8. Changing Mozilla’s Appearance

As the entire Mozilla user interface is implemented as XUL text files, Mozilla can take different themes (skins). Two basic themes (Classic and Modern) are included. You can switch between themes by going to View | Apply Theme, and you can get new themes with View | Apply Theme | Get New Themes.

Installing and using new themes is usually problem-free. However, if you do see some odd behavior (e.g., user interface oddities) in a third-party theme:

1. Do the built-in themes (Classic and Modern) work properly?
2. If not, do Classic and Modern work properly after removing all add-on themes?
3. If not, do Classic and Modern work properly in a freshly-created profile?

If you still see the odd behavior, it may be a bug. See Getting Involved for how to get involved in testing Mozilla and reporting bugs.

A full set of icons for Windows is available from MozDev, and Grayrest has an icons tutorial for those wishing to create their own.

Unix/Linux cannot yet use different icons. Mozilla does not currently provide the window manager with enough information for it to choose the appropriate icon. This is being worked on for a future release.

On Windows, the splash screen is a bitmap image (Windows .bmp format). To use another image, save it as mozilla.bmp into the same folder as mozilla.exe. You can use an image of any size.

Changing the splash screen in Macintosh or Unix/Linux currently requires recompiling Mozilla with the new splash screen included.

It would be possible to do this by using a different theme. The built-in themes (Classic and Modern) do not have toolbars that can readily display without icons, but it is possible to write a third-party theme that does. Several third-party themes reduce the amount of space the toolbars take by using icons only.

This is not yet implemented in Mozilla, but is in planning. Currently, you can use View | Show/Hide to switch toolbars on and off, or click on the side of the toolbar.