59.1. Theme Design and Graphics

This new theme has been the default in Webmin since 0.92, although the old “classic” Webmin look and feel is still available. It makes use of practically all theme-related features, such as alternate graphics, CGI program replacement, and a library that replaces the standard header and footer functions. For these reasons it is a good one to look at if you are planning on writing your own theme.

The mscstyle3 directory that contains the theme has a subdirectory for most of the standard modules, each of which contains an images/icons.gif file. These override the corresponding standard module icons that appear on Webmin's main menu. No other overriding images exist—such as for icons within modules—meaning that the original images are still used.

The theme directory also contains an images subdirectory under which all of the images used by the theme itself are located. The heading that appears on every page is made up of numerous images, such as those for the category icons, category title letters, shaded background, and logout button. Because they are specific to the theme, most do not have any corresponding real image under the top-level images directory to override.

Like all themes must, this one includes a theme.info file containing its description that will appear on the Themes page in the Webmin Configuration module. It also includes a config file, which tells the Webmin API to read theme.pl and use the functions that it contains to replace the standard header and footer functions. It also contains several lines starting with cs_ that set the table background and heading color. Unlike other simpler themes, the config file does not need to specify any alternate page text or background colors, as these can be set directly by its theme_header function.