[Tex/LaTex] How to create a colour option in custom beamer theme

beamercoloroptional argumentsthemes

I have used this answer from the question about how to design a beamer theme from scratch to design a Beamer theme to look like a university presentation (Powerpoint) template. There are 3 colour options for the Powerpoint template (blue,green,slate). I know one option for a solution would be to create 3 separate colour themes and to just call them with;

\usecolortheme{mythemeblue}
\usecolortheme{mythemegreen}
\usecolortheme{mythemeslate}

What I would like to do though is to define all the different colours in one colortheme file and then be able to use an option to call them as follows

\usetheme[blue]{mytheme}  %or green or slate

I have seen questions on the site that seem to use \DeclareOption (at this question, but couldn't get to work) or \DeclareOptionBeamer (This question & This question – didn't really understand these solutions)

Ideally what I would like is a solution where I can define differently in the beamercolorthememytheme.sty the same colour names depending on what option was chosen. For example if option blue was chosen Beamer would know that \definecolor{col1}{RGB}{104,7,90} but if option green was chosen it would know that \definecolor{col1}{RGB}{81,139,36} etc

Hopefully this is enough info but if not let me know in the comments

This is what I have in my beamercolorthememytheme.sty

\mode<presentation>

% define colours from NUIG stylesheet
\definecolor{col1}{RGB}{104,7,90}
\definecolor{col2}{RGB}{27,65,99}
\definecolor{col3}{RGB}{138,167,147}
\definecolor{col4}{RGB}{143,183,195}
\definecolor{col5}{RGB}{194,230,242}
% set colours for different elements
\setbeamercolor{structure}{fg=col3!100!col4}
\setbeamercolor{frametitle}{bg=col4,fg=col2}
\setbeamercolor*{title page header}{fg=col5}
\setbeamercolor*{subtitle}{fg=col5}
\setbeamercolor*{author}{fg=col5}
\setbeamercolor*{date}{fg=col5}
\setbeamercolor*{item}{fg=col5}
\setbeamercolor{block title}{bg=col1,fg=col5}
\mode
<all>

Best Answer

The following example shows how to change the colour of the frame title conditionally. blue will be used as the default colour, in case no option is specified.

Consider the following MWE:

\documentclass{beamer}

\usetheme[style=blue]{mytheme}

\begin{document}

    \begin{frame}
        \frametitle{test}
        abc
    \end{frame} 

\end{document}

with the corresponding beamerthememytheme.sty, which does little more than just pass the colour option to the colour theme.

\mode<presentation>

\DeclareOptionBeamer{style}{
    \PassOptionsToPackage{style=#1}{beamercolorthememytheme}
}
\ExecuteOptionsBeamer{style=blue}
\ProcessOptionsBeamer

\usecolortheme{mytheme}

\mode
<all>

and the colour theme beamercolorthememytheme.sty:

\mode<presentation>

\DeclareOptionBeamer{style}{\def\beamer@mytheme@style{#1}}
\ExecuteOptionsBeamer{style=blue} % blue will be default if nothing is given
\ProcessOptionsBeamer

\def\beamer@mytheme@stylegreen{green}%
\def\beamer@mytheme@styleblue{blue}%
\def\beamer@mytheme@stylered{red}%

\ifx\beamer@mytheme@style\beamer@mytheme@stylegreen%
    \definecolor{col1}{RGB}{0,255,0} % green
\else% 
    \ifx\beamer@mytheme@style\beamer@mytheme@stylered%
        \definecolor{col1}{RGB}{255,0,0} % red
    \else% 
      \definecolor{col1}{RGB}{0,0,255} % blue
    \fi%
\fi%

\setbeamercolor{frametitle}{bg=white,fg=col1}

\mode
<all>

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] beamer: Create own headline theme

You can redefine the headline, footline and frametitle templates; something along these lines:

\documentclass{beamer}

\definecolor{secinhead}{RGB}{249,196,95}
\definecolor{titlebg}{RGB}{51,51,51}

\setbeamercolor{secsubsec}{fg=secinhead,bg=black}
\setbeamercolor{frametitle}{fg=secinhead,bg=titlebg}

\setbeamertemplate{headline}
{
  \leavevmode%
  \hbox{%
  \begin{beamercolorbox}[wd=\paperwidth,ht=8.25ex,dp=3.5ex]{secsubsec}%
    \raggedright
    \hspace*{2em}%
    {\sffamily\Large\color{secinhead}\thesection.~\insertsection\hfill\insertsubsection}%
    \hspace*{2em}%
  \end{beamercolorbox}%
  }%
}
\setbeamertemplate{frametitle}
{\vskip-3pt
  \leavevmode
  \hbox{%
  \begin{beamercolorbox}[wd=\paperwidth,ht=1.8ex,dp=1ex]{frametitle}%
    \raggedright\hspace*{2em}\small\insertframetitle
  \end{beamercolorbox}
  }%
}
\setbeamertemplate{footline}{}

\begin{document}

\section{Introduction}
\subsection{The questions}
\begin{frame}\frametitle{A test frame}Test\end{frame}
\subsection{Another questions}
\begin{frame}\frametitle{Another test frame}Test\end{frame}

\end{document}

enter image description here

Note however that probably you will have to redefine also some other templates to mantain consistency; for example, which color/font to use to display the frame title? which color for enumerated lists?

Another option, this time the frametitle will have to be given another definition:

\documentclass{beamer}

\definecolor{secinhead}{RGB}{249,196,95}
\definecolor{shadowbg}{RGB}{51,51,51}

\setbeamercolor{secsubsec}{fg=secinhead,bg=black}
\setbeamercolor{shadow}{fg=secinhead,bg=shadowbg}

\setbeamertemplate{headline}
{
  \leavevmode%
  \hbox{%
  \begin{beamercolorbox}[wd=\paperwidth,ht=8.25ex,dp=3.5ex]{secsubsec}%
    \raggedright
    \hspace*{2em}%
    {\sffamily\Large\color{secinhead}\thesection.~\insertsection\hfill\insertsubsection}%
    \hspace*{2em}%
  \end{beamercolorbox}%
  }\vskip0pt%
  \hbox{%
  \begin{beamercolorbox}[wd=\paperwidth,ht=1.8ex,dp=1ex]{shadow}%
  \mbox{}
  \end{beamercolorbox}
  }%
}
\setbeamertemplate{frametitle}{}
\setbeamertemplate{footline}{}

\begin{document}

\section{Introduction}
\subsection{The questions}
\begin{frame}Test\end{frame}
\subsection{Another questions}
\begin{frame}Test\end{frame}

\end{document}

enter image description here

Here's the code producing the vertical shading color for the second vertical "bar":

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{shadings}
\definecolor{secinhead}{RGB}{249,196,95}
\definecolor{shadowbg}{RGB}{51,51,51}

\setbeamercolor{secsubsec}{fg=secinhead,bg=black}
\setbeamercolor{shadow}{fg=secinhead,bg=shadowbg}

\setbeamertemplate{headline}
{
  \leavevmode%
  \hbox{%
  \begin{beamercolorbox}[wd=\paperwidth,ht=8.25ex,dp=3.5ex]{secsubsec}%
    \raggedright
    \hspace*{2em}%
    {\sffamily\Large\color{secinhead}\thesection.~\insertsection\hfill\insertsubsection}%
    \hspace*{2em}%
  \end{beamercolorbox}%
  }\vskip-1pt%
  \hbox{%
  \tikz\draw[draw=none,top color=black,bottom color=shadowbg!60] (0,0) rectangle (\paperwidth,0.5);
  }%
}
\setbeamertemplate{frametitle}{}
\setbeamertemplate{footline}{}

\begin{document}

\section{Introduction}
\subsection{The questions}
\begin{frame}
Test
\end{frame}

\end{document}

and here's the upper part of the resulting frame:

enter image description here

Of course, change the values for top color, and bottom color according to your needs (you can even select a middle color value).

[Tex/LaTex] beamer dark theme

Personally, I don't like presentations with dark backgrounds since my eyes get tired too soon, but that's just a personal opinion. The beamer theme matrix shows a number of color themes that will give you dark backgrounds; for example:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usetheme{Warsaw}
\usecolortheme{beetle}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Test Frame}
text
\end{frame}

\end{document}

enter image description here

\documentclass{beamer}
\usetheme{Warsaw}
\usecolortheme{fly}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Test Frame}
text
\end{frame}

\end{document}

enter image description here

If you want to design your own, you can for example look at those color themes (they are in the directory /usr/local/texlive/2011/texmf-dist/tex/latex/beamer/themes/color in a typical TeX Live2011 installation) and make your adjustments. For example, here'sa variation on the fly color theme, but with a black background, as requested:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usetheme{Warsaw}

\setbeamercolor{normal text}{fg=white,bg=black!90}
\setbeamercolor{structure}{fg=white}

\setbeamercolor{alerted text}{fg=red!85!black}

\setbeamercolor{item projected}{use=item,fg=black,bg=item.fg!35}

\setbeamercolor*{palette primary}{use=structure,fg=structure.fg}
\setbeamercolor*{palette secondary}{use=structure,fg=structure.fg!95!black}
\setbeamercolor*{palette tertiary}{use=structure,fg=structure.fg!90!black}
\setbeamercolor*{palette quaternary}{use=structure,fg=structure.fg!95!black,bg=black!80}

\setbeamercolor*{framesubtitle}{fg=white}

\setbeamercolor*{block title}{parent=structure,bg=black!60}
\setbeamercolor*{block body}{fg=black,bg=black!10}
\setbeamercolor*{block title alerted}{parent=alerted text,bg=black!15}
\setbeamercolor*{block title example}{parent=example text,bg=black!15}


\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Test Frame}
\framesubtitle{Test Frame}
Test
\begin{enumerate}
\item Test
\end{enumerate}
\begin{block}{Test}
Test
\end{block}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

enter image description here

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] beamer: Create own headline theme

[Tex/LaTex] beamer dark theme

Related Question