SOLVED - saving custom re-colouring of existing theme

[lacrimula_falsa]

Hi there.

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but here goes:

I have recoloured EVERYTHING on my current journal theme (plus I added a background image). I don't want to lose all that work when I switch themes. Is there a way to save my custom colours in a reusable way in case I later switch back to my current theme?

Thanks in advance for any help
-LF

EDIT: Thank you all for the help. I've now found a method that works for me. (Saving the contents of the wizard layer.) :)

Comments

[tephra]

I hope someone replies with something better than what I do, but I just screencap every page of my settings and save any custom CSS in a text file. It's not a nice and easy export/import deal but at least I can recreate things.

[lacrimula_falsa]

Ah, well, I was considering that before so I guess we think alike. XD It's not a bad option, just a work-intensive one. :) Thank you anyway.

[tephra]

It's a pain, so I really hope there's a better way and someone tells us what it is. :)

[lacrimula_falsa]

Me too. Me too...

[anaraine]

There is, but afaik there are some limitations to it.

So. From "Select Style", there's a box that says "USERNAME's current theme", and has some other links. You want to click on Advanced Customization. On that page, you want to scroll down to Your Styles and click that.

There might be a few different styles there - mine looks like this. If you click on the numbers, (#0000000) that will let you preview what theme that was before you hit the Use button. (You can also hit Edit if you want to change the name to something you'll remember.)

HOWEVER: This will only save themes. It will not save where you wanted your modules for this specific theme. It will not save different text in the custom textbox. So it sounds perfect for saving your colors, right? It is.

But, I also vaguely remember that it can only save one color combination per theme base.

So, for instance right now I'm using "City Dragon" colors (with some tweaks) on the base "Tectonic". If I decide that I want to try out "Elegant Brown" colors on the base "Leftovers" I can do that, and when I don't like it I can go back to Your Styles and click on my old layout to get my colors and theme back. But if I decide that I want to try "Memory of Flowers" colors in the base "Tectonic", it will wipe out my "City Dragon" customized colors because it's the same base theme.

Does that make sense? (I could also be wrong. I'm pretty sure that's how it used to be, but there might have been some bugfixes since then.) So, if I were you, I would totally take advantage of "Your Styles"... but also keep a backup stash of screenshots to tell me what my colors were in case they accidentally get wiped out.

[lacrimula_falsa]

Funny thing is, I have since stumbled upon this exact method by accident. XD

And yes, as far as I noticed it will save one set of custom colours per base theme. As far as I could see it saved my background image and custom CSS too.

[fueschgast]

How about right-clicking on your journal and selecting source code? You can get the CSS from there and save it in a text file, for example. When you want to use it again, you just put the CSS into custom CSS.

[lacrimula_falsa]

Uh, I haven't tried that but I'll have a look. Problem is, I know almost nothing about CSS so I will have no idea if the code I get this way is usable...

[momijizukamori]

There is! You can copy out the wizard layer for your current style - if you go to the Layers list in the Advanced Style customization, you should be able to find a layer of type 'wizard' named 'Auto-Generated Customizations' that's highlighted - that's your active wizard layer. Go into edit, and copy out all the text there and save it in a file. Then later, you can make a new wizard layer for the base layout, and copy the text back in and save it.

The Styles page that someone else mentioned above should also do it, but I know there's limits on how many styles you can have saved, and I'm not quite sure of what overwrites what.

Also, none of these will save out the handful of settings that are actually account-level. Page titles, the custom text module content, etc, are saved per user and will carry through style changes. Copying out the wizard layer will preserve stuff like module order and overrides of text/icon settings though.

[anaraine]

Ah, this is a much better option than mine! I might have to start remembering to do this when I switch layers, because I always shuffle my modules around for aesthetic reasons, and it'd be nice not to have to fiddle with the customization options...

Question, though: if I'm pasting the layer to restore an old layout, will the "Customize Your Theme" pages be able to read from that layer so I could make further edits? (Or will touching that nuke my pasted layer from orbit and return to the default settings of the theme?)

[momijizukamori]

The customization wizard will read in from that layer - it'll only nuke things that it can't write (which is mostly custom S2 code, I think). I did just realize that I think instead of making a new wizard layer there for pasted customizations, you may have to pick your layout and theme, and then change something in the wizard to get it to generate a new wizard layer, and then go in and paste on that, because I don't think there's a way to say 'use this wizard layer' other than possibly through the 'My Styles' page.

[lacrimula_falsa]

Thank you. 'Tis a superb option, methinks. I will definitely try that. And yes, custom module text etc. is user-based and carries over. Think journal title and the like.