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Installation

Requirements

  • A running Domoticz installation: Domoticz 2025.2 or newer. Machinon is developed against the latest Domoticz beta, so that's the recommended version to run it on. The Setup menu, and the Theme Hub entry inside it (see Theme Hub), is visible to admin users only, on both stable and beta releases; non-admin logins have a separate path to it, covered on that same page.
  • A browser you can hard-refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R), since you'll need to do that once after installing or updating the theme.

Installing Machinon

Pick one of the five options below. Option 1 is recommended for most users; Option 3 installs and updates from inside Domoticz with no terminal.

The leanest install: just the built theme, no source files.

cd domoticz/www/styles
git clone -b dist --single-branch https://github.com/domoticz/Machinon.git machinon

To update later, run git pull inside the machinon folder.

Option 2: release zip

Download machinon-<version>.zip from the GitHub Releases page and unzip it into domoticz/www/styles/. The zip already contains a machinon/ folder, so you don't need to create one yourself.

To update, download and unzip the next release the same way; it overwrites the old files.

Option 3: PyPluginStore

PyPluginStore installs themes and plugins from a catalogue inside Domoticz, and Machinon is listed in it, so you can install and update the theme without a terminal. Install PyPluginStore following its own instructions, then find Machinon in its list and install it.

It refreshes the theme by resetting to the published branch rather than a plain git pull, so it keeps working across releases, including the v2.0.0 history rewrite.

Option 4: Theme Manager plugin (optional)

The Theme Manager plugin can also install Machinon. It installs the full source repository rather than the lean dist build, so Option 1 loads faster if you don't need the plugin for other themes. Machinon's listing in Theme Manager is still being finalised, so you may need to point it at this repository manually for now.

To update, use Theme Manager's own update flow; see that plugin's documentation.

Option 5: full source (developers)

cd domoticz/www/styles
git clone https://github.com/domoticz/Machinon.git machinon

The source loads around 27 separate CSS files rather than one flattened file. That's fine for development, where you want to edit and reload individual files, but it's slower than the dist build for everyday use. To update, run git pull inside the machinon folder, the same as Option 1.

Activating the theme

None of the five install options above make Machinon the active theme by themselves; they only put the files in place. To switch to it:

  1. In Domoticz, open the Setup menu in the navbar and choose Settings.
  2. On the System tab (the tab that opens by default), find the Theme dropdown under User Interface and select machinon.
  3. Click Apply Settings. On a desktop screen it's the red button next to the row of tabs at the top of the page; narrower than 767 pixels (see Mobile layouts), Machinon pins it to a bar fixed to the bottom of the screen instead.

The theme choice only persists once you click Apply Settings

Picking machinon from the dropdown previews it, but the choice is not saved to Domoticz until you click Apply Settings. Leaving the page, or refreshing before clicking it, discards the change and you'll still be on your previous theme.

  1. Hard-refresh your browser (Ctrl+Shift+R).

A hard refresh is required

Browsers cache the old theme's files. A normal refresh (F5) often keeps serving them, so the page can look unchanged or broken after switching themes. Ctrl+Shift+R forces the browser to fetch Machinon's files fresh. Do this again after every theme update, for the same reason.

No Domoticz restart is needed for any of this.

Upgrading from 1.x

Machinon's repository history was rewritten for the v2.0.0 release. If you have a pre-2.0 clone, git pull inside it will fail, because the old and new histories no longer share a common base.

To update, delete the old machinon folder and reinstall using Option 1 or Option 2 above. The Theme Manager plugin (Option 4) also installs a git clone under the hood, so it breaks the same way; remove and reinstall through Theme Manager too. PyPluginStore (Option 3) resets to the published branch, so it updates cleanly across the rewrite with no manual step.

Nothing needs migrating: all of your theme settings live in Domoticz itself, not in the theme folder, so a clean reinstall picks them up automatically. See Theme Hub for how that storage works.