Argh! Its invasion of the body-switchers! OK, maybe not in the physical human sort of sense. But if you want to learn about a cool script that allows you to switch out style-sheets on a whim, then you in the right place my friend.

Since it was first released in 2001, Paul Sowden’s Style Sheet Switcher has been downloaded and used by thousands of designers and developers and has spawned many client-side and server-side adaptations.

Having used Paul’s script on numerous projects, I began to wonder how style-sheet switching could be extended to give users even more choices or accessibility enhancements, so I turned to my good friend Brothercake to make my ideas a reality and Invasion of the Body Switchers was born.

Looking back at the original Style Sheet Switcher

Fantastically simple in its implementation, Paul’s original script was not without its woes.

Anchors which trigger the switching functions are generally present in the mark-up, which is a problem if javascript is unavailable, and the # anchors commonly used are an unnecessary annoyance.