Customize Theme

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The Boldy theme by mnkras has a great drop down menu (tks). I want to change some styling however. Every theme has a "Themes - Customize Theme" option but when I select this option the message "this theme contains no styles" appears.

Could someone please point out a video or tutorial that explains this feature of a Theme? Does that allow the theme style be replaced by a custom style (like mystyle.css) or does this just mean you can change a specific css tag, ID or class property:value?

bhat
 
ThemeGuru replied on at Permalink Reply
ThemeGuru
You would need to just edit the css that came with the theme. Thats the easiest way :-)
bhat replied on at Permalink Reply
bhat
Thanks, changing the original css is a good option.

However, I finally figured out the theme customize option. The developer documentation, Pages -> Configurable Theme Styles, explains this capability. It wasn't working because I missed one little detail. Changing the link from getThemePath() to getStyleSheet() is essential.

Changing style.css works well. My objective is to utilize the CMS dashboard features. That way a client can modify the colors with just a little training.

It will take a little more testing and maybe the final choice will be to re-write the style.css? It is helpful to hear what other people do to customize their themes.
TheRealSean replied on at Permalink Reply
TheRealSean
yep it parses the css looking for /*customize_variable*/

Also its worth noting that css has to be structured in a specific way to ensure that it works,

/* customize_body */ font: normal normal 13px Arial; /* customize_body */
/* customize_body */ color: #777777; /* customize_body */

the following would not work
/* customize_body */ font-family: Arial, Tahoma; /* customize_body */
I dont think short codes will work either
/* customize_body */ color: #777; /* customize_body */

the link for anyone wanting to read a little more on it
http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/developers/pages/configurabl...
bhat replied on at Permalink Reply
bhat
Muchas Gracias, both those distinctions might easily be missed. Font-family and short color codes are used often. Thank you for helping me to avoid those speed bumps. If anyone knows other properties that work (positive is good too) and those that don't work, this might be a good discussion to include that information. Well done!
Mnkras replied on at Permalink Reply
Mnkras
Sorry, I got lazy and never added that, I might get to it in the next few weeks, (btw you can use the support forum on the theme's page)

Mike
bhat replied on at Permalink Reply
bhat
Thanks Mike. The themes you offer are a real benefit. This was mostly a learning curve on my part. I find it incredible that so many people provide great themes so many thanks to you and all the others.

Since I posted this conversation, I ran across another concern.

For increased speed it was suggested to change this->getStyleSheet() to this->getThemePath(). But it was necessary to use this->getStyleSheet() to get the customize options to work.

Seems like the decision for customization of a theme is complicated. Maybe the suggestion by "ThemeGuru" is best. It does not give the client as much control but it might help in terms of the speed to load the web page. If I have to choose, speed is the highest priority (specially on a shared web host)!