The Hickensian

29.05.07 Google Reader and Bloglines themes - it's over to you.

23 comments
Tagged with: google, greader, opensource, themes

(Last Google Reader theme post, I promise)

Before now, I’ve felt quite protective of my site skins, and have always stated “Feel free to modify the CSS to suit your own tastes, but please don’t redistribute”. This stems from vanity to be truthful – I spend a long time creating these themes, and don’t want other people getting the credit!

That was how I used to think though. As time goes on, I feel like I’m becoming more ~~communist~~ open when it comes to the web. Besides, I have little time to update the themes, and carry out feature/bug requests, and they’re both at a point where I’m happy with them. Sure, there’s so much you could do to them, but the original intention was to create something for myself. Which is where you come in.

These themes are now both “do what you like with them”. Take out the bits you don’t like, put in new bits, whatever. Feel free to re-distribute them anywhere you like, whether slightly tweaked or massively altered. They’re yours to do with as you please! Give them a good home and let me know what do with them (hopefully something better!)

downloads

Google Reader Theme
Bloglines Theme for Webkit & Opera
Bloglines Theme for Mozilla

Finally, to answer a much-asked question I don’t have plans to do a GMail or GCal skin, but you never know.

Comments | RSS

No.1

∞ BillyG said 987 days ago:

I guess I won’t get in trouble now :-)

The only changes I’ve made to your awesome work is tweaking the size of a few things since I’ve been playing with the Fullscreen and Reader Preview exts.

Very nice work though.

No.2

∞ sil said 987 days ago:

Nice one, Jon. Not sure “communist” is the word you’re looking for so much as “open”, which might be better, but a large and fulsome round of applause and a whole pound of Yarg to you for this. We love ya. I’ll have you using Linux next. ;-)

No.3

∞ Dale Mugford said 987 days ago:

Regardless the work that I might do in changing your GReader theme Jon- I’ll always give you credit.

I think that’s the way it should be done – open source, free to modify and re-distribute: but with credit given where it’s due.

No.4

∞ Khairudin Lee said 987 days ago:

That’s the spirit Jon!

Btw can you upload your Bloglines wooden theme pls? I’m sure there are many who prefers the theme. I guess I’m lazy to find time to figure out how to edit the CSS at the moment. Nvm, it’s ok, would appreciate it if you did nonetheless.

Cheers again Jon.

No.5

∞ Chris said 987 days ago:

Why not put a Creative Commons license on it, that allows changes and re-distribution, and you’ll still get credits from people.

No.6

∞ Jon Hicks said 987 days ago:

Stuart – you’re right, ‘communist’ isn’t quite right. ‘Not so bloody precious’ would a better description!

As for Linux – I just need the tools! For now, I use as many open-source apps as I can on OS X.

No.7

∞ pauldwaite said 987 days ago:

Long-haired commie pinko.

No.8

∞ Alexander Atallah said 987 days ago:

Thanks for “opening” the style sheets, Jon. I agree with Dale, though, you should be given credit on any redistribution.

Were there any updates to the new downloads? I also found a bug: unread posts still have the grey card border on the right. Putting this line of code in the “fix all the fussy rounded box stuff” should fix it:

#entries .entry .card .car

Good luck and thanks again.

No.9

∞ Christian Cadeo said 986 days ago:

Amazing work and I cannot thank you enough for this theme. It has made google reader infinetly better.

No.10

∞ Ben Bishop said 986 days ago:

(Last Google Reader theme post, I promise) – I don’t believe you! :-)

Thanks for making these available though!

No.11

∞ Alexander Atallah said 986 days ago:

Uh oh, Google just made a whole bunch of changes. Trends have been added to the navigation menu, the Home icon button no longer works, and that’s all I’ve come across so far…

No.12

∞ Jason Harris said 985 days ago:

I noticed the trends has also been added :\

No.13

∞ Dale said 985 days ago:

How can I make it so that the top left pane is large enough to display the Trends link and maybe add an icon for it?

No.14

∞ Erin said 985 days ago:

I’d kill for a Google Mail ‘theme’ from you Hickster.

No.15

∞ Jon Hicks said 985 days ago:

I’ve posted an update, where at least the Trends menu item can be seen, although it doesn’t have an icon! Just re-download from the link above, or check for updates in Stylish

No.16

∞ Paul said 980 days ago:

Mr Hicks’ left pinky knows more about css than me, but without any warranty I offer up this simple addition:

#mark-all-as-read {
display:none !important;
}

This hides the ‘Mark all as read’ link, which I pressed accidentally for the second time in a month today. On the ‘Show All Items’ screen both times. Sigh.

No.17

∞ akatsuki said 980 days ago:

I don’t mind the posts. The Google reader theme seems to fail on the home page where there is no margin between the main pane text and the nav pane to the left.

And I second the Google mail theme request!

No.18

∞ Jeff said 979 days ago:

I third the GMail request. It would be especially nice for Mailplane, to get rid of the links and buttons (and ads, ehem) that are available in the toolbar.

No.19

∞ OnTheTech said 978 days ago:

The Official Goggle Reader Blog featured your custom theme yesterday,
It’s towards the bottom under the title “Fun Desserts”

“A fresh face for Reader can be a lot of fun, and we were happy to see just how seamless Jon managed to make it.” – Official Google Reader Blog

No.20

∞ Jeby said 975 days ago:

some problem:

http://img107.imageshack.us/img107/6338/immagine1zv5.png

No.21

∞ Jon Hicks said 975 days ago:

Jeby, download again, as that problem was fixed a week ago.

No.22

∞ Dave Schoonover said 972 days ago:

Yarr, you should link this post (or the files) from your “Extras” page. Using your site search, this page doesn’t come up when you search “greader”, and it’s not the first hit for “theme”.

Open Source + Security through Obscurity = Crying Baby Jesus!

No.23

∞ Jon Hicks said 972 days ago:

Dave – If you download from any of the posts, you get the latest file, which states that it’s open.