Tired of the same old library of themes for your favorite browser, Microsoft Edge? Update now and you’ll find that there’s a slick AI-powered theme generator available that means you can create exactly what you want! Better yet, you can easily fine-tune it to look great in your browser too. Here’s how it works…
If you’re like me, you’ve probably searched through browser themes to find just the right one to express your personality and interests, without success. Some are close – there are some great artists and photographers submitting themes – but picking a theme often seems to involve some level of compromise. Meanwhile, AI-powered image generation is evolving at a breakneck pace, improving dramatically each month.
Finally, the engineering team behind the popular Microsoft Edge browser [powered by Chromium] has neatly merged the two with the new Microsoft Edge AI Theme Generator. Better yet, you don’t need an account with OpenAI, you don’t need to set up Microsoft Copilot, you don’t need to give the ‘bot your shoe size or home address; it’s ready to go once you pop over to the correct URL.
Shortcuts: AI Theme Generator | Megalodon Theme | Fine Tuning | Random Images
To begin, however, you’ll want to ensure that your copy of Microsoft Edge is updated. This is most easily done by going to edge://settings/help and clicking “check for updates”. Easy enough!
MICROSOFT EDGE AI THEME GENERATOR
To find this fun new tool, head over to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/create-a-theme
In honor of National Megalodon Day (really! it’s June 15 every year) I’m going to start right out with a detailed prompt for what should be a fun Edge wallpaper:
These prompts are where you should exercise all your descriptive creativity, even if things contradict each other. The more information you offer as a starting point, the more likely it’ll be able to create an image that’s close to what you envision. I also find words like “dramatic” and “photorealistic” help create “realistic” images that appear more like photos. Prefer “watercolor” or “pencil sketch” or “renaissance oil painting” or “bold graphic”? Use those phrases instead.
A click on “Create theme” and it’ll get to work. I find that themes take 20-30 seconds to create, during which time you see a nice reminder of what all is included in a theme:
And, finally, we have a theme!
MEGALODON EDGE BROWSER THEME!
Here’s what the AI produced:
That’s pretty dang cool, actually! At this point you can also choose which of the frame colors you believe works best with the newly created image: that’s what all the color circles are in the middle. Prefer the ironic color “salmon” for the titlebar and frame? Click on the “rainbow” circle to pick your own.
IMPORTANT: While you can change colors in either of the two modes of this window (you’ll see what I mean in a moment), it’s only when the button shows “Apply theme” that it will actually take effect. This is a minor bug that will be fixed eventually.
Pick a color, click on “Apply theme” and this changes subtly to “View theme”. I can’t resist clicking!
That’s pretty fantastic for 30 seconds of work on my part.
FINE TUNING YOUR MASTERPIECE
However… looking more closely at the image, I kinda wish the megalodon was a bit lower on the screen so we could see the entire beast, not have its upper portion cut off. This centering issue might be something that the Edge team will tweak, but for images that go right to the top edge, it’s a bit annoying. (yes, total first world problem!)
Go back to the tab that shows the generated theme with the corresponding color options and click on “Create another theme”. It goes back to the original screen, but your prompt remains, so it’s easily tweaked:
My hope is that this will drop the megalodon down a bit and have some sky above that can easily be eclipsed by the menubar, address bar, and other frame elements. It doesn’t quite get interpreted that way…
This is some sort of weird The Meg meets Sharknado image (which is a genius idea for a b-movie, but that’s another story entirely!) with flying sharks and the central image almost exactly in the same spot. Not exactly what I was expecting, but that’s also pretty common with AI image generation. It takes practice to get the perfect image…
RANDOM IMAGE PROMPTS
Did you notice the “Surprise me” button on the main image prompt screen? Turns out that it offers up a rotating set of prompts that others have used, making it quite fascinating in its own right. I’ll go back and click on it to have this prompt appear:
Another click and this appears:
A third click and I got a prompt that sounded pretty darn cool too. They’re editable, so I added a few words of my own and clicked “Create theme”…
I really like this image, actually, and with a darker frame color, it’s one I can definitely live with (until the next time I want to utilize this tool). The prompt I submitted for this image was “a futuristic city on another planet with spaceships flying and an enormous moon in the sky, sunset, golden hour, photorealistic HD vintage steampunk”. Remember what I said earlier about lots of descriptive words in the prompt, even if slightly redundant or contradictory? This is an example of what I mean.
In fact, I like this so much I’m going to click on the “Share” button:
Now go and start creating your own custom Microsoft Edge themes, whether you love peaceful rose gardens, anime racecars, baskets of cute kittens with tiny hats, or alien landscapes!
Pro tip: I’ve been writing about Microsoft Windows for many years. Please check out my extensive Windows help area and my new AI tips and tricks library for more useful tutorials while you’re here!