Themes

This page is a starting point for Moodle theme developers.

For documentation on installing and using themes, please see the Themes user documentation.

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

• Each page is individually-addressable via CSS, allowing you to pinpoint exact items.
• Our CSS class naming system uses simple English, is 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.

See also

• List of all themes-related developer documentation