Notes/docs/User Guide/User Guide/Theme development/Creating a custom theme.md

# Creating a custom theme
## Step 1. Find a place to place the themes

Organization is an important aspect of managing a knowledge base. When developing a new theme or importing an existing one it's a good idea to keep them into one place.

As such, the first step is to create a new note to gather all the themes.

![](Creating%20a%20custom%20theme_5_.png)

## Step 2. Create the theme

|     |     |
| --- | --- |
| ![](Creating%20a%20custom%20theme_3_.png) | Themes are code notes with a special attribute. Start by creating a new code note. |
| ![](Creating%20a%20custom%20theme_1_.png) | Then change the note type to a CSS code. |
| ![](Creating%20a%20custom%20theme_Cr.png) | In the _Owned Attributes_ section define the `#appTheme` attribute to point to any desired name. This is the name that will show up in the appearance section in settings. |

## Step 3. Define the theme's CSS

As a very simple example we will change the background color of the launcher pane to a shade of blue.

To alter the different variables of the theme:

```css
:root {
	--launcher-pane-background-color: #0d6efd;
}
```

## Step 4. Activating the theme

Refresh the application (Ctrl+Shift+R is a good way to do so) and go to settings. You should see the newly created theme:

![](Creating%20a%20custom%20theme_2_.png)

Afterwards the application will refresh itself with the new theme:

![](Creating%20a%20custom%20theme_4_.png)

Do note that the theme will be based off of the legacy theme. To override that and base the theme on the new TriliumNext theme, see: [Theme base (legacy vs. next)](Customize%20the%20Next%20theme.md)

## Step 5. Making changes

Simply go back to the note and change according to needs. To apply the changes to the current window, press <kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>Shift</kbd>+<kbd>R </kbd> to refresh.

It's a good idea to keep two windows, one for editing and the other one for previewing the changes.