Choosing a design or theme #

This page is for website creators who decide how their site will look. In Exponential a design is a directory of templates, stylesheets, images and scripts; a theme is a design packaged as an extension. You can use a theme as it is, adapt it, or build your own. This page compares the three and shows how a siteaccess is pointed at a design.

Contents #

1. Three ways
2. The themes that ship
3. Adapting a theme the safe way
4. Your own design
5. Pointing a siteaccess at a design
6. Decision checklist

Three ways #

The themes that ship #

sevenx_themes_simple and ezwebin share the ezwebin classes, so content moves between them without changes.

Adapting a theme the safe way #

A theme installed by Composer is replaced on every update. Never edit its files in place (sevenx_themes_simple, "Use it"). Instead:

1. Create your own design extension, for example extension/mysite_design/ with design/simple/templates/ (the same design name as the theme) and settings/design.ini.append.php:

   <?php /* #?ini charset="utf-8"?
   [ExtensionSettings]
   DesignExtensions[]=mysite_design
   */ ?>

2. Activate it before the theme, so its files are found first:

   # settings/override/site.ini.append.php
   [ExtensionSettings]
   ActiveAccessExtensions[]=mysite_design
   ActiveAccessExtensions[]=sevenx_themes_simple

3. Copy only the templates you change into your extension, keeping their paths, and change them there.

4. Add your stylesheet to [StylesheetSettings] CSSFileList[] in your extension's design.ini.append.php (Stylesheets and scripts for your site).

5. Clear the caches for new template paths (php bin/php/ezcache.php --clear-id=template-override --allow-root-user and --clear-tag=template).

Why it works: designs are searched in extension order, and the first file found wins (Designs, siteaccesses and the design fallback chain, Extension loading order).

Your own design #

Start from a design with nothing in it and let the standard design answer everything you have not written yet:

extension/mysite_design/
├── design/mysite/
│   ├── templates/pagelayout.tpl        the frame of every page
│   ├── override/templates/full/        templates per class, chosen by override rules
│   ├── stylesheets/
│   ├── images/
│   └── javascript/
└── settings/
    ├── design.ini.append.php           DesignExtensions[]=mysite_design, CSSFileList[], JavaScriptList[]
    └── siteaccess/<site>/override.ini.append.php

Write the pagelayout first (The pagelayout: your site's frame), then one full and one line template per class (Template overrides for site builders).

Pointing a siteaccess at a design #

# settings/siteaccess/<site>/site.ini.append.php
[DesignSettings]
SiteDesign=mysite
AdditionalSiteDesignList[]
AdditionalSiteDesignList[]=simple

SiteDesign is searched first, then each AdditionalSiteDesignList[] entry, then standard (StandardDesign in settings/site.ini). Check what is in effect:

php bin/php/console exp:ini where site/DesignSettings/SiteDesign <site>

Decision checklist #

• To do: Do the shipped theme's classes fit the content model? If not, plan your own templates.
• To do: Is right-to-left needed? Check the theme's stylesheets (Right-to-left sites).
• To do: Does the theme meet your accessibility target? (Accessibility for site builders)
• To do: Who updates the theme, and how do you test an update before it goes live?
• To do: Is the design in Git, in your own extension, not in design/ of the installation?

Related pages #

• Site packages and the themes that ship
• Templates and design
• Branding: site name, logo, favicon and meta tags
• Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.