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Themes

What are Themes?
Editing an existing Theme
Saving a Theme
Deleting a Theme
Giving a Theme to another user
Assigning a Theme to a Chat
Getting more Themes

Getting information about a Theme
Creating a New Theme

What are Themes?

A Theme is a set of fonts, colors and picture settings that can be used in a chat.  Each Chat in OrbitIRC uses a theme for its appearance.  Try joining the #OrbitIRC channel, and you will see the 'orbitircsmallfonts' theme being used.  Go to the #IrcHelp channel, and you will see the 'irchelp' theme being used.

OrbitIRC ships with several themes, and you can modify these or create your own.  Several of the themes that come with OrbitIRC are preset to be used in certain chats.  You can even download more themes from the OrbitIRC Theme Gallery.  You can share your themes with other OrbitIRC users too!

The important thing to keep in mind with themes is - each chat, whether a public channel, private or dcc chat,  requires a theme.  You can assign one theme to be used for all chats, or you can assign a theme to be used for a certain chat.  For example, you might want to have the 'orbitircsmallfonts' for your public chats, the 'space1' theme for your private chats, and the 'pebbles' themes to be used for dcc chats.  You can even specify a theme to be used when private or dcc chatting with a certain person.

 

Editing an existing Theme
You may have a theme that you like, but you'd like to modify it to suit your tastes.  You can uses OrbitIRC's Theme Designer to do this.  Below is a step by step description showing how to modify the 'orbitircsmallfonts' theme that comes with OrbitIRC.  Some users find the font size of this theme to be too small on large monitors, so we will increase the font size.   We will also change the 'link color' from red to bright yellow.  This example assumes that you still have the 'orbitircsmalfonts' theme set for the #OrbitIRC channel.

Step 1
Let's take a look at this theme in action.  Connect to a server and join the #OrbitIRC channel.  By default, this channel uses the 'orbitircsmallfonts' theme.   This theme has a .bmp for the background, and special fonts and colors.  Try typing this in the channel: 'come to #movies' .  Now move your mouse cursor over the '#movies', and you will see the text change color...that color it uses is called the link color.  By default, this theme sets it to red, but we will set it to bright yellow.   Also, take notice of the font sizes.  We will make them larger.  If we make any changes to this theme, we will need to leave this channel and rejoin it to see the changes take effect. Leave the OrbitIRC Channel now.

Step 2
Let's check out the Theme Designer.  Go to the 'Themes' tab.  This is where you create, delete, save and assign uses for themes.  It should look like this:
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Hold your mouse button temporarily over each of the buttons on the toolbar, and a 'tooltip' will popup, telling you what the button is for.  We want to edit the 'orbitircsmallfonts' theme.  The name of the currently displayed theme is displayed underneath the buttons.  If the 'orbitircsmallfonts' theme is not displayed, click on the button with the open folder on it and select it from the list of themes, then press 'Open'.  All OrbitIRC themes must be kept in the /themes folder.
theme2.gif (5455 bytes)

Step 3
We can modify each element of the Theme.  For a list of what we can modify, click on the 'Item' list.  Let's make the font size of the text that you type in a chat larger, so select 'You Font Size' from the list.
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When you click on 'You Font Size', you will see this.  It's a slider bar that you can move with your mouse to change to size of your text.  Move it to the right, and you will see the 'You' text get larger.  Adjust it so it's a good size for you.
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Now adjust the font size in 'Other Font Size', 'Server Font Size',  'List Op Text Size', 'List Font Size' and 'Text Entry Font Size'.  Do it the same way as mentioned above for the 'you text size'.   You will notice on the list that there are lots of other settings...try some...you can't hurt it.

Select the 'Link Color' item on the list.   This is where we set the color of those links that appear on the chat screen.   We want to change it to bright yellow, so click on the color palette to change its color.  Then to test the link color, move your mouse over someones nick in the text to the right.  You should see it change color.
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There we go, you have made changes to the theme.

Step 4
Now you must 'Save' the theme to keep the changes you made.  Click on the 'Disk' button and select 'orbitircsmallfonts.oth' from the list.  All theme files have an .oth extension.  Then click on 'Save'.

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Step 5
Okay, you have modified and saved the theme.  To see the changes in an actual chat, go and join the #OrbitIRC channel again.  If you are still in the channel you will need to leave it first.  When you join the channel, the changes will be visible. 

Got some more ideas on things you'd like to change with this theme?  Go and give it at try!

 

Saving a Theme
You must save the changes that you make to your theme.  To save a theme, click on the 'disk' button.  If you are making a new theme name, make it very unique, so that it will not be written over when you put other themes in your /themes folder.  Themes always have a .oth extension.   If the theme uses a .bmp, it will also need to be in the /themes folder.

 

Deleting a Theme
If you want to remove a theme, you should use the 'garbage can' button.  This will ensure that the correct .oth file and it's accompanying .bmp file (if any) will be removed.  You may encounter problems if you try to just delete files in a manner other than this, especially if the theme is assigned to a chat.

 

Giving a Theme to another user
If you want to give a theme to another user, you must make sure you sent them the .oth file and the .bmp file (if any) that it uses.  The other user must put these files in their /themes folder.

 

Getting information about a Theme
If your wondering what theme you while you are in a chat, you can find out by clicking on the chat 'control' button.   A menu will popup.  Then go to Misc/Show Theme Info and select it.  It will display the current theme information on the chat screen, such as the description, author, and any errors encountered when the chat loaded the theme.

 

Assigning a Theme to a Chat
Let's say that you would like to use the 'space1' theme for the channel '#mychannel' and for all dcc chats that don't have a theme assigned.  First, load the theme by clicking on the 'open folder' button.   Select the space1 theme.  We want to assign a 'use' to this theme.  To do this, make sure that you have selected the 'What uses this theme'  item from the list.
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Now that the theme is visible, we want to 'Add a Use'.  Under the words 'Add a Use', there is a list of uses.  Select the 'Channel' item from the list.
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We then add the actual channel name that we want, so type in '#mychannel' in the space below the list.  Make sure that you use the '#' at the beginning of the channel name and case is not important.  If you wanted this theme to be used in a private chat with 'Bob', you could have selected 'Private Chat' from this list and then typed in bob's name, etc.  If you had selected a 'Channel Default', the theme would have been used for all channels that don't specifically have a theme set for it with the 'Channel' item.
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Once you have typed in the channel name, click on the 'Add It' button.  This will add it to the 'Use' list.
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Let's also make this theme the DCC Chat Default, so select 'DCC Chat Default' from the list and 'Add It'
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You do not have to save the theme when you have only made changes to its use.  Try joining #mychannel, and you will see the theme being used.  Also, dcc chats will also now use this theme.

Creating a New Theme
To create a new theme, click on the '+' button.  You will be given a plain theme to start with, with no picture and plain white text.  Edit this theme just as you would edit an existing theme.   You can place a .bmp image in the theme.  This image should be as small as possible to save room on your hard drive.  A good size to work with is a 500x500 .bmp, reduced to 256 colors if possible.  The image must be a .bmp, however.

Make sure you save your theme after creating a new one.  If you leave the program without saving it, it won't load a theme into the theme designer when the program starts up.  If this happens, load another theme in. If you don't you may experience problems typing in a chat.