In computing, a theme is a preset package containing graphical appearance and functionality details. A theme usually comprises a set of shapes and colors for the graphical control elements, the

window decoration In computing, a window is a graphical control element. It consists of a visual area containing some of the graphical user interface of the program it belongs to and is framed by a window decoration. It usually has a rectangular shape that can ove ...

and the

window A window is an opening in a wall, door, roof, or vehicle that allows the exchange of light and may also allow the passage of sound and sometimes air. Modern windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent materia ...

. Themes are used to customize the

look and feel In software design, the look and feel of a graphical user interface comprises aspects of its design, including elements such as colors, shapes, layout, and typefaces (the "look"), as well as the behavior of dynamic elements such as buttons, boxes ...

of a piece of

computer software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

or of an

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

Usage

Themes are often used to change the look and feel of a wide range of things at once, which makes them much less

granular Granularity (also called graininess), the condition of existing in granules or grains, refers to the extent to which a material or system is composed of distinguishable pieces. It can either refer to the extent to which a larger entity is subd ...

than allowing the user to set each option individually. For example, users might want the window-borders from a particular theme, but installing it would also alter the desktop background. One method for dealing with this is to allow the user to select which parts of the theme they want to load; for example in Windows 98, users could load the background and screensaver from a theme, but leave the icons and sounds untouched.

Themed systems

Operating systems

; :

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

first supported themes in

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...

as a separate application package called Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95. Themes were later supported in

Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released to ...

and was built-in there. These operating systems, as well as its successor,

Windows Me Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me (marketed with the pronunciation of the pronoun "me"), is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is the successor to Windo ...

, came with themes that customized desktop backgrounds,

icons An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The most ...

, user interface colors, Windows sounds and

mouse cursor In human–computer interaction, a cursor is an indicator used to show the current position on a computer monitor or other display device that will respond to input from a text input or pointing device. The mouse cursor is also called a point ...

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

expanded Windows theming support by adding visual styles and allowing each theme to specify one. This feature was carried over to

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

which added

Windows Aero Windows Aero (a backronym for ''Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and Open'') is a design language introduced in the Windows Vista operating system. The changes made in the Aero interface affected many elements of the Windows interface, includin ...

, but was removed with

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for downl ...

. Third-party apps such as

WindowBlinds WindowBlinds is a computer program that allows users to skin the Windows graphical user interface. It has been developed by Stardock since 1998, and is the most popular component of their flagship software suite, Object Desktop. It is also avail ...

TuneUp Utilities AVG TuneUp, previously called AVG PC Tuneup, and TuneUp Utilities, is a utility software suite for Microsoft Windows designed to help manage, maintain, optimize, configure, and troubleshoot a computer system. It was produced and developed by Tu ...

and

Desktop Architect Desktop Architect is a third-party replacement for the Desktop Themes control panel in Windows 95, 98, ME and 2000. It is also fully compatible with Windows XP and Vista. However, in Vista, the startup sound does not work, and the Network Neighbo ...

enhance theme capabilities. Support for custom themes can also be added b
patching system files
which is not endorsed by Microsoft. ; :

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

operating systems may support themes depending on their

window manager A window manager is system software that controls the placement and appearance of windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. Most window managers are designed to help provide a desktop environment. They work in conjunction ...

s and

desktop environment In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphica ...

IceWM IceWM is a stacking window manager for the X Window System, originally written by Marko Maček. It was written from scratch in C++ and is released under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License. It is customizable, relatively lightw ...

uses themes to customize its taskbar, window borders, and time format.

WindowMaker Window Maker is a free and open-source window manager for the X Window System, allowing graphical applications to be run on Unix-like operating-systems. It is designed to emulate NeXTSTEP's GUI as an OpenStep-compatible environment. Window Maker ...

can store colors for icons, menus, and window-borders in a theme, but this is independent of the wallpaper settings.

GNOME A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characte ...

and

KDE KDE is an international Free software movement, free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-know ...

use two independent sets of themes: one to alter the appearance of user interface elements (such as buttons,

scroll bar A scrollbar is an interaction technique or widget in which continuous text, pictures, or any other content can be scrolled in a predetermined direction (up, down, left, or right) on a computer display, window, or viewport so that all of the con ...

s or list elements), and another theme to customize the appearance of windows (such as, window borders and title bars). ; :

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

does not natively support themes. Third-party apps such as

Kaleidoscope A kaleidoscope () is an optical instrument with two or more reflecting surfaces (or mirrors) tilted to each other at an angle, so that one or more (parts of) objects on one end of these mirrors are shown as a regular symmetrical pattern when v ...

and

ShapeShifter In mythology, folklore and speculative fiction, shape-shifting is the ability to physically transform oneself through an inherently superhuman ability, divine intervention, demonic manipulation, sorcery, spells or having inherited the ...

may add this. ; : Although Android does not support themes, the forked

CyanogenMod CyanogenMod ( ; CM) is a discontinued open-source operating system for mobile devices, based on the Android mobile platform. It was developed as free and open-source software based on the official releases of Android by Google, with added origi ...

and its successor

LineageOS LineageOS is an Android-based operating system for smartphones, tablet computers, and set-top boxes, with mostly free and open-source software. It is the successor to CyanogenMod, from which it was forked in December 2016, when Cyanogen Inc. a ...

have native theme support. The CM theme engine is in turn used on many other forked Android ROMs, such as Paranoid Android.

Apps

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and ...

and

Google Chrome Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS ...

either support or supported a form of theme. Firefox (and its sibling

Thunderbird Thunderbird, thunder bird or thunderbirds may refer to: * Thunderbird (mythology), a legendary creature in certain North American indigenous peoples' history and culture * Ford Thunderbird, a car Birds * Dromornithidae, extinct flightless birds ...

) supports themes either through ''lightweight themes'' (formerly

Personas A persona (plural personae or personas), depending on the context, is the public image of one's personality, the social role that one adopts, or simply a fictional character. The word derives from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatri ...

) or ''complete themes''. While lightweight themes are simply background images for toolbar Firefox

toolbar The toolbar, also called a bar or standard toolbar (originally known as ribbon) is a graphical control element on which on-screen icons can be used. A toolbar often allows for quick access to functions that are commonly used in the program. Some ...

s, complete themes have more power to modify Firefox's appearance. Google Chrome version 3.0 or later allows themes to alter the appearance of the browser.

Internet Explorer 5 Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 (IE5) is a graphical web browser, the fifth version of Internet Explorer, the successor to Internet Explorer 4 and one of the main participants of the first Browser wars, browser war. Its distribution methods and Wi ...

and its immediate successor allowed the background picture of their toolbars to be customized.

References

{{Reflist Graphical user interfaces Software add-ons

Usage

Themed systems

Operating systems

Apps

See also

References