Web page rendering mechanism using external programmatic themes

A web page rendering mechanism in which a computing system generating a web page from a web page definition. A web page class is compiled from the web page definition. The theme-specific properties are described separate from the web page definition in theme-oriented text documents that are compiled into a theme class. The web page is rendered by executing an instance of the web page class in conjunction with an instance of the theme class. The web page object may include an object for each control element to be rendered. In addition, the theme object may include an object for control elements of each control element type. When rendering a control element of a particular type, the object corresponding to that control element is executed from the web page object. In addition, the object corresponding to the control element type is executed from the theme object.