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Charamel Best Firefox & Thunderbird Theme

I try and check out all the themes for Firefox and Thunderbird that I can, however only one has ever really impressed me. That theme is Charamel.

Charamel Firefox and Thunderbird Theme

This theme has had a lot of work put into it and it’s absolutely beautiful. Everything works together and it’s a joy to use. There are even elements in Thunderbird that appear as if their overlapping other parts of the design and it’s great. Not only is this very sweet eye candy, it’s also been designed to work better than the original theme I believe.

If you are in the market for an excellent Firefox or Thunderbird theme, check out Charamel. By far, it’s the best theme I’ve found.

Note: I’m not sure what’s up with their webstie as it looks awful right now. But that shouldn’t stop you from trying it.
Download for PRE 1.5 Charamel for Firefox.
Download Charamel for Thunderbird.

1.5 Update
The themes seem to come and go. Here are two links that I found, but I’m not sure which is which or if they are just two versions of the Firefox theme. :
http://members.shaw.ca/lucx/charamel-1.2a.jar
http://members.shaw.ca/lucx/charamel-1.1.9.jar

Keep an eye on the official Mozilla Update site as they do appear and disappear from there every now and then.


21 Responses

  1. masaka___ says:

    Thanks for providing these links. Charamel is my favorite theme, too, and it would’ve sucked if I couldn’t install it on my new computer.

  2. skwij says:

    Thanks so much for posting the links to download this gorgeous theme. After some messing about with my TB 1.0.7 I lost the compatibility for this theme, and you were the only place I could find to re-download it.

    Many many thanks! My eyes are happy and soothed once again.

    CJ/luvfishies/skwij

  3. Tom says:

    Unfortunately the theme does not work with Thunderbird 1.5 yet.

  4. Gloria Schwenderlauf says:

    Hi all,

    On 12/12/2005 I wrote to lucx and asked about the Charamel Theme being upgraded for the Firefox and Thunderbird versions 1.5.

    I got a very quick response saying that it is coming!!

    I can’t wait!! I have downloaded many different themes but the Charamel remains my favorite. I have been checking back frequently to the site to see if a new theme has been put up. I absolutely love that theme!!

    Merry Christmas all….. we all have something to look forward to.

    Gloria… aka ladywolf

  5. Thomas says:

    Excellent news Gloria!! Thanks for the update.

  6. Tim says:

    I found the updated version for Thunderbird 1.5 on the Thunderbird site but the next day it was gone. Fortunately I had downloaded it. Now it seems to have disappeared.

  7. Jason says:

    I can’t upgrade to Thunderbird 1.5 until I get a compatible Charamel theme! Tim, can you provide the one you downloaded? Or maybe email it to me? [email protected] should work for the next week.

  8. Thomas says:

    Jason, I don’t have the latest version for Thunderbird. Check http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=319097&highlight=charamel for more info.

  9. Lesley says:

    i ADORE charamel too. it’s just …. the best. I use it at work (slighly older version of TB). i just downloaded TB to use on laptop at home and the first thing i did was rush to download the sweet and lovely Charamel…. like others here distressed to find it gone!!

    I’ll be watching this page and the mozilla forum link for ANY update on this burning issue.

  10. Distressed user says:

    Can anyone update charamel theme to work with Firefox 2.0?
    lucx, the author, seems to have disappeared and there are a lot of people in the community who just love this theme.

    If anyone could update it that would be super!

  11. Thomas says:

    I would search the Mozilla forms for answers to that one.

  12. Patches says:

    I just updated to Firefox 2 and found that Charamel won’t work! And the Charamel site is on “indefinite hiatus.” What a shame! I’m trying other themes now but don’t care for any of them. 🙁

  13. John says:

    For fellow charamel theme fans, there is a quick’n’dirty hack which will allow our beloved theme to be used in FF2.0 (although, as with any hack, there are no guarantees that it will work 100%!!)

    How? I hear you ask 🙂 Simple.

    1. Download the last official version of charamel from here (v1.2b): http://members.shaw.ca/lucx/charamel-1.2b.jar

    ( note the site can also be accessed as: http://www.charamel.ca )

    2. Open the .jar file with winzip (or any other zip program; note, if the “Open with…” option doesn’t appear on the right-click context menu, just rename the file to charamel-1.2b.zip).

    3. Look for the file install.rdf in the zip file.

    4. Extract the file to a temporary folder (or wherever you have the charamel-1.2b.jar/zip), or (if your zip viewer allows it, e.g. Winzip allows an external viewer to be configured) view the content of install.rdf directly in your favourite editor.

    5. Look for the following line (should be line 17):

    1.6

    6. Replace the 1.6 with 2.0

    7. If you want to use it in thunderbird too (was TB 2.0 released yet?) then also change line 25.

    8. Save the updated file and drag it back into charamel-1.2b.jar/zip to update the original. Note, if you used the external viewer option of winzip (or other zip program) you will probably receive notification that the file changed and be asked if you want to update the zip – choose “yes” 🙂

    9. Open the Themes window from the Tools menu.

    10. Drag charamel-1.2b.jar onto the window and voilà, Firefox 2.0 should happily accept the theme!

    Enjoy!

    John

  14. Thomas says:

    Last I knew, you could go to addons.mozilla.org and just install it.

  15. Josh says:

    John! Great post! I am now rocking Charamel on FF2. Thanks for the tips.

  16. dan says:

    The latest available version breaks thunderbird 2.0.0.4 (at least on my gentoo linux), I think it’s because there’s a new “Tag” icon.

  17. Thomas says:

    Yea, Charmel is pretty much dead in the water right now. 🙁

  18. Jens Rodi says:

    I’ve just noticed that the official Charamel theme site has a new and updated version available for Firefox 2 and Thunderbird 2. Seems to work alright.

  19. Thomas says:

    Thanks for the tip Jens!

  20. Laura says:

    Silvermel and Charamel have both returned to the Firefox Add-ons Themes List and are currently still compatible with Firefox 3.5.

    Sorry, I don’t have the link but I thought you should know.

  1. 6/9/2008

    […] a while ago when Charamel roamed the streets?  It was one of the most detailed and perfect Firefox themes I’ve ever […]

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