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edit please let me emphasize that I don't request additional themes but merely the ability to apply the already existing design of another SE site, e.g. to make Physics.SE look like Math.SE.

I really like the current themes of SOFU, and I love Jin's gaming.SE retro suggestion alt

but also Juan's asking for a more modern-game oriented theme sounds plausible. So, what about the possibility to have a per-user setting of which theme to use for which site (maybe throwing in some bonus themes when Jin has the time)?

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  • thanks @Chris, recently my finger always slips to type size instead of site - damn you matlab...
    – Tobias Kienzler
    Mar 23, 2011 at 9:41

3 Answers 3

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You mean this?

It adds a dropdown at the bottom of the page with the themes of all other sites, and once you change it, it saves the selected theme name to a cookie so the theme stays across sessions.

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+50

While it is a nice thought, I somehow have to disagree. Managing themes and keeping them up-to-date is quite much work, and the more themes the more work it is. Additionally, the community might want to create themes, so you have to provide a basic toolkit and an interface for that. And then you have to keep even the community-themes up-to-date...

I'd agree to such a feature if the SO-Engine would be OpenSource, because it would be highly logical to provide it as customizable as possible, and then you really could place the responsibility into the hands of the Community.

I think client-side solutions are the best ones for this, like Stylish in combination with Greasemonkey. It's already easily possible to re-skin the trilogy.

Edit: You might also want to look at these three links:

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    What @Bobby said. It's a lot of work just to maintain themes. Whenever we add new functionalities to the site, CSS/HTML have to be updated across all sites, and their Metas. We're looking at 24+ new themes to design as of now(48 including Meta sites). I think GreaseMonkey is a great solution for user preference.
    – Jin
    Sep 17, 2010 at 15:51
  • while using stylish is a good idea, not everyone uses a browser that supports it. Also, with SE growing to areas that are attractive not only to those used to installing a new plugin everyday, a server-based solution might help them
    – Tobias Kienzler
    Mar 23, 2011 at 9:56
  • @Tobias Kienzler: My opinion stands as stated. Though, while thinking about your idea, yes, something similar to Column80 might work very well.
    – Time Traveling Bobby
    Mar 24, 2011 at 8:13
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We'll put together a user script at http://stackapps.com?tab=scripts for folks who really want the white layout -- in fact, we can probably put together a de-styler that converts any Stack Exchange design to a fairly minimalistic one for those that prefer it.
-- Jeff Atwood♦
(source)

Also, Moshe has written a minimalistic SE script.

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