How to make my a cms that can change themes like tumblr

Question

Hey guys. I was wondering how would I make theme options for a cms of mine like tumblr? I understand how to use the code like tumblr, {description}, {text} and variables like that but how would I make a theme switcher like this in php?

Answer 1

Simply put a php variable in your head section. Be sure to create the $userCSSchoice at the beginning of your page or you will break it all! Doom!

<LINK REL=StyleSheet HREF="<?php echo $userCSSchoice; ?>.css" TYPE="text/css" MEDIA=screen>

Nah, seriously, I do this and it works just fine for me. Then you have to create all those css stylesheets, but that's not too hard.

Answer 2

An alternative is to create your CSS page in PHP so you can pass a variable to a single sheet to determine the style.

<link rel=StyleSheet href="styles.php?theme=<?php echo $userCSSchoice; ?>" type="text/css" media=screen>

Then your PHP/CSS page can determine colors/images..

<?php
    header("Content-Type: text/css");

    if (isset($_REQUEST['theme']))
        $theme = $_REQUEST['theme'];
    else
        $theme="default";

    $bgImage="images/bg_".$theme.".png";    

    if ($theme=="default")
        $mainColor="0f8200";
    else if ($theme=="green")
        $mainColor="009900";

?>

body {
    background:url('<?php echo $bgImage; ?>')  repeat-x #<?php echo $bg; ?>;
    color: #<?php echo $mainColor; ?>;
}