August 13, 2007
Well today I successfully created the Zones Dark theme. I have a demo up for a while if you want to take a look. There are some visible issues, but I’ve fixed those in the code already. Just don’t want to rebuild all the pages again. Gets exhausting :)
Someone asked about the progress on the installer… Hac is working on something but I’m basically giving him space to figure all that out. He works full-time so the time he has available is far less than I have. He was also looking into a theme generator. We used to have one for 1.0, but 2.0 poses a very difficult puzzle to solve. Wer’er not sure it’s possible. Because of that, I’m not able to create custom page layouts. The best I can do is use existing Apple themes and change the styles by hand as I’ve been doing. If we’re able to create a generator, then we’ll revisit this issue.
The installer is far less necessary for 2.0 themes. I won’t get into details, but it’s basically SIMPLE to manually install the themes so I’m not worried about the installer timeline.
Aerolite went into test today. I have a handful of people looking at it. I you are an Aerolite user and you’d like to test as well. Please use the contact form to send me a note. Please include your account/username and the web site link that uses the theme.
Zones is pretty much created. I have not made a final decision on whether to generate the individual colors again. This is quite a dilemma. I’m still thinking about how to best handle it. I’d rather not have to manage so many theme variations but if I were a user, I’d want my color choice already configured IN the template so I don’t have to change link colors on every new page. Send thoughts about that. I know you can duplicate existing page which minimizes the issue, but ultimately what you guys want is likely what I’ll do so please comment and vote!
Now I need a break so I’m off to go look at Telecasters :D
About This Article
This entry was posted by Suzanne on Monday, August 13th, 2007 at 4:21 PM and was filed in the FYI category using the tags: aerolite, install, iweb, theme, update, zones. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Could you… if you will… explain how to ….
duplicate a theme/template, and mess around with it?
I’ve gotten so far, as if I delete the entire “templates” folder within iWeb… nothing happens… it still have everything in terms of templates to pick from…
and the “themes” folder doesn’t really contain anything… no individual xml files as I can see… no content, but still.. if you move them, templates chooser in iweb does not work….
I’m really puzzled, but I wanna make my own stuff… do you have any wise insights you can share ?
PLLLLLEEASE :D
Here are the steps to duplicate a theme. Close iWeb before doing this.
1. Right click on iWeb icon, select Show Package Contents from menu.
2. Navigate to Themes folder.
3. Decide which theme you want to duplicate and then right click on it. Select Duplicate from the menu.
4. Rename the copy to your new theme name.
5. Find the file (in that same folder called themesortorder.plist. Open it with a code editor or with TextEdit.
6. You will see entries in a list for all the Apple themes. Create an identical entry for your new theme, making sure that your entry is on its own line just like the others. Use the exact name you used to name the .webtheme file. Save and close that file.
7. Now right click on your new theme and select Show Package Contents from the menu. A new Finder window will open.
8. Find the Shared folder and open it.
9. In the Shared folder, you will find About Me.xml.gz, Blog.xml.gz, Welcome.xml.gz and so on… one XML file for each of the 8 page types.
10. Double click About Me.xml.gz. It will unzip itself and create About Me.xml in the same folder. Look for it at the end of the list of files if you’re in icon view.
11. Before opening About Me.xml, use MassReplaceIt to find all instances of >< and replace them with:
<
>
This will insert line breaks for you. If you don't do this, you will be sorry.
12. Rename About Me.xml.gz to About Me.xml.gz.backup. If you don't do this and you write to me and ask why your changes aren't appearing on your new pages, I will spew flames through the Internet at you and light your Mac on fire! >:)
13. Now open About Me.xml. Now you can edit and change the XML all you want. Any new pages you build with that page template will show your changes. Open iWeb and give it a try.
At this point, you’re on your own to learn the XML. I’ve written so much about how to edit the XML in my articles here and at the Apple iWeb forums so I’m not going to get into that right now.
perfect…. all I needed… thanks!
I for one would definitely appreciate the different colors being already there ready to go.
Hi John – I agree – if I were a customer, I’d want that too. My time is worth more than the cost of the theme.