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How do I implement user theme switching in SharePoint?

My customer wants to provide 2 themes for a SharePoint application. Is there a strategy to accomplish this in MOSS 2007?

We want to apply user profile-based theme selection, and maybe even a drop-down to switch modes.

Solution

  • I don't know how extensive you want your re-theming to be. However if it could be CSS-only you could use this approach:

    1. Store the CSS files for the different themes in the Style Library.

    2. Create a list that stores the user and their chosen theme.

    3. Write a feature and custom application page to allow the user to change their theme.

    4. Write a control that does a lookup on the list against the current user and obtains the a reference to the corresponding CSS file in the Style Library. The control would then output the CssRegistration and CssLink controls to the page for this file.

    5. Add this control to the master page so it executes on every page (caching should be added).

    I can't see why this wouldn't be supportable by Microsoft as you're only changing CSS.

    If you need to do more than that then another option is to write an HTTP module that changes the HTML output. Or of course JavaScript. With these two options you may have supportability issues (it depends on how extensive your changes are).