Creating your own Google Chrome Theme
Recently I’ve been thinking in doing my own Google Chrome Theme. Not that the themes Google gives you aren’t nice enough, but I’m really picky and I was wishing for something more personalized.
I started to search for info on how to accomplish my goal. It was a bit tricky at first, if you google for Creating a Google Chrome Theme you will probably run into some dodgy(or shady for the my US English readers) results. After I few unsuccessful searches I found what I wanted, an official guide on how to skin Google Chrome.
The method to do it it’s pretty simple, basically because the themes themselves are also basic in essence. Google Chrome themes, like you can see in the official repository, consist of simple image overlays with different color pallets. Anyway, despite being simple, they work out decently enough as I’ve shown previously.
Creating a Google Chrome Theme
So, what do you need to start? First start reading Google’s Chromium Theme Creation Guide. It’s all explained in the Wiki page, but if for some reason you don’t feel like reading through it all, I will break it down for you.
So what do we need?
- 1. Google Chrome latest Beta version… duh!
- 2. Get a text editor, specially one more powerful than Microsoft Notepad, something like Notepad++ (can’t live without it by the way). In alternative you can use a .crx Theme Creator to make it a lot simpler.
- 3. An image editor, again, something better than MS Paint is preferable, not that the artist should be judge by his tools but it does help to paint on a canvas that actually helps you. So, get something like Gimp or if you own Photoshop you can even download a Chrome window design which is broken down in layers, making the creative process much simplified.
- 4. Some bits of creativity, some bits of magic…
That’s it.
When (if you are) using the Chrome crx Theme Creator
at the end of the process don’t forget to click Pack Theme so you can create the respectiv .crx theme file.
Don’t forget to create your creations with me if you feel like doing your own theme. I will…
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Woah I didn’t even know you could create your own theme for Chrome! Definitely gonna try this out!
Thanks for the tips.
Dugg your article too.
Thanks for your comment Justin. :)