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Create themes for Mozilla and Netscape

Jeff Gunther, General Manager, Intalgent Technologies
Jeff Gunther, a Studio B-affiliated author, is the General Manager and founder of Intalgent Technologies, an emerging provider of software products and solutions utilizing the Lotus Notes/Domino and Java 2 Enterprise Edition platforms. Jeff Gunther has been a part of the Internet industry since its early "pre-Mosaic" days. Prior to starting Intalgent, Gunther was the Director of Internet/Groupware Development at Southern Illinois Healthcare. He managed software-development teams responsible for both end-user applications and mission-critical groupware infrastructure and applications. Additionally, he has professional experience in all aspects of the software life cycle, including specific software-development expertise with Lotus Notes/Domino, Java/J2EE technologies, DHTML, XML/XSLT, database design, and handheld devices. You can reach the author at jeff.gunther@intalgent.com.

Summary:  This tutorial demonstrates how to control the appearance of Mozilla and Mozilla-based browsers (such as Netscape 7 and above). It walks you through an example of creating an installable theme that you can download to change the look and feel of your browser and its components. The example theme makes use of XML, Cascading Style Sheets, and image resources to expand your experience with the browser, while requiring no programming knowledge.

Date:  15 Apr 2003
Level:  Introductory
PDF:  A4 and Letter (53 KB | 16 pages)Get Adobe® Reader®

Activity:  4690 views
Comments:  

Introduction

Should I take this tutorial?

You should read this tutorial if you want to develop a theme to manipulate Mozilla or Netscape's user interface, and want to quickly learn about all the component technologies that are used during the construction of a theme.

The tutorial assumes you understand how to navigate an image editor and that you possess a basic knowledge of XML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). I'll explore each one of these technologies in detail in this tutorial. You do not need a programming background or a deep understanding of Mozilla. The tutorial walks you through the underlying files so you can quickly grasp how to create your own custom theme.

You will find the tutorial easier to follow if you have Mozilla 1.3 installed, configured, and running. (Download it at www.mozilla.org.)

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What is this tutorial about?

In this tutorial, you learn how to construct a theme to manipulate the user interface of Mozilla and other browsers based on the same code base. This tutorial explores the following topics:

  • The themes. This section surveys the basic concepts of a theme and reviews some example themes created by other authors. Additionally, this section explores some of the limitations of what can and cannot be customized within a theme.

  • The themes' components. To fully understand how themes can be customized, you need an understanding of each of the core technologies. This section provides a brief introduction to each of the components that make up a theme.

  • Create a working theme. This section provides the details of how to configure your workstation to develop a theme with Mozilla 1.3.

  • Create new resources. This section explores how to customize the Modern theme that ships with Mozilla 1.3. Additionally, this section shows how to create new resources that can be easily integrated within a new or existing theme.

  • Packaging and installing the theme. Before you use a theme and distribute it to users, a theme must be packaged. This section walks through the steps necessary to understanding how to package a theme and create a custom install script that can be posted to a Web server.

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Tools and resources

The following tools are necessary to follow the examples in this tutorial:

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