Orkut has introduced over a dozen themes for their users to choose. But unlike iGoogle themes, Orkut doesn’t have the API required for third parties to build themes for the service. If you use Firefox + Greasemonkey, then you can build your own Orkut themes in just a few seconds. Here’s how:
- Go to this page, and enter the url of a valid image. (Make sure that your image has enough width, else it’ll get repeated)
- Click on the submit button and you’ll get the greasemonkey script with the background image of your choice.
It took me several trial and errors to determine the best width for Orkut. If you are already using an official theme, then make sure you switch back to the classic theme before using the custom greasemonkey theme. Else, it’ll screw it up.
Custom themes will extend the pageload time by several seconds. This is because it has to fetch the image from an external source after the page is fully loaded. Personally, I’m not a great fan of themes for Orkut. I’ll stick to the classic Orkut theme for now.
Hopefully, Google will someday open-up Orkut’s themes API to developers [Via: Nirmal TV]
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wrote, on June 19th, 2008
yeah me too. not a fan of those themes. although for now the space theme looks decent enough.
wrote, on June 19th, 2008
i have a query to shoot ! will this themes be visible to others ?
wrote, on June 20th, 2008
I like the official orkut themes a lot. They are clean and simple.
And I really hope orkut doesn’t open up their theme api. I don’t want it to turn into a myspace. I like how it is. Google should go ahead and create 30-40 themes and users would have the option of choosing the one they thing represents their personality the best.
wrote, on June 20th, 2008
Pallab: I agree with you, but I think opening up the API will encourage the developers to do something better. Finally, it ends up to what we choose. I personally hate all themes, and I love the classic orkut interface (like Kenneth said the comments below)
Sankaranand: No, greasemonkey themes are confined within your browser only!
wrote, on June 20th, 2008
Why is it that WordPress themes are more popular? In fact, even in their other activities, Orkut seems to be losing a lot of share!
wrote, on June 20th, 2008
Nice. I gotta try this out. Its always nice to have a change…..
wrote, on June 21st, 2008
I never liked the official orkut themes. May be because I don\’t like orkut anymore
wrote, on June 23rd, 2008
Any idea as to the specifications of the image to use?