• What's New in Themes

• How to Use / Upgrade Older Version Themes

• Granular Editing of Themes in FrontPage 2003

• Additional changes in FrontPage 2003 Themes

A Summary Comparison of the Themes offered by the various versions of FrontPage is available in the FrontPage Version Theme Comparison page.  The full installation of FrontPage 2003 installs 77 Themes (56 updated themes from FrontPage 2002, and 21 New Themes).

It is of interest to users of prior versions of FrontPage, that many prior version themes are not installed by FrontPage 2003 and may appear to be unavailable.  Any customized themes the user has previously created will be available.  During a standard installation and Upgrade of FrontPage (removing prior version) FrontPage will not delete the prior version themes, but will install the newer version themes in a different folder.  If the user chooses to leave the prior version of FrontPage installed, the prior version of FrontPage it will continue to use the themes from the original prior version Themes Folder location (and not the new FrontPage 2003 themes).

• Prior Version themes were typically installed in the folder:
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Themes
• FrontPage 2003 themes are now installed in the folder:
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\THEMES11
• User Custom themes are stored in the folder:
    %USERPROFILE%\Application Data\Microsoft\Themes
  Typically that would be found in the folder:
    C:\Documents and Settings\<USERNAME>\Application Data\Microsoft\Themes

For Upgrade users that have elected to remove the prior version of FrontPage, some additional steps may be required to be able to effectively use prior version default FrontPage themes, addin installed additional themes, and custom themes.  One approach to easily ensure access to your older themes is to Modify the ones you want to preserve as a Custom theme (Format Theme, Modify, change anything, and save as a new theme name).

Due to the changes / updates in the new FrontPage 2003 themes, it is not recommended to just "copy" the all the older themes over the new themes.  Using  the FrontPage Version Theme Comparison page as a guide, the Updated Themes can be safely deleted from the prior version installation folder (C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Themes), and the remaining prior version theme folders (for those themes still desired) can be safely copied to the new FrontPage 2003 Themes folder.  Note: If your FrontPage webs used any of the Updated themes you may wish to copy those theme folders also, but if you do so, you will lose some of the enhancements added to the updated themes.  As an alternative you may copy them to your Custom Themes Folder as long as the theme names (and long name in the THEMENAME.INF) are modified to be unique.

The application of Themes is done from the Themes Task Bar (the Menu command Format Theme invokes the Task Bar).  The themes are previewed through use of a thumbnail image which is new to FrontPage 2003, THMBNAIL.PNG, in each theme's folder.   As your older or custom themes do not have the preview image, any older or custom themes will be indicated as "No Preview Available".  But you can "add" the preview image to your older themes and update them with the core new WSS styles.  The procedure below also lets you remove the new WSS styles to reduce the CSS file size from an ~ 32 KB to a bare minimum ~ 4 KB for those with no intentions of using the theme with WSS.

• Updating Your Theme to add a Preview Image and FrontPage 2003 format:
  1. From Menu Select Format Theme - Select your Themename and
  2. Select the Dropdown for Customize
  3. Select Save as ThemenameX, and OK
  4. Select the Themename again
  5. Select the Drop down for Delete
  6. Select the new updated ThemenameX and select the Dropdown for Customize
     - optionally delete WSS styles using Text - More Text Styles (* see below)
  7. Select Save as Themename (your original themename), and OK
  8. Select ThemenameX again and Select the Drop down for Delete
• * If you want to remove the WSS styles in Step 8 above (or add you own styles)
  • Select Text - More Text Styles
  • Select each style and Delete the style, leaving only the FrontPage 2002 default styles below:

• .mstheme
• .mstheme-text
• .mstheme-bannertxt
• .mstheme-horiz-navtxt
• .mstheme-vert-navtxt
• .mstheme-navtxthome
• .mstheme-navtxtnext
• .mstheme-navtxtprev
• .mstheme-navtxtup
• body
• table
• th
• caption
• h1
• h2
• h3

• h4
• h5
• h6
• a:link
• a:active
• a:visited
• ul
• ul ul
• ul ul ul
• button
• label
• textarea
• fieldset
• legend
• Select

Granular Editing of Themes in FrontPage 2003

For more granular control of a FrontPage themes see: Unpacking and Repacking Files in FrontPage Themes.  Read the instructions, and create Unpack_elm.vbs and Repack_elm.vbs (paste to Notepad and save as, or rename, the files).  Copy the vbs files to your theme folder.  For the contents of the THEMENAME folder, see below.  Run  Unpack_elm.vbs, and edit your images or css files (delete any unused files).  Then run Repack_elm.vbs and delete all but the "packed" 3-4 files required for the THEMENAME foloder.

These utilities are especially useful to "clean" up a heavily modified theme of obsolete images and styles no longer used in the final theme, and significantly reduce the size of the theme being published / uploaded.

THEMENAME Folder Contents
Themename folder name and the THEMENAME filenames in it must match and should be limited to 8.3 file/folder naming conventions, but the Long Theme Name can be more descriptive.

Typical THEMENAME (FOLDER) Contents

• PREVIEW.GIF - Navigation Bar Style Preview Image (FP2002+)
• THMBNAIL.PNG - Task Pane Preview Image - FP2003 Themes Only
• THEMENAME.ELM - Packed Theme Files (images and css)
• THEMENAME.INF - Theme Information File

  THEMENAME.INF - Content for English Version Themes

  • [info]
  • codepage=65001
  • readonly=true
  • version=4.00
  • format=2.00
  • title=Long Theme Name
  • refcount=0
  • [titles]
  • Other language Code page theme names

• Appling older themes using CSS requires removing the theme from the site/web (apply No Theme), and then re-applying the original updated theme.
  Note: if your Page Authoring options are set to disable CSS you can not apply themes and will get an error.
• Vivid is not automatically selected and must be selected before a theme is applied (Vivid is depreciated)
• If your site/web did not have a theme applied using CSS, it will not be applied using CSS unless you remove the theme and reapply it.
  (themes to new sites/webs can not be applied using HTML as there is not an option to Apply without using CSS)
• New themes add 2 new images for WSS support (toolgrad.gif & dot.gif), which can be delete if you are customizing a theme that will not be used in WSS.
• All new theme colors are in HEX: #XXXXXX, not RGB: rgb(xxx, xxx, xxx) format.
• New themes remove in COLOR0.CSS & COLOR1.CSS color styles for: HR, BUTTON, TEXTAREA (so your HR line images may not be used from older themes)
  - HR styles should be applied using CSS, or just as images (copy the theme HR image to your pages if you do not want CSS lines.)