Chapter 5

Creating Netscape Themes

Figure 5.0 – Netscape Themes

“The very essence of the creative is its novelty, and hence we have no standard by which to judge it.” – Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person

Now that you’ve learned about how to use XUL elements in a larger user interface, we will discuss the largest XUL interface, the Netscape browser. Huh? Yes, the entire browser is built using the XPCOM Toolkit. This is done through what is called Netscape Themes. Themes are collections of skins that define the look and feel of each Netscape Navigator component. Netscape Communications has some great minds thinking about this high level stuff. They’re pondering questions such as “How do we create a browser that is extensible enough to be a wide open toolkit for application developers while at the same time remaining a stable and commercially acceptable application?”

The Netscape browser is a wonderfully done XUL interface. One way to get your hand in the cookie jar, so to speak, is to create your own theme. A theme is a collection of skins. Skins are individual implementations of interface elements using Cascading Style Sheets, which you learned about in chapter three. Netscape created themes to allow developers and users to create a different “look and feel” than the provided “look and feel”. Being a collection of skins, Themes reflect in structure the components of the Netscape Navigator Package. These components include the AOL Instant Messenger, Communicator, Composer (Editor), Messenger, Navigator, and Global.

You may change the default theme by going to the Edit menu and then by selecting the preferences menu item. Up will pop the Preferences dialog box. Under the Appearance twisty, as it is called, is the Themes tab. Select Themes and you will see a list of installed themes. The default-installed themes are Modern and Classic. You can download themes from several sites, but the most notable is Netscape’s Theme Park at http://home.netscape.com/themes. Most are very nice, however, if you can’t find a theme that is suitable to your unequivocal sense of style or discerning taste, you can create your own. There are a few tools available on the Internet that allow you to develop your own themes very quickly. One of these tools is Alphanumerica’s Theme Editor. You can download this from http://www.alphanumerica.com. These tools are great, but like most GUI editors, what you give up for ease is control. Creating your own theme by hand allows you full control over every little aspect of the browser.