Sharepoint: Installing Free Ten Themes for Sharepoint in VSeWSS Projects

Microsoft has provided free 10 themes for Microsoft Office Sharepoint 2007 since March 2009. For some reason, there are several steps which must be performed in order to use these themes and quite troublesome if I might add.

For some, installing Visual Studio 2008 on a production MOSS server could be a burden in size, security, etc. I would suggest you have a spare machine or a virtual machine and installed the required components.

To Install these themes and apply it to your sharepoint portal site, first there are installers you must already have or downloaded which includes the following:

• Ten Themes for Sharepoint in VSeWSS Projects
• Visual Studio 2008 Extensions for Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0

Before installing the installers above, please ensure that you have the following installed in a single system (preferably Windows Server 2003):

• Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 or Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 (free for Windows Server 2003)
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2008

Once everything is in place (all the above requirements are met and the required files are installed) go to the ten themes in Start>All Programs>Ten Themes for Sharepoint in VSeWSS>Ten Themes for Sharepoint in VSeWSS.zip and extract the files to any locations (preferably My Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Project).

Once extracted, go to the theme you wish to deploy and you will see a Visual Studio 2008 solution (*.sln file), open it.

View the solution explorer in Visual Studio and double click on properties. Go to the Debug tab and change Start Browser with URL accordingly to your sharepoint site in which you want to deploy to (the actual production site not your local installed sharepoint if it is not in the same machine).

Build the Visual Studio 2008 solution and browse to your debug files (extracted Ten Themes for Sharepoint in VSeWSS.zip file solution in bin folder) you will see a debug folder and copy the whole folder in a flashdisk or share the folder which allows production server to access it.

Now go to your production server and copy the bin folder mentioned above to any location. Inside the debug folder, run setup.bat and the theme will be installed to your sharepoint site.

Open your portal site as Administrator and go to Site Actions>Site Settings>Modify All Site Settings. Under the Look and Feel Section, click on Site Theme and choose the newly installed theme.

Have fun! Leave comments for questions and suggestions thank you!

Blackberry: Pip-Boy Theme for Pearl

The recent Pip-Boy 3000 theme created by crackberry forum member sadosdemetrios was a hit, broadcasted on numerous blogs and dubbed as the most unique theme created made lots of user are demanding the theme ported for their specific devices.

While I personally never actually tried the theme as the pearl version of the theme is unavailable (I highly doubt that it will be available), I decided to create a version for pearl 81xx. What I plan to do is to create a community-created pipboy theme and to prove that I am perhaps capable of creating, I attached a draft version of the theme which can be installed on your 81xx version 4.5. Special thanks to sadosdemetrios for his fantastic idea and design. This draft was created by screenshots of sadosdemetrios' version for curve and storm so it may appear a little rough on the edges. Feel free to give thoughts and comments on the theme and suggestions are most welcomed.


Below are some sample screenshots of the draft theme:



What I would appreciate most is your submitted graphics, mock ups or especially icons which if possible in an editable psd file (upload to any free or paid image host and post the link in the comments) and I will try to create our dream pip-boy theme from the best submitted image free for the community. Oh, and the usual donations are most welcomed, Thanks and stay tuned!

Download the theme here (contains .alx and .cod for desktop install) I don't know how to create and OTA link and I also lack of resource for it so if you could create one for me and host it, I would really appreciate it.


EDIT: The theme is actually available. Well lets just keep this as an alternative version.