Decorator plugin modules are available in Confluence 2.5 and later versions

Decorator plugin modules allow you to add decorators without using a Theme Plugin.

Decorator Plugin Module

The following is an example atlassian-plugin.xml file containing a single decorator:

<atlassian-plugin key="com.atlassian.confluence.extra.sample" name="Sample Plugin">
...
    <decorator name="myDecorator" page="myDecorator.vmd" key="myDecorator">
        <description>My sample decorator.</description>
        <pattern>/plugins/sampleplugin/*</pattern>
    </decorator>
...
</atlassian-plugin>

Decorator resource file

Decorator files are written in the Velocity templating language and have the VMD extension. The following is a sample decorator file:

<html>
<head>
    <title>$title</title>

    #standardHeader()
</head>

<div id="PageContent">
    <table class="pagecontent" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%">
    <tr>
        <td valign="top" class="pagebody">
            <div class="pageheader">
                 <span class="pagetitle">$title</span>
            </div>
            $body
         </td>
    </tr>
    </table>
</div>

</body>
</html>

You can familiarise yourself with Velocity at the Velocity Template Overview and decorators in general at the Sitemesh homepage.