Themes are a type of customization applied to visual layout of a window which provides a more refreshing and sleek look. Modern applications tend to provide this extensibility so that users don’t get tired of dealing with default look at all. Themes can be considered as Dress of an application. Applications should also be dressed up properly and elegantly like we do. Google Chrome Browser had started supporting themes with release of version 3.0.
There are plenty of Chrome themes out there. Some of them are official while many are being contributed by user community. What if you don’t like any of them and want to build your own Chrome theme. A theme built by user itself will exactly match the customizations required and the user will get more satisfied. The theme built can also be shared in Chrome community and we may see some nice and refined themes. One more thing I can assure that once you have built one, you will not be able to resist the urge to package more and more Chrome themes. I will describe here some easy methods to create Chrome themes. Some have a simple features and an easy user interface to built a theme while other are comprehensive and let you create a theme in a detailed manner.
crx theme creator is an easy and free utility to build a customized Chrome theme. There are currently two versions available. Version 0.01 has an explanatory user interface in which a numbered Chrome window is shown as an image. The numbers are related to the input fields for background, toolbar, and tab images as well as colors for bookmarks, button, section and different text colors. Choose your options and then click “View Theme”. A Chrome window will open with your modified theme applied. The theme can be packaged in crx extension and can be released or shared.
crx theme creator v1.0 is newer version and gives you more customization options to build a Chrome theme. It does not offer numbered style options rather the creator needs to understand the Chrome Theme Creation Guide. You can create a fine tuned theme through this method but this involves more complexity.
During the wrtite up of this article, I also built my own Chrome Theme. This creation shows love for upcoming Ubuntu 10.01 code named Lucid Lynx. The theme has been released.
Download Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Chrome Theme.
Download crx theme creator.
The above Chrome theme creators have a user interface. If the creator wants to build fine grained theme then should try one of the following methods.
In first method, the developedr will need Chromium Theme Creator and then copy some sort of dll and rc files in the working directory. After this, you will modify or create png images representing your design and then build a theme for release. (via ChromePlugins).
The second method requires you to first install Visual Studio C++ and Windows SDK. Then copying of some files is required. You need to modify or create png files and after that can build custom Chrome theme. (via Chromium Themes)
The developers have also built Chromium theme manager which lets you preview, manage and install Chrome themes with an intuitive style. This requires a .ctmz theme package including default.dll, details.txt, and thumbnail.png. You can find other details and download it from here.
Chrome Fans now can easily get dirty their hands while building Chrome Themes. If you create a nice theme, let us know in comments.
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Thanks for the CRX theme creator! Now I will go through the Google theme creation guide..
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