Changing background and font on forums.thesims.com

Tired of the default background on forums.thesims.com? We’ve made a few styles which you can use to easily edit the background. If you’d prefer Roaring Heights, Oasis Landing, Dragon Valley or something else, now you can easily switch backgrounds!

Installing a style

  • Install the add-on Stylish for Firefox or Chrome.
  • Download one of our styles on userstyles.org. All you have to do is press the green “Install with Stylish” button and you’re done! If you by any chance want to disable the style, you can do that very easily through the add-on tab.

Styles

Currently we have the following styles available:

Background + Arial font + grey (v4) styles

 
 
The Sims 3 Dragon Valley background

The first style will change the forum background to Dragon Valley.
 
 
Arial font and other changes
This style will change the font to Arial (less bold) and reduce the line spacing on forums.thesims.com.

(left: before, right: after)

These are the changes:
– Other font (Arial).
– The categories are a little smaller.
– Some text on the activity page is smaller.
– Forum titles are no longer in capitals.
– Line spacing is reduced.

We also made two styles with the Roaring Heights and Oasis Landing background. These styles also have the Arial font and a few other small changes.

We made another style with the Dragon Valley background. With this style the categories and footer will be (light) blue.

This style doesn’t change the background, but it does include the Arial font and other changes.

The Sims 3 Dragon Valley background + Arial font + grey (v3)

Old font (bold)

Old font + The Sims 3 Dragon Valley background

Background + Arial font + grey (v4) styles


Using an image located on your pc

For most of our styles we load the background image from the EA Games servers. The backgrounds for Sunset Valley, Sunlit Tides and Monte Vista are not accessible anymore, therefore we’re not able to offer you these styles easily. You can however load these backgrounds (and even backgrounds you made yourself!) from your own computer. Below we’ll explain you how to do this with Firefox and/or Chrome.


Using a local image with Firefox

This method is only compatible with FireFox.

1. Install the Stylish add-on for Firefox.

2. Install a random style made by us for the forum (for example: The Sims 3 Dragon Valley background). It doesn’t matter which style you choose. This style serves as a base for the steps that follow.

3. Download our Sims3backgrounds ZIP-file. In this file you can find the official backgrounds for Sunset Valley, Sunlit Tides and Monte Vista. Extract the ZIP-file somewhere.

Additional info on extracting files::
To extract files you need a program which is capable of extracting .zip files. We’d recommend downloading 7-Zip. This is a free program that’s compatible with several filetypes like .rar and .zip.


Right click on Sims3backgrounds-ZIP and choose “Extract here” under 7-Zip. The content will then be extracted in that folder.

4. Open the background you’d like to enable in Firefox (right click > open.. > FireFox). Copy the adress in the browser bar with ctrl C. This we are going to use in step 7.

Beware: do not delete the background from your computer. If you delete the image, you won’t be able to use it as a background anymore.

5. Open the add-ons in Firefox (Ctrl-Shift-A).

6. Go to the Stylish “styles” tab. Press “Edit” to edit the freshly installed style. If you prefer you can change the name of the style.

7. On the 3rd line you’ll see “background-image: url(‘“. The intention is to paste the adress we copied in step 4 between the quotation marks using ctrl V. Next you choose “Save”.

8. Go to forums.thesims.com and enjoy your new background (and your hard work!).


Using a local image with Chrome

This method only works with the Chrome browser.

1. Install the Stylish extension for Chrome.

2. Install a random style made by us for the forum (for example: The Sims 3 Dragon Valley background). It doesn’t matter which style you choose. This style serves as a base for the steps that follow.

3. Download our Chrome-Sims3backgrounds ZIP-file. In this you can find the file that is needed to use local images (manifest.json) and the official backgrounds for Sunset Valley, Sunlit Tides and Monte Vista. Extract the ZIP-file somewhere in a new map.

Additional info on extracting files::
To extract files you need a program which is capable of extracting .zip files. We’d recommend downloading 7-Zip. This is a free program that’s compatible with several filetypes like .rar and .zip.


Right click on Sims3backgrounds-ZIP and choose “Extract here” under 7-Zip. The content will then be extracted in that folder.

4. Open the extensions (browse to chrome://extensions/ or Menu > Tools > Extensions).

5. Turn on Developer Mode and click Load unpacked extension…. Search and select the map in which you just recently extracted the manifest.json file and the backgrounds.

6. Because of this “Sims3backgrounds” will show up between the extensions and will be assigned a personal ID. This ID is different for everyone. Copy the ID with ctrl C. We’ll need this in step 8.

7. Open the installed Stylish styles (Stylish icon > Manage installed styles.).

8. Click “Edit” to edit the freshly installed style. On the 2nd line you see “background-image: url(‘“. We’re going to edit the part behind this.

Example:

background-image: url(‘http://lvlt.thesims3.com/content/global/images/backgroundImages/Background_DragonValley_ver902864.jpg’) !important;

This is what you see. Delete the part between the quotation marks (http://lvlt.thesims3.com/content/global/images/backgroundImages/Background_DragonValley_ver902864.jpg).

Next we put one of our backgrounds here:

chrome-extension://[your ID]/MonteVista-background.jpg
chrome-extension://[your ID]/SunlitTides-background.jpg
chrome-extension://[your ID]/SunsetValley-background.jpg

[your ID] should be replaced with the ID we copied in step 6.

Result:

background-image: url(‘chrome-extension://[your ID]/SunsetValley-background.jpg’) !important;

Replace “SunsetValley-background.jpg” by a different filename if you want to enable another background. This way you can also eventually enable your selfmade backgrounds.

Next press “Save” so your adjustments will be saved.

9. Go to forums.thesims.com en enjoy your new background (and your hard work!).