Pretty simple, huh? Now let me explain in details how we gonna do it. Once you master the technic, you'll never want to live without it. Beside save your time, it also speed up your design time. Trust me. 
Objective
- make offline copy of your Multiply pages, and
- work on that copies instead
Make offline copy
Open your main Multiply page, and save it to your local space (harddisk, flashdisk, etc.).
But before hitting that [Save] button, make sure you check the option on how you will save that page. To make it simple, save it as "Web Page, HTML only".
You can find this option near the [Save] button. Please remember the location where you save this page. Name this file according to the base theme and page where it comes from, eg. (makoy_mainpage.html)
Then run your favourite text editor
- Linux :gedit/KEdit,
- Mac : textMate
- Windows :Notepad, etc.
and open the HTML you just saved before. Pay attention to the beginning part of the file, like the screenshot below.
You need to change the line which I circled with red color. That particular line will serve as your local theme. So change the line into a local CSS filename, eg. (makoyCustom.css), without any subdirectory information (see the screenshot below). Don't forget to save your changes afterwards.
Still with your favourite text editor, create a new and empty file with the same name as your changes, eg. (makoyCustom.css), and save it as with .css file extension in the same location as your previous HTML. That's why you need to remember the location, as I mentioned above.
That's it! Now open the HTML file in your browser, while working on the text editor with your new theme code. Just refresh the browser each time you need to see the result.
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Complete offline copy
To overcome the situation when your Internet connection is cut, then save the HTML as "Web Page, complete". By this you will have a single HTML file and a new subdirectory with similar names with HTML file. This subdirectory contains all the necessary files to display the page properly. The disadvantage of this method is, you might have old copy than your current page online.
Important pages
This is a list of pages which I consider to be important for designing theme. I have copies of each of them with every base theme. Depending on your preference, you might not need all of them.
- main page ( http://userid.multiply.com )
- calendar ( http://userid.multiply.com/calendar )
- guestbook ( http://userid.multiply.com/guestbook )
- table view ( http://userid.multiply.com/links )
- contacts/groups ( http://userid.multiply.com/contacts )
- RSS feed info ( http://userid.multiply.com/feed )
- profile ( http://userid.multiply.com/profile )
Make every filename unique with combination of base theme name and source page, eg. makoyCalendar.html, makoyGuestbook.html, etc. And don't forget to change the same line in red accordingly inside those HTMLs.
Now you have an offline collection of theme pages, ready to be used anytime. Another advantage is, you can try new themes by copying the existing CSS code without install it first.
Cheers!!!
