Creating Custom Themes

ZK provides an extensive component set that allow web developers to use as building blocks for easy web page UI construction. The default styling out-of-the-box gives a look-and-feel that imitates the breeze of the Spring season. While this may suit some perfectly, some may want to have a complete make-over for a unique visual presentation that better matches their sites' thematic flavor or their company's corporate style. In ZK, switching to another 'theme' gives them a way to do just that.

In ZK's term, a 'theme' is a collection of stylesheets and associated images for its component set. Prior to 6.5.1, additional themes could only be packaged and made available to web application inside jar files. Sapphire and silvertail are the two official examples. Starting from ZK 6.5.2, however, themes could be packaged inside a folder. A new theme can be created by first cloning the folder containing an existing theme and then making the necessary changes to the stylesheets and images.

Please refer to the subsections for the process of creating custom themes and packaging them inside jar files and folders, respectively.