Themes

Moodle has a powerful themes system that allows for a variety of effects through the use of XHTML and CSS.

• Themes can be applied at site level, course level and/or user level.
• Each page is individually-addressable via CSS, allowing you to pinpoint exact items.
• Our CSS class naming system uses simple English, consistent and easily understood.
• New modules can tell Moodle what styles they need and automatically include these in the stylesheet.
• Themes can be based on the standard theme, which is very plain but functional. You simply override styles you want to change by adding to the stylesheet in your own theme. This means that if you upgrade Moodle later and new styles are needed, your custom theme will still work without any changes, because the new classes will be defined in the standard theme.
• Themes can also be based on any other theme. This allows you to easily create families of themes, or variations on a theme. For example you might create a spectrum of pastel shades for use in different courses, but with the same basic layout and logos. You may also want to create a family of differently-coloured themes for accessibility purposes.

Moodle 1.5 themes

If you plan to work on your own theme please build a new one and use Moodle's feature to base your theme on an existing theme like "standard". If you just modify one of the delivered themes it will be overwritten by the next Moodle update.

Moodle 1.5 themes are quite different than in previous versions of Moodle.

• How to create a Moodle 1.5 theme
• Themes basics
• How to style Moodle standard page elements
• Links, help and sources for your CSS work
• Theme scrapbook

See also

• W3C validation
• Configuring themes