Often times web site design involves image design such as buttons and box header etc. If you want to show a gradient color and make it compatible to all the browsers, you'd better start doing graphic design images. All these have made web site design a much harder to enter for average non-technical site owners. Part of the goals of DotShoppingCart is to enable non-technical people to easy use the software and turn it into a good looking e-commerce web site.

We have built several themes inside DotShoppingCart. The theme can be further customized such as changing colors and the sizes of building blocks such as side boxes. Normally when a theme consists of image buttons and image header bars, you cannot change the image button colors or the size of building blocks unless you re-draw these images by using the graphic design software. To resolve this problem we used the Windows GDI+ API to create image buttons dynamically based on the colors and sizes that you wish to customize. So in the end you first pick up a theme that you like and then further customize the overall looking by adjusting the colors and sizes of the building blocks. Within one click and "Crtl -F5" in the browse (complete refresh hot-key in IE), all the images defined in the theme are created on the fly.