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After rummaging through the themes already available I decided that most of theme bored me to death; I needed something that was more my style.
I decided I would create my own from this sweet wallpaper design I recently downloaded from DeskTopGaming.com.
Now comes the fun part...
There are two different ways to create a theme for your iGoogle page.
- Quick and easy "Try Now"
- Full featured "Developers" method
For the first and easiest option, click on the "Try Now" link on the themes page and upload your image and work through the ensuing instructions.
Only key thing is to make sure your image height is 175px and preferably 1024px in width so it will fit properly in its place.
This method, while easy, doesn't allow you to adjust very many page attributes.
The second method is to click the "For Developers" link which is located directly beneath the "Try Now" link in the image above. This method requires you to be a bit more tech savvy, but it's not to difficult.
There are 7 basic steps involved with this method.
- Download the XML template
- Sign up for Google Sandbox, this is used as your development environment
- Read the themes developers guide
- Refer to the reference guide as needed
- Edit/Upload the XML file and image(s) for your theme
- Test the theme in your sandbox
- Submit your theme to Google
TIP: Here are a few useful tools for this project:
Both methods can be useful. If you use the quick and easy method, you can immediately put your theme to work for you. If you go the developer route, then you'll have to wait for it to be approved by google.
Here is my finish product via the developer option:
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