Features / Usability

Posted by Torsten Fabricius 25 Feb 2012 02:14 GMT-0000 posts: 1563

Hi smallhagrid,

you can try and switch back without any risk.

Very rarely people manage to lock themselves out, but in the worst case you can reapply the original standart theme directly in the database (provide you have access to the installations database phpMyAdmin).

In that case just go to the IRC, where you did meet me first time and ask the people there. We will give you a hand if you are stuck.

Most incompatibilities with themes come from newly added features or from very old themes.
From Tiki6 to Tiki7 we had major changes in the module system and from 6 to 9 many features have been added. But you should be fine trying your theme and then customise it to your needs and to the actual Tiki Version (if necessary).

For very advanced Themedesigners it might become tricky, if they start to use Smarty and interfere in the template files.

But most stuff like colors, radius, shadows, grafics etc. you do simply in the CSS files.
Though theme customisation in Tiki is very very easy.

You can access the CSS themes here:

tikiroot -> /styles

That's it.
Some hints for a start:

Make a copy of the CSS file in /styles.
example:
/styles/jqui_(copy).css and rename it with a dash, leaving the original part of the name:

/styles/jqui-mycustom.css

As long as you use original-custom.css the file will automatically remain related to the original folder.
In the above example both CSS files jqui.css and jqui-mycustom.css would be related with the directory /jqui, where Tiki for example would expect themeoptions for aswell jqui.css and jqui-mycustom.css and every else jqui-xyz.css

Lateron you might change the name completely or build your own theme. Then you'd need a related directory in /styles and a related template directory aswell.

But for a start just begin with original-mycustom.css and keep the rest like it is - then start with themeoptions, then go ahead ;-)

If you are looking for a good basic theme, that is aswell a not overdesigned skeleton, but already has a good number of selektors, try jqui.css

But also "playing around" with tikipedia.css could be a nice start. And why not developing a new tikipedia theme, looking like the new original one ;-)

Good luck and enjoy!
ToF