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Moodle2.0themes

Pieter van der Hijden (pvdh@sofos.nl) - 3 April 2011

Sofos Consultancy, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

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1 Introduction

The look and feel of a Moodle site is highly dependent on the "Theme". Technically, a "Theme" is a

set of Cascading Style Sheets, developing them is a professional job: designing the look and feel and

building it into style sheets.

At site level the theme policy may be selected:

• one theme to be used for the whole site

• each course category may have its own theme

• each course may have its own theme

• each user may select his/her favourite theme

When migrating from Moodle 1.9 to Moodle 2.0, themes are not migrated. The new Moodle 2.0

version comes with 17 new built-in themes. Many of them can be customised easily by changing

some parameter settings. In this way it is possible to fine tune a built-in theme to let it fit your house

style. If that is not sufficient, it is always possible to let some specialists develop your own theme.

Content of this memo:

• The Gallery chapter gives a visual impression of the 17 standard themes Moodle 2.0 has on

board.

• The Settings chapter lists the settings of each of the standard themes that can be changed by the

system administrator and gives an example of the look and feel of a modified built-in theme.

2 Gallery

In the following paragraphs the standard themes Moodle 2.0 has on board are visualised. Note, that

many themes can be changed interactively, e.g. allowing colours of your house style to be used.

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2.1 Anomaly

2.2 Arialist

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2.3 Binarius

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2.4 Boxxie

2.5 Brick

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2.6 Formal White

2.7 Formfactor

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2.8 Fusion

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2.9 Leatherbound

2.10 Magazine

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2.11 Nimble

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2.12 Nonzero

2.13 Overlay

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2.14 Serenity

2.15 Sky High

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2.16 Splash

2.17 Standard

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3 Settings

Many of these themes can be modified via so called parameter settings. The table below lists the

parameter settings that are available for the 16 standard themes.

The picture below shows how the "formal white" theme could be modified by changing its parameter

settings (by the system administrator).

Moodle

2.0

them

es

Anomaly

Arialis

t

Binariu

s

Boxxie

Brick

Form

al w

hite

Form

fact

or

Fusi

on

Leat

herboun

d

Maga

zine

Nim

ble

Nonze

ro

Ove

rlay

Sere

nity

Sky

High

1.9 look x

background x

blocks columns

background color

x

blocks content

background color

x x

column width x x L&R x

footnote x x x x x x

forum back color x

header background

color

x x

heading color x x x

hide tag line x

link color x x x x x x

link hover color x x

logo x x x x x x

main color x x

main color accent x

main color link x

menu hover color x

pages header

content

x

tagline x x x x