rexel
Posts: 77
Joined: March 26th, 2009, 3:44 pm

Re: Your own theme workshop - for beginners

Post by Rexel »

how to use a the default ff3 base skin in a new workshow..

i can get the theme install fine with my own theme settings installed etc..

with the chrome.manifest as .. and the 'style' reference is the same in the install.rdf

skin global style chrome/global/
skin mozapps style chrome/mozapps/
skin browser style chrome/browser/
skin communicator style chrome/communicator/
skin help style chrome/help/

(took out the os versions from the original ff3 classic.manifest)
(have also zipped up and renamed the skin files in "skin style jar:chrome/style.xpi!/help/" etc also didn't work)

and in the chrome folder is the the default skin from the ff3 directory extracted and changed to resemble the above manifest..

only the changes I made to that skin have no effect.. and it seem ff3 is till using the original theme and not from my skin.. even though according to ff3 theme dialog my theme is in current use.
User avatar
ehume
Posts: 6743
Joined: November 17th, 2002, 12:33 pm
Location: Princeton, NJ, USA

Re: Your own theme workshop - for beginners

Post by ehume »

Hmm. It looks like a good start. One thing is important: you must use another ID, separate from the default.
Firefox: Sic transit gloria mundi.
Rexel
Posts: 77
Joined: March 26th, 2009, 3:44 pm

Re: Your own theme workshop - for beginners

Post by Rexel »

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<RDF xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
xmlns:em="http://www.mozilla.org/2004/em-rdf#">

<Description about="urn:mozilla:install-manifest">
<em:id>blah@blah.com</em:id>
<em:version>3.0.8</em:version>

<!-- Target Application this extension can install into,
with minimum and maximum supported versions. -->

<em:targetApplication>
<Description>
<!-- Firefox's UUID -->
<em:id>{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}</em:id>
<em:minVersion>3.0</em:minVersion>
<em:maxVersion>3.0.*</em:maxVersion>
</Description>
</em:targetApplication>

<!-- Front End MetaData -->
<em:name>Style</em:name>
<em:description>nah</em:description>
<em:creator>me</em:creator>
<em:homepageURL>temp.com</em:homepageURL>

<!-- Front End Integration Hooks (used by Theme Manager)-->
<em:internalName>style</em:internalName>
</Description>

</RDF>
User avatar
ehume
Posts: 6743
Joined: November 17th, 2002, 12:33 pm
Location: Princeton, NJ, USA

Re: Your own theme workshop - for beginners

Post by ehume »

That looks right. It's all located in the active profile, right?
Firefox: Sic transit gloria mundi.
Rexel
Posts: 77
Joined: March 26th, 2009, 3:44 pm

Re: Your own theme workshop - for beginners

Post by Rexel »

yup.. the theme is install/active profile...

so why is it ignoring the skin files? its like it knows most the files are the default theme, and even though some files have been changed.. its just ignoring the lot and still using the original classic theme that is in the firefox dir ...which is funny because my theme is the currently active theme.. not the default theme
User avatar
ehume
Posts: 6743
Joined: November 17th, 2002, 12:33 pm
Location: Princeton, NJ, USA

Re: Your own theme workshop - for beginners

Post by ehume »

Don't know. But try renaming a directory - global, for example - and see what you get.
Firefox: Sic transit gloria mundi.
Rexel
Posts: 77
Joined: March 26th, 2009, 3:44 pm

Re: Your own theme workshop - for beginners

Post by Rexel »

seem to have got it sorted and most changes are working now.. I still have no idea what was causing it, just a lot of messing around it seems

and it still seems like some settings seem to be completely ignored like making some changes in the browsers.css file take an effect on restart.. and other changes made within the same file don't take any effect..

even more silly is that the same settings that don't take effect in my modified chrome/browser/browser.css file when copied out and put in the userChrome.css file suddently work.. exactly the same thing
User avatar
ehume
Posts: 6743
Joined: November 17th, 2002, 12:33 pm
Location: Princeton, NJ, USA

Re: Your own theme workshop - for beginners

Post by ehume »

Weird.

I've redone the recommended structure of the installable themes (see the first posts). You might want to start over and see what happens.
Firefox: Sic transit gloria mundi.
User avatar
patrickjdempsey
Posts: 23686
Joined: October 23rd, 2008, 11:43 am
Location: Asheville NC
Contact:

Re: Your own theme workshop - for beginners

Post by patrickjdempsey »

Rexel wrote:even more silly is that the same settings that don't take effect in my modified chrome/browser/browser.css file when copied out and put in the userChrome.css file suddently work.. exactly the same thing


There are "universal" changes that work in useChrome.css that work betting in global.css than browser.css. One of the more difficult things about theming I've found is figuring out all of the scattered places where one thing may be changed. For instance: If you want to change something about the appearance URLbar, you have to change settings in browser.css in a dozen DIFFERENT places under different labels, not all of them obviously belonging to the URLbar... as well as you have to make changes to textbox.css under the global folder. If you change the URLbar dropmarker, you also have to change dropmarker.css in the global folder... and if you want RTL compatibility it gets even more entrenched. Another thing that seems like it should be easy to change that is not is the tabs. There is not a single one control for the height or width of tabs. The width is set by the browser and can be changed locally in about:config but not by a theme. The height is set by changing the margins and paddings of every element in the tab-bar including the tabs themselves and all of the "tabbrowser" elements like the tab scroll arrows, tab list dropmarker and the new tab button. Using DOM Inspector can help you find some of this stuff, but it's really not as cut and dry as it SHOULD be.
Tip of the day: If it has "toolbar" in the name, it's crap.
What my avatar is about: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/seamonkey/addon/sea-fox/
Rexel
Posts: 77
Joined: March 26th, 2009, 3:44 pm

Re: Your own theme workshop - for beginners

Post by Rexel »

yeah patrick i've been diving through the tangled mess that is firefox skinning.. tbh its quite the bloody mission compared to m2 skinning(which well is lot more straight forward though not nearly as opened up). I guess I'm just torn in having dislikes about a lot of the ff skinning process, and liking a lot of the control over everything.

"Using DOM Inspector can help you find some of this stuff, but it's really not as cut and dry as it SHOULD be."

I totally agree

And I have to say the Stylish addon sure does make skinning firefox's UI a hell of it lot easier and kinda fun, just the realtime updating of most changes without the entire stupid browser restarts a huge time saver... I don't think I'd have bothered without it, the problem now is that the majority of my actual skin themes css now resides in multiple stylish files, whcih is kinda nice on the one hand becaue I can toggle things on or off and just tweak things constantly... but I dunno if I'll ever get around to putting those css settings back into the original skin files location.

and as you've said with the tabs I'm beginning to think that I probably won't ever publish this skin because and fair number of visual tweaks have been set in other addons like tabmix which I had used to setup the tab min/max width etc and ofc stylish..

+seriously disappointed by the lack of this m2 skinning feaure: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=1188325 I just don't see why that isn't in the css spec seeing as its pretty danm useful for buttons like tabs graphics etc without needing to set an actual border width
User avatar
patrickjdempsey
Posts: 23686
Joined: October 23rd, 2008, 11:43 am
Location: Asheville NC
Contact:

Re: Your own theme workshop - for beginners

Post by patrickjdempsey »

Yeah it's a crude method using drawn lines to make borders on everything, but I suspect in the end it might be faster than loading and stretching images. And one big draw-back I've noticed is that if you have a radius on the border, the sides need to be the same color, or it doesn't look right at the corner... which kills off alot of creativity in shading using the border color.
Tip of the day: If it has "toolbar" in the name, it's crap.
What my avatar is about: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/seamonkey/addon/sea-fox/
User avatar
LoudNoise
New Member
Posts: 39900
Joined: October 18th, 2007, 1:45 pm
Location: Next door to the west

Re: Your own theme workshop - for beginners

Post by LoudNoise »

I will be happy to leave this as a sticky but is it relevant still?
Post wrangler
"Choose between the Food Select Feature or other Functions. If no food or function is chosen, Toast is the default."
Locked