# Editing Theme design
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/editing-theme-design/339509
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [November 30, 2024, 4:25pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/editing-theme-design/339509 "2024-11-30T16:25:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@sid321](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sid321)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2024, 4:25pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/editing-theme-design/339509/1 "2024-11-30T16:25:42Z")
Whats the actual way to edit the theme is it possible? I’m self hosting the forum and want to make changes to the theme, how to do it? Not through additional css, but is there any other way to make proper changes to it?
PS: I’m using DigitalOcean
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### Author:  [@Arkshine](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Arkshine)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2024, 4:50pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/editing-theme-design/339509/2 "2024-11-30T16:50:38Z")
Hi,
What modifications do you need? Please let us know so we can assist you better!
You can usually change your theme through theme components or plugins.
If you are not familiar with Theme and Theme components, this is a crash course here:
> [@Beginner's guide to using Discourse Themes](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beginners-guide-to-using-discourse-themes/91966?silent=true):
>
> This is a crash course in Discourse theme basics. The target audience is everyone who is not familiar with Discourse themes. If you’ve already used Discourse theme / theme components, this guide is probably not something you need to read. What are themes and theme components? A theme or theme component is a set of files packaged together designed to either modify Discourse visually or to add new features. Let’s start with themes. Themes In general, themes are not supposed to be compatible …
You can look at a list of the official theme components here:
> [@Customizing your site with existing theme components](https://meta.discourse.org/t/customizing-your-site-with-existing-theme-components/312297?silent=true):
>
> bookmark This guide introduces Discourse theme components, and how to use ready-made ones to customize your site person_raising_hand Required user level: Administrator Theme components are customizations that change surface elements of your forum design or add extra front-end features. Smaller and more targeted than full themes, they can generally (though not always) be combined with other theme components to create a bespoke forum design tailored for your community. While it is more th…
Other topics on this subject can be found here: [Topics tagged customization](https://meta.discourse.org/tags/c/documentation/site-management/53/customization)
You can also check out #Customization > Theme component or #Customization > Plugin sections 🙂
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### Author:  [@NateDhaliwal](https://meta.discourse.org/u/NateDhaliwal)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2024, 1:10am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/editing-theme-design/339509/3 "2024-12-01T01:10:37Z")
> [@sid321](#):
>
> Not through additional css
If you don’t want to write any CSS, you can edit the theme by changing its colour schemes.
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### Author:  [@sid321](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sid321)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2024, 3:36am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/editing-theme-design/339509/4 "2024-12-01T03:36:20Z")
From additional CSS I mean I don’t want to make changes in the dialogue box of CSS instead in the main files, so is there some extension like file editor or something as in WP?
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### Author:  [@sid321](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sid321)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2024, 4:28am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/editing-theme-design/339509/5 "2024-12-01T04:28:01Z")
Thanks for sharing, also is there something like a File Editor Extension or something available through which I can easily make changes to the code or is there any alternative to the same?
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### Author:  [@NateDhaliwal](https://meta.discourse.org/u/NateDhaliwal)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2024, 12:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/editing-theme-design/339509/6 "2024-12-01T12:33:17Z")
I mean, you could make a new repository on Github and connect your IDE to that, and then edit files like `common.scss` etc.
Or, you can go to Admin \> Customize \> Themes and make a theme and edit them/edit an existing theme.
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### Author:  [@sid321](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sid321)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2024, 4:20am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/editing-theme-design/339509/7 "2024-12-02T04:20:45Z")
Thanks that helped
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2025, 4:21am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/editing-theme-design/339509/8 "2025-01-01T04:21:18Z")
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