Themes

Apply, switch, edit, and manage the design system behind a whole form.

A theme is a reusable design system applied to a whole form. It bundles design tokens — named values for colors, fonts, spacing, and corner radius — plus a default look for every kind of element, so every heading, button, and field starts consistent.

Every form renders with a theme; a form that never picked one uses Simple.

Built-in and custom themes

  • Built-in themes — nearly thirty designs ship with Formtoro, from the neutral Simple and Dark to opinionated palettes like Editorial, Neon, and Onyx. Built-ins are read-only.
  • Custom themes — your own copies, badged Custom. You get one by duplicating a built-in on the Branding page, or automatically the first time you edit a built-in theme in the builder (see below).

Switching a form's theme

In the builder, the Theme section (in the Form scope of the inspector) shows the active theme with a small preview. Change opens the Choose a theme modal — built-ins first, then your custom themes. Picking a theme restyles the whole form at once, and switching is clean: the old theme's element styles are swapped out entirely, so no stale styling is left behind. Your content, layout, and any reusable Styles you created are untouched.

Editing a theme

Edit in the Theme section opens the theme editor — token controls on the left (Brand colors, Typography, Spacing, Radius) and a live preview of your actual form on the right.

  • Save palette commits your changes. Discard changes reverts them. Closing without saving keeps your edits as a pending buffer — the canvas keeps the new look and an Unsaved badge reminds you to reopen and save.
  • Editing a built-in theme never changes the built-in. Your first save creates a custom copy (named like "Neon (custom)"), assigns it to the form, and applies your edits there. The editor tells you this up front.
  • Editing a custom theme updates every form that uses it. A warning in the editor states the blast radius before you save. Draft forms pick up the change next time you open them; a live form keeps serving its published look until you save a new version — see republish after changing shared settings.
  • Custom themes can also be renamed from the Theme section (Rename theme).

Managing custom themes

Custom themes can be deleted from two places: the Branding page (each custom theme card shows how many forms use it, with a drill-down to see which) and the builder's theme picker (a delete icon on any custom theme that isn't currently active).

Deleting is guarded: if any form still uses the theme, the delete is blocked unless you explicitly confirm the force option — then drafts fall back to the default theme, while live published versions continue serving their snapshot normally.

Next steps

  • Reusable Styles — override the theme for one kind of element, consistently.
  • Themes & styles — how a theme, a Style, and a local tweak stack.
  • Going live — why a live form needs a new version to pick up theme changes.