Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with themes

Working with iPhone themes under 3.0?

chudmonkey — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:20:11 -0800

What app/process do you recommend for applying themes and/or re-skinning elements on a 3.0 iPhone? I've had an iPhone since the early days, and recently traded (slightly) up to the 3G. This is my first time running the 3.0 software. The phone is jailbroken, I've got cydia installed and I've already applied a few visual tweaks, etc. Back in the day, I used Summerboard on my phone and was quite adept at finding & applying themes & icons, even cobbling together my own hybrid themes by moving & changing files within the iPhone's file-system.

Having not been paying attention to such matters for so long, I'm finding myself a little baffled by my current options. There are so many sources for themes & skins, as well as for instructions and guides, that finding something both clear and current is a struggle.

The basic components of my question are these:

1) What's a good guide to the filesystem under 3.0, including listings of where the graphics for things like the dock, battery icons and wallpaper are?
2) What's a good place to find 3.0-compatible themes and see a good preview screenshot (or 3) of them?
3) Is there a good theme-management app that offers granular control over theme application - i.e, allows you to apply the dock from a theme, but not the icons or the wallpaper but not the dock?

Thanks in advance for any experience or advice you can share. I'd sure appreciate knowing anything you think is important on this topic. BTW, if you've got a favourite font you use with FontSwap, I'd love to hear about it.

At last, I will be able to drink in America.

sarahj — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:43:51 -0800

How can I throw an epic 21st birthday party? I'm turning 21 soon. I just recently moved into a house with a bunch of my friends on our campus and I'd like to throw a party. What can I do to show the people a good time? A great punch recipe? Crazy decorations? A weird theme? My housemates have pretty mainstream taste (in terms of pop music, college frat parties, etc) but I'd also be inviting another group of friends who have more offbeat taste (obscure music, artsy films and stuff) - I'd definitely want my party to be more "offbeat"!

I think I could probably get around 20-30 people I know (friends, neighbors, acquaintances) to show up for sure (most likely not all at the same time) but there would probably be more if people bring friends and friends-of-friends and such. I'm willing to spend about $100-$200 max myself on booze and miscellaneous party items, but I'd rather have it go pretty far rather than, say, renting a huge foam machine or getting a DJ or something. Cheap beer will most likely be bought for college-style drinking games, and some nicer beer or champagne for close friends. I'm just not sure what else to do! Is there anything anyone's had/done at a birthday (or other!) party that made you say "wow, sweet!"? What can I do to make my party awesome (with a touch of strange)?

Whats the best place to get a pass or membership to Wordpress templates for web Developers and programmers?

msoffab — Tue, 05 May 2009 19:34:31 -0800

Whats the best place to get a pass or membership to Wordpress templates for web Developers and programmers? I was thinking of buying this:

http://ithemes.com/combos/

because I am freelance web developer and wanted a good set of templates to choose from. Something with variety (ecommerce, corporate, etc) is important and quality of the code is important as well.

What I am worried about is that I am overpaying for this or not getting all that I could out of the money. It costs $500 so I wanted to ask MeFi community for their advice. Is ithemes just an affiliate for another site that I could be getting more from? Is there a standard one that everyone likes?

Some other posts about this (here) talk about specific free themes that are good, but no type of member site to be a part of. Previous posts dont address this either. Please help MeFi!

Please help me find a suitable Wordpress theme, and possibly a plugin.

Herkimer — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 11:28:55 -0800

Please help me find a Wordpress theme suited to a website that will be composed mostly of static pages! And possibly a plugin, too. I'm seeking a Wordpress theme to use in constructing a website for a small family business. I'm new to Wordpress and so am hoping for specific theme recommendations from those who are more familiar with the many options out there.

I am looking for a theme that:

--is well suited to using "static" pages, since the site will mostly be composed of these; preferably offers more than one layout option
--has a nav bar at the top
--has two columns, one of which will contain a graphic and brief introductory (static) text
--fluid width (negotiable)

[The second column--I hope--will be headed something like "Recent Events at Company X" and will contain snippets of posts from the company's blog. I would like each one to include a thumbnail graphic from that post. I believe that Neutica, for example, does something like this automatically, but from what I have read, you can also use an RSS feed and/or plugin. So I would also be interested in tools that can help me achieve this.]

The blog will also be accessible from the nav bar, as will the rest of the site, which will be simple: an "About Us" page, a FAQ, a "Contact Us" page, and a page featuring the product line. The company makes concrete objects (um, not literally concrete, you understand) and there aren't a lot of them; they're specialty items mostly bought by institutions. Eventually each product will have its own subpage.

I expect to have to do some customization, and acquire some new skills, but I'm trying to limit that and/or stick to what I know best. I'm decent with CSS. Haven't touched PHP for years, except for some recent reviewing, and have never used Javascript; but I can acquire enough of either to cut, paste, and edit code, and even write some clunky stuff. However, my graphics skillz are minimal, so although ideally I would like a theme with some visual interest, I have to be able to use any non-photo graphics without major alteration. Anything with a "watery" look (blue, flowing, pictures of water) would be a bonus.

I'm still learning, so please be gentle. If I'm asking for too much, I'd be happy for suggestions of themes that fulfill part of my needs. Or maybe this is simpler than I think. I've searched a good amount in the themes on the Wordpress site, though, and somewhat elsewhere, and all my candidates seem like they'll require a lot of work.

Although everybody loves a free theme, I'd consider themes costing up to $100, perhaps more depending on how well-suited it is to our purposes.

Thank you!

How to add certain localization hooks to my WordPress theme?

deern the headlice — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 23:10:14 -0800

How do I add localization hooks to my WordPress theme when the string contains links? I'm new at localizing themes and so far tagging individual phrases with _e and printf__ has been easy. But in the footer of my theme is this sentence:

"Powered by WordPress and Themetastic"

I realize I could break that up into three different strings, but I'd rather do it all together. This pastebin example is the approximate code I'm shooting for, though obviously the get_link stuff isn't correct.

Any tips would be great!

Theming multiple web applications

larsks — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 11:34:43 -0800

At my office we're running a number of different third-party web applications for things like blogs, ticket tracking, cms, and so forth. I would like to apply some consistent themes to these applications without having learn n different theming mechanisms. I'm hoping y'all can provide me with some suggestions. I'm familiar with deliverance, which so far seems like the best solution, although it seems to have wandered away from xpath queries, which made a lot of sense, into the mists of yet-another-*ml-query-language.

Are there any other solutions out there?

open source questions for ya

yonation — Wed, 28 May 2008 12:58:09 -0800

drupal vs joomla. some questions inside. 2 questions:

a) we're setting up a website for a film client who wants to be able to add a lot of multimedia (esp. video) to their site. bandwidth providing, which is the better CMS for this kind of serving?

b) which is easier to skin/template/etc? i'm quite comfortable with php/css and the concepts of of semantic skinning (eg wordpress and shopify). which of these follows more easily from knowing those two sites?

A Room By Any Other Name Part II

Smarson — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:18:17 -0800

I need 9 quotes (I need 9 names Part II) So last week I asked for 9 names because my company was renaming its conference rooms. Needless to say, corporate lameness won out and the theme chosen was "attributes that reflect the company - "Purpose, Curiosity, Resilience, Creativity, Determination, Conviction, Confidence, Integrity, Clockspeed, Accountability, Leadership. I know, totally puke-tastic.

There is a catch though. Each of the nine rooms needs a quote to go with its theme. Example; for the Creativity room, the quote "Imagination is more important than knowledge" by Albert Einstein is going to be used. Supposedly the idea is that the nine conference rooms could actually be renamed after the authors of the quotes. So instead of the "Creativity Conference Room", it would be the "Einstein Conference Room."

Again, internet wit and/or PacNW references get gold stars.

A Room By Any Other Name

Smarson — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 10:13:46 -0800

I need 9 names. My company is re-naming it's 9 conference rooms and I need to come up with something ridiculously clever to submit. Currently they are named after various districts in Seattle (Ballard, Capitol Hill, etc.), but everyone is hoping to step away from...how shall I say this delicately...titles that are stupid. Someone already tried suggesting the planets as a theme, to which everyone booed and someone threw a whiteboard pen (this is a tough crowd). Bonus points if the theme has to do with the internet or something in PacNW. Negative points if it's hard to spell and will confuse clients (e.g. Willamette, Snoqualmie, Feierabend, etc.). Currently running favorite is "famous robots" (C3PO, HAL, Bender), but I think we can do better!

Seriously people, eternal glory and bragging rights are on the line here!

Wordpress-Themes

acro — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 12:35:22 -0800

Looking for a top-sorted list of well designed Wordpress themes. Metafilter I need your help-I'm looking for a sober but shiny theme for a site for a partnership between academic, government and NGO working groups. I'm using the K2 beta theme currently.

Book Club Bleg

grrarrgh00 — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:50:05 -0800

Help me choose some books to nominate for book club. No, no, no, this one's a tad more complicated. :) Every month, one of my fellow book-clubbers is assigned to nominate three or four books. When we meet to discuss the past month's reading, we choose one of the nominees for the next month. Being something of an oddball, I like to organize my nominations around themes. The last time, for example, my theme was "Masters of Humankind." The books I proposed were No god but God (God), The Year of Magical Thinking (Death), The Time-Traveler's Wife (Time), and Moneyball (Money). (The club picked The Time-Traveler's Wife. The actual selection doesn't make much of a difference to me, because I plan to read all the books I propose, and I did.)

The theme can be oblique, clever, or straightforward. (In the straightforward camp, for example, I've been considering the four elements -- Cloud Atlas (Air), Snow (Water), American Prometheus or Dante (Fire), Coal: A Human History or Salt: A World History (Earth).) They can be either a prominent theme of the book or just a play on its title. We prefer books that have been out in paperback, and a nomination almost always goes unpicked if one of us has already read it. I aim for variety in the selection -- memoir, biography, journalistic non-fiction, literary fiction, magical realism, social history.

So, whaddya say? Help me out?

I want extra large fonts in plum. How hard can that be?

Irontom — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 10:39:14 -0800

WinXP appearance question... Here's what I want: Windows XP Style Windows and Buttons + Plum Color Scheme + Extra Large Fonts. My google-fu fails entirely. Can you help?

Help me locate this poem:- THE CONCEPTION

mycapaciousbottega — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 13:55:07 -0800

Poetry filter:- help me identify the author of this poem and maybe direct me to a volume containing it. The title (I think) is THE CONCEPTION... I bought a book of poetry in 1997. It was a collection of poems for each day of the year and I think it had 365 in the title. The poem I am trying to locate was found in this volume. I have tried my hardest to find the book or the poem as I misplaced my book when I moved flat in '97. I memorised the poem (moody teen that I was!) and am pretty sure I still have it word perfect. If you can help me locate the origins of the poem I would be very grateful for info on who wrote it, when was it written and where can I find it in book form?

Death did not come to my mother
like an old friend
she was a mother and she must conceive him
up and down the bed she fought crying
help me
but death was a slow child
and heavy
he waited and when he was born
we took and tired him
and now he is ready to do his good in the world
he has my mother's features
he can go amongst strangers and save lives

What radio shows should I do?

235w103 — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 09:35:27 -0800

Radio show themes needed! I do a weekly, two-hour show for a college radio station. Recently, I've begun using weekly themes; for instance, this was last weeks "Drug & Booze" show, while the week before was "Anti-Valentines." I find that using a theme keeps me focused in terms of programming. Sadly, I have no idea what to do this week- any ideas and sample songs?

Where did Freyja go? Why?

bricoleur — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 08:48:52 -0800

Scandinavian film exegetes: What's going on in the film Mávahlátur (The Seagull's Laughter)? I would read the novel, but it's out-of-print and in Icelandic.

The film makes use of references and allusions to Norse mythology, as well as a few scenes involving Freyja's disappearance into an outcropping of large stones, to introduce the possibility that she communes with the elves. However, this possibility never seems to get cashed in as the story concludes, which I find puzzling and a bit disappointing.

While I'm kind of familiar with the Norse worldview—in a book-learned sort of way—I'm not nearly familiar enough, and I suspect that most of the subtext is just lost on me. Anyone care to explicate this film, especially as its themes pertain to Freyja and the elves? (Or is that not even a polite question?)

Firefox Extension and Themes Don't Show Up Post-Install

fenriq — Fri, 28 Jan 2005 11:07:15 -0800

FireFoxExtension/Theme Filter
I have been using FireFox for a while now and prefer it to other browser offerings but am having a recurring issue that I can't seem to find any help on. Everytime I try to download and install a new theme or extension, it downloads, FireFox asks me if I want to install it, it appears to install it but the extension or theme never shows up in the relevant window. Did I change some setting to break the extensions? (MI) Somehow, some of the extensions actually seem to be usable, like the BugMeNot one. But it still doesn't show up in the window. And none of the themes show up at all ever.

Also, somehow, FireFox is no longer digesting Java properly even with all the requisite check boxes checked. I've tried reinstalling it but it doesn't make any difference.

What elements of cultural anxiety do the Aliens films represent?

invisible ink — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 20:35:31 -0800

My sister once took a film course where she learned that each film in the Alien trilogy (not including the 4th one) is supposed to represent some kind of cultural anxiety. [more inside] She remembers in the third installment it was AIDS (i.e. something about the all-male prison), and she thinks the second one was about illegal immigration....... but she's not sure. And she has no clue about the first one. Any ideas?

How do I make GTK apps look good in KDE?

salmacis — Mon, 23 Aug 2004 00:52:08 -0800

How do I make GTK apps look good in KDE? Although I use KDE exculsively, I still use some GTK apps, like Firefox. (Oh for a Qt build of Firefox!) I hate the default look of GTK. I can use the GNOME theme editor to change the GNOME theme to something acceptable. The trouble is, 1) This seems to make the fonts in all my GTK apps too big, and 2) I lose the changes as soon as I log out. (And no, I'm not about to start using GNOME.)

"The Mechanical Universe" Theme

rschram — Fri, 19 Mar 2004 11:42:22 -0800

What is the theme for David Goodstein's The Mechanical Universe and where can I get it?