New invoice themes sneak peak

Approximately 3 months ago we released a new feature called invoice themes under beta testing, which allows you to customise the design of your invoices within Clear Books. During the beta testing, we gathered lots of feedback from our users on how we could improve invoice themes, and the kinds of things they wanted to be able to change. Your support and feedback was impressive and now I am pleased to give you a sneak peak at the new invoice themes editor.

New Features:

Backwards Compatibility

Due to the changes we have had to make to the document structure of invoices to allow greater customisation there are a few small steps which you may need to take if you had previously used the beta version of invoice themes:

Previous Basic Themes

If you created a theme prior to the launch of these updates using the basic editor, then you will need to re-generate the style sheets used by the theme. To do this, simply edit each theme you created by going to ‘Settings > Invoices > Themes’ and clicking the edit link. Now simply save your theme. This will re-generate the style sheets used for your theme to be compatible with the new changes.

Previous Advanced Themes

If you created a theme prior to the launch of these updates using the advanced editor, then you will need to re-create the advanced CSS to be compatible with the new classes and id’s used in the new document structure. To make this process a little easier for you, you can download the Invoice Themes Development Kit mentioned below which will contain the HTML structure used by themes and the standard css classes. Once you have made your changes and are happy with the result, simply edit your theme and copy and paste the CSS into the advanced editor box and click save. Your theme will now be compatible with the new document structure.

Invoice Themes Development Kit

To aid in the customisation of advanced invoice themes, we have made available the Invoice Themes Development Kit, which you can download and use to create your style sheets in your favourite IDE and text editor. Once you are happy with the result, simply create a new theme, switch to the advanced editor and paste in your CSS.

Download Invoice Themes Development Kit

When will the update be released?

We are in the final testing stages for the new Invoice Themes update, and should hopefully release them at the beginning of next week. This should give the users who have previously created advanced themes under the beta stage sufficient time to amend their theme css prior to the launch. We will announce the release on our blog and also on our twitter feed: http://www.twitter.com/clearbooks when it goes live.

Update 07/02/2011

Invoice Themes is now available, you can read more about the announcement it here.

About the Author - Matt Fairbrass

Web developer, graphic designer, avid blogger and self-confessed perfectionist.

My main goal in life is to be paid to do what I love and what I have a passion for; which is design and web development. Currently this dream is being realised through working as a senior developer and designer at Clear Books Limited.

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Showing 2 Comments

  1. anders

    looks really good. had a bit of a play with it. just wondering will it be possible to edit the html as well so one could move things around a bit more and insert text where needed?

    1 year ago

  2. Matt Fairbrass

    Not yet Anders, but we do have some plans for further developments which would allow for just that through a simply GUI in the preview of the theme – although this would be altering the CSS ultimately, as the structure of the document should not need to be changed in order to position elements.

    For now you would need to use the advanced CSS editor to move items around. I have done this myself for my own personal invoices in Clear Books and it works.

    We’ll also be adding additional labels so in turn you would be able to customise every piece of text on an invoice. Thanks for your feedback.

    1 year ago