I wrote a theme engine for Moodle 1.9.x which can create Moodle Themes on the fly at www.thematoweb.com
All you need to do is choose your base colors, chose your patterns, and other design options. Then you click save changes and the changes are reflected. Once you are satisfied with everything, you can save changes and your theme is ready to download. You can also edit and create variations from a theme.
I have tested the themes created from this engine on most of the browsers and they work fine.
Currently this is in beta and I work on improving it whenever I find time. But please do let me know if you face any problems or find any bugs. I will try and fix it asap.
All the themes that created on this website will be FREE for the community.
Awaiting your valuable feedback and responses!
[edit: fixed the typos]
I really liked your theme engine!!!
Some parts of theme could not be edited in theme engine itself but they can be edited in downloadable theme files...
Tools like this a perfect for people who have not used much css or created themes for moodle themselves - and why not for any professional designers too if they want to save time in modifying basic theme settings of moodle in a visual way...
Nice tool!
Thank you Mauno!! Glad you liked it. 
I will fix that Thanks for pointing it out.
I will fix that
Navin,
Great tools.
I just register and when I try to create a new theme, I insert my user and pass but I keep getting the "You must log in" message even after I log in to the site.
Thanks!
Great tools.
I just register and when I try to create a new theme, I insert my user and pass but I keep getting the "You must log in" message even after I log in to the site.
Thanks!
Hi Maggie,
Which page exactly do you get this error message? It may be a browser issue. Please refresh your browser cache. Which browser are you using btw?
Which page exactly do you get this error message? It may be a browser issue. Please refresh your browser cache. Which browser are you using btw?
Hi,
I just try again after cleaning my cache and it works.
Thanks!
I just try again after cleaning my cache and it works.
Thanks!
Cool!!
@Mauno
Have fixed that
Have fixed that
Have put a quick video tutorial on how to do this at http://thematoweb.com/howto.php Now this should be lot simpler to understand and work with!
After i uploaded I found that the volume became too low so you might want to use your speakers/earphones :P
Cheers!!!
--
Nave
After i uploaded I found that the volume became too low so you might want to use your speakers/earphones :P
Cheers!!!
--
Nave
Thanks for this tool
Very usefull, to make Moodle theme, quickly, even when you're not a css power user
Very usefull, to make Moodle theme, quickly, even when you're not a css power user
That was the whole idea about. To give power back to the users
And Thank you!! Responses like these, will keep us motivated
Added a new theme layout to the theme engine ;)
Cool! I love your little Theme Engine, I could play on it all day.
Thank you Mary!! You re most welcome to do so
A sleepless night dedicated to Menu builder.. Now using this, a user can create his/her menu items on the fly without bothering to write one single line of code!! ;)
I hope the users find it worth the pain :P At-least it has managed to keep me excited enough to do away with my sleep :D So me off to sleep now!! ;)
Any feedback/suggestions is welcome!!
Cheers!!
I hope the users find it worth the pain :P At-least it has managed to keep me excited enough to do away with my sleep :D So me off to sleep now!! ;)
Any feedback/suggestions is welcome!!
Cheers!!
Navin,
Creative people work better in the dead of night, for it is in the silence of the night that they gain their inspiration!
Thanks for whatever you have created...I am sure it will be more than useful to us all...but could we have a link to it first? Or have I missed something in the Theme Engine? LOL
I shall go and see...
Cheers
Mary
Creative people work better in the dead of night, for it is in the silence of the night that they gain their inspiration!
Thanks for whatever you have created...I am sure it will be more than useful to us all...but could we have a link to it first? Or have I missed something in the Theme Engine? LOL
I shall go and see...
Cheers
Mary
Thank you Mary You are very kind!! And its great to have you around!!
I missed to post the link. Here is the menu builder
http://thematoweb.com/moodle/theme/nave-theme/menu_builder.php
With the themes created at Themato Web, all a user would have to do is create his menu and copy the markup to menu.php in his downloaded theme folder.
Do have a look when you have time
Cheers!!
--
Nave
I missed to post the link. Here is the menu builder
http://thematoweb.com/moodle/theme/nave-theme/menu_builder.php
With the themes created at Themato Web, all a user would have to do is create his menu and copy the markup to menu.php in his downloaded theme folder.
Do have a look when you have time
Cheers!!
--
Nave
Navin,
Thank you! I like being around clever people, I learn more!
After I made that post I went to look at the Theme Engine again, and saw all your critical path analysis of your ongoing projects.
I think what you are doing is a brilliant innovation, not only is it useful for those wanting to make their own theme, but it puts everything about Moodle Themes into perspective. Most people haven't got a clue about how CSS works, and most don't want to, but for those learning, like me, this Theme Engine of yours is a Godsend! And now the Menu Builder! This is just what is needed.
I'm working on the Aardvark-Lite theme menu as I write, I have three browsers active, including Google Chrome, and systematically plodding through the CSS, putting borders around everything so I can see which parts are affected by which css mark-up. I'm almost finished. So I , for one, can appreciate the usefulness of your Menu Builder.
Many thanks for your hard work.
Mary
Thank you! I like being around clever people, I learn more!
After I made that post I went to look at the Theme Engine again, and saw all your critical path analysis of your ongoing projects.
I think what you are doing is a brilliant innovation, not only is it useful for those wanting to make their own theme, but it puts everything about Moodle Themes into perspective. Most people haven't got a clue about how CSS works, and most don't want to, but for those learning, like me, this Theme Engine of yours is a Godsend! And now the Menu Builder! This is just what is needed.
I'm working on the Aardvark-Lite theme menu as I write, I have three browsers active, including Google Chrome, and systematically plodding through the CSS, putting borders around everything so I can see which parts are affected by which css mark-up. I'm almost finished. So I , for one, can appreciate the usefulness of your Menu Builder.
Many thanks for your hard work.
Mary
Thank you Mary!! I am flattered :D You re very kind indeed!! :D
I checked your theme menu it is smooth & fast!! Good job!!
Though its a work in progress, let me share this with you. I am working on improving Moodle UI a bit as well as adding some bit of functionality to it. I am working on a Moodle dashboard towards a more user friendly personalised look for the end-user. Its like a drawer which they can pull and push back with a click.
It will contain useful links compartmentalized in structure to various sections of the system. It will also allow the user to create his bookmarks and favorites in the system which will saved in this dashboard.
Do tell me what else you think would be a good to have in your personal dashboard if you had one, when you are using Moodle!
Have attached the screenshots to share how it would look like. It will be available soon at Themato Web ;)
Cheers!!
I checked your theme menu it is smooth & fast!!
Though its a work in progress, let me share this with you. I am working on improving Moodle UI a bit as well as adding some bit of functionality to it. I am working on a Moodle dashboard towards a more user friendly personalised look for the end-user. Its like a drawer which they can pull and push back with a click.
It will contain useful links compartmentalized in structure to various sections of the system. It will also allow the user to create his bookmarks and favorites in the system which will saved in this dashboard.
Do tell me what else you think would be a good to have in your personal dashboard if you had one, when you are using Moodle!
Have attached the screenshots to share how it would look like. It will be available soon at Themato Web ;)
Cheers!!
Here is the third screenshot showing how it will look when the dashboard is not used.
This looks an exciting project you are undertaking, Navin! I can see this being very useful indeed.
Thanks for sharing it.
Mary
Thanks for sharing it.
Mary
Hi Navin,
I love the theme engine - I too could spend hours playing with it.
A couple questions.
1. I don't want to have the menu, how can we edit that out of the files?
2. the background/header images are not in the zip files 
is there someplace to get them?
Thanks for the cool tool!!!
Karla
Hi Karla,
Thank you for your response and welcome to the site :)
1. To do away with the menu in your theme. Open header.html in notepad and remove this line
<div id="menubox" style="clear both"><?php include 'menu.php';?></div>
2. Can you please tell me the name of your theme/zip file you downloaded. Ideally the images should be there, I will investigate why they are not there and send you the files.
(PS: I am adding lot more tools(Animated header, Moodle dashboard, Keyboard shortcuts, Dynamic menu) to the engine soon. It is under testing phase and will soon be available on the website. When that is available I will make it a point that a user is able to chose what he wants include in his theme and what he wants to skip ;))
Cheers!!
--
Nave
Thank you for your response and welcome to the site :)
1. To do away with the menu in your theme. Open header.html in notepad and remove this line
<div id="menubox" style="clear both"><?php include 'menu.php';?></div>
2. Can you please tell me the name of your theme/zip file you downloaded. Ideally the images should be there, I will investigate why they are not there and send you the files.
(PS: I am adding lot more tools(Animated header, Moodle dashboard, Keyboard shortcuts, Dynamic menu) to the engine soon. It is under testing phase and will soon be available on the website. When that is available I will make it a point that a user is able to chose what he wants include in his theme and what he wants to skip ;))
Cheers!!
--
Nave
Hi Navin,
Here is the list of the ones I downloaded that had images - I loved them all and had a hard time just picking one or two - so I choose a bunch of them.
Cucumber Green
Evening Sky
Testing - has the pencils in the header
Pattern 17 - grey with swirls in the header
MaunoTest - images/backgrounds/background-green2.gif
Old paper
Pattern 21 - background-image: url(images/gradients/back_black.png)
This is so much fun!!! Thank you so much for creating it.
Karla
Hi Karla
It is only encouraging to know that people are enjoying the power to create their custom themes.
Thank you for such a wonderful response.
Cheers!! Have a great day ahead!!
--
Nave
It is only encouraging to know that people are enjoying the power to create their custom themes.
Thank you for such a wonderful response.
Cheers!!
--
Nave
Hi Nave,
Could you please send me the image files for the following themes
Cucumber Green
Evening Sky
Testing - has the pencils in the header
Pattern 17 - grey with swirls in the header
MaunoTest - images/backgrounds/background-green2.gif
Old paper
Pattern 21 - background-image: url(images/gradients/back_black.png)
my email is: kbright@sbu.edu
Thanks,
Karla
Hi Karla,
I will mail you those themes zips which you can use directly shortly.
Just a note, may be am wrong, but it just seems to me its not a missing image problem but file permission problem on the servers as to why the theme images don't show. If you face the same problem with the zip files I send you in mail, I suggest you check the permission of newly added theme files.
To do so follow the steps below.
1. Change the ownership of newly added theme files folder to apache so that it can read from it. While logged in as root use this command
#chown -R apache:apache /var/www/html/moodle/themes/
2. Now change the file permissions to 0755 like this
#chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/moodle/themes
Hope this helps!! :)
Cheers!!
--
Nave
I will mail you those themes zips which you can use directly shortly.
Just a note, may be am wrong, but it just seems to me its not a missing image problem but file permission problem on the servers as to why the theme images don't show. If you face the same problem with the zip files I send you in mail, I suggest you check the permission of newly added theme files.
To do so follow the steps below.
1. Change the ownership of newly added theme files folder to apache so that it can read from it. While logged in as root use this command
#chown -R apache:apache /var/www/html/moodle/themes/
2. Now change the file permissions to 0755 like this
#chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/moodle/themes
Hope this helps!! :)
Cheers!!
--
Nave
Totally awesome! Thanks for sharing your work.
Added support for Admin keyboard shortcuts!! Press Ctrl+Shift+K to see the list of shortcuts.
You will not be able to use these shortcuts on themato's site, since you are not the admin there, but you can definitely see it in action ;)
Cheers!!
(PS: Soon I will add support for custom keyboard shortcuts)
You will not be able to use these shortcuts on themato's site, since you are not the admin there, but you can definitely see it in action ;)
Cheers!!
(PS: Soon I will add support for custom keyboard shortcuts)
Hi,
does this theme engine work on moodle 2.0 or is it only for moodle 1.9.x and older?
Kevin,
This Theme Engine is at the moment only for Moodle 1.9.x, however, I have feeling Navin will be adapting it to generate Moodle 2.0 Themes too.
Mary
This Theme Engine is at the moment only for Moodle 1.9.x, however, I have feeling Navin will be adapting it to generate Moodle 2.0 Themes too.
Mary
I really like your clean theme. For some reason thought the front page description shows up under the name and in one of the boxes. The description goes behind the login box etc. I am in Mozilla.
I am sorry I will clarify. Under the title of our organization the description that I put in for the front page is showing and it is going underneath the log in username and password field. Also my name seems to run into the text description. I hope that clarifies.
Which theme did you download from the Theme Engine?
cucumber green
Hi Heather,
If you have Admin access to the files on the server, you need to add a width value to .headertag in styles.css - as demonstrated below...
.headertag {
font-size: 1.15em;;
font-weight: bold;
margin: 0;
color: #292929;
line-height: 0.8;
width: 30%;
}
Alternatively you could try making your site summary shorter in length, then you won't need to tweak the code.
Mary
If you have Admin access to the files on the server, you need to add a width value to .headertag in styles.css - as demonstrated below...
.headertag {
font-size: 1.15em;;
font-weight: bold;
margin: 0;
color: #292929;
line-height: 0.8;
width: 30%;
}
Alternatively you could try making your site summary shorter in length, then you won't need to tweak the code.
Mary
I really like what you did and I am thankful too because I have no programming or coding knowledge whatsoever and I was going to have to learn on my own. But now that I found this I am extatic! One question tho: Is there a way to upload my own image as a background to the theme?
Nadav has not been to this forum in a long while so I'll try and answer your question.
Depending on where you want your image to be on yout moodle site depends on how it is coded into the theme.
But it is easy to add an image to a theme you just place the image in the pix directory of the theme you are using...
moodle/theme/yourtheme/pix
Mary