Theme Builder release notes
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Summary of Theme Builder release notes
The ServiceNow® Theme Builder application allows you to customize the visual experience for your users, aligning the platform’s look and feel with your brand identity. The Zurich release introduces significant enhancements focused on brand alignment, ease of use, and accessibility.
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Key Features
- Brand Guidelines Upload: Starting in Zurich Patch 9, you can upload your brand guidelines as a PDF within the Now Assist panel to help generate themes that reflect your brand’s style.
- AI-Powered Theme Creation: Since Zurich Patch 7, leverage Now Assist with AI to create brand-aligned themes from images. You can preview multiple options, refine them, and publish directly from Theme Builder. This requires Now Assist for Creator.
- New Coral Theme: Publish or unpublish the fresh, brand-neutral Coral theme with a dark variant for web and mobile, enhancing user experience with modern visuals.
- Custom Fonts Management: Upload and manage up to 10 custom font families, each with unlimited font faces, to maintain consistent branding and improve accessibility. Fonts can be previewed, edited, or deleted within Global or Component styles.
- Enhanced Image Customization: Version 6.1 enables you to edit colors and override default illustrations for modals, tiles, banners, and cards, allowing deeper branding customization.
- Dark Mode for Theme Builder Interface: Improve usability in low-light environments by switching the Theme Builder interface (not the themes) to dark mode.
- Guided Tours: Interactive guided tours assist users in learning features and completing tasks efficiently within Theme Builder (version 6.1+).
- UI Improvements: Updated modals with drag-and-drop upload, larger preview windows, and renamed typography sections streamline theme creation and styling.
Activation and Availability
Theme Builder is included as a core plugin with the Next Experience application and is available by default. You can update to the latest version from the ServiceNow Store to access all new capabilities.
Accessibility Benefits
- Custom Fonts: Enhance readability for users with visual impairments, cognitive differences (e.g., dyslexia, ADHD), and global audiences with non-Latin scripts.
- Dark Mode: Helps reduce eye strain and improves comfort during extended use of the Theme Builder interface.
Related ServiceNow Tools
- App Engine Studio: Develop applications to automate business processes.
- UI Builder: Create workspace pages and custom web experiences using Next Experience Components.
The ServiceNow® Theme Builder application enables you to customize the visual experience for your users so that you can update the look and feel to be more like your brand. Theme Builder was enhanced and updated in the Zurich release.
Theme Builder highlights for the Zurich release
Zurich Patch 9
- Beginning with Zurich Patch 9, upload brand guidelines as a PDF to the theme creation workflow in the Now Assist panel to generate themes that align with your brand.
Zurich Patch 7
- As of Zurich Patch 7, use Now Assist to automatically create brand‑aligned themes, then refine and publish them in Theme Builder.
- Publish the new Next Experience Coral theme from Theme Builder.
- Add custom fonts to your theme for enhanced branding.
- As of Theme Builder version 6.1, configure modal, tile icon, banner, and card colors, and override these default illustrations with your own custom imagery.
- As of Theme Builder version 6.1, enable dark mode to improve usability of Theme Builder in low-light conditions.
See Working with themes in Next Experience for more information.
Important:
Theme Builder is available by default and upgrades are available in the ServiceNow Store. For details, see the "Activation information" section of these release notes.
New in the Zurich release
- Upload brand guidelines to the theme creation workflow
- Upload your brand guidelines as a PDF to the theme creation workflow within the Now Assist panel to generate themes aligned with your brand.
- Create a theme using Now Assist
- As of Zurich Patch 7, leverage Now Assist to generate themes based on your brand image. After generating a theme, navigate to Theme Builder to publish and apply additional styling. This feature requires Now Assist for Creator.
- Create a theme with AI in Theme Builder
- As of Zurich Patch 7, use AI to generate themes from brand images, preview multiple options, and refine results all within the updated Create a theme wizard. If you prefer, you can skip the AI step and continue creating your theme manually using the existing workflow. This feature requires Now Assist for Creator.
- Publish the new Coral theme
- Publish or unpublish the new Coral theme directly from Theme Builder. This theme provides a fresh look and feel and features brand-neutral illustrations to enhance your user experience. A dark theme variant is available for web and mobile experiences.
- Upload and manage custom fonts in your theme
- Use your organization's fonts to maintain a consistent look and feel for your brand throughout your experience.
- Upload, preview, and edit at most 10 custom font families from the Global styles or Component styles tabs.
- Add unlimited associated font faces to each font family and apply them individually to components.
- Delete your font family or font face from your theme.
- Explore the expanded image categories with color editing and override capability
- As of Theme Builder version 6.1, configure the following new image categories to further enhance your theme:
- Edit the colors of banners, modals, tile icons, and cards from within Theme Builder.
- Override each of these default illustrations with your own custom images to uniquely align with your branding style.
- Guided tours in Theme Builder
- As of version 6.1, learn about additional features and complete tasks through interactive steps by taking guided tours within Theme Builder.
- Create a theme using Now Assist
- As of Zurich Patch 7, leverage Now Assist to generate themes based on your brand image. After generating a theme, navigate to Theme Builder to publish and apply additional styling. This feature requires Now Assist for Creator.
- Create a theme with AI in Theme Builder
- As of Zurich Patch 7, use AI to generate themes from brand images, preview multiple options, and refine results all within the updated Create a theme wizard. If you prefer, you can skip the AI step and continue creating your theme manually using the existing workflow. This feature requires Now Assist for Creator.
UI changes
- Global styles upload and selector modals updated
- A more consistent, user-friendly interface is now available for uploading logos, fonts, and shapes. The following changes have been made:
- A larger modal for uploading your company logo with a browse or drag-and-drop capability.
- A larger modal for selecting predefined corner shapes and fonts.
- A preview window within each modal for immediately viewing your selections before they’re applied to your theme.
- Updated Global styles Overview panel
- The Global styles Overview panel has been updated in the following ways:
- The Font section has been renamed Typography.
- The font family field that is listed in the Typography section has been renamed as the Default font family. The Default font family still indicates which font is applied globally across your theme, unless you override it at the component level.
- Create a theme wizard color selector updated
- As of Theme Builder version 6.1, when you create a theme, the color selector now defaults to Coral theme colors instead of static gray tones. This means your initial color options feature a blue hue for a more vibrant look. Colors can still be customized at any time by selecting a preferred color in the color selector.
Activation information
Theme Builder is included as a core plugin with the Next Experience application and is available by default. You can update to the latest version of Theme Builder from the ServiceNow Store.
Accessibility information
- Upload a custom font to your theme
- The ability to upload custom fonts to your theme can help users with disabilities in several ways, including:
- Improved readability: Custom fonts can be selected to enhance readability, making text easier to see, understand, and retain. This is beneficial for users with visual impairments, as clear letter forms reduce eye strain.
- Support for cognitive differences: Custom fonts can address cognitive accessibility needs. For instance, users with dyslexia or Attention- Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) may benefit from fonts that reduce reading strain and improve information processing.
- Improved globalization support: Custom fonts tailored to specific languages improve the readability for non-Latin alphabets and ensure consistent, accessible user experiences across global audiences.
- Dark mode in Theme Builder
- As of version 6.1, Theme Builder is now available in light and dark mode. This option is commonly used to alleviate eye strain and improve readability. Dark mode applies to the Theme Builder interface only and does not affect the appearance of individual themes.