The design extension wizard (Setup > RAD) #

This page is for designers who want a working theme extension skeleton without typing it. The wizard writes the folder, the design, the settings, the metadata, a README, a LICENSE and a .gitignore, and shows every file before it writes anything.

Before you start #

• An administrator account with the setup/setup policy (the view's function).
• A development installation, not a live site: the wizard writes into extension/.
• A name for the theme (Naming your theme extension).

Step by step #

1. Open Setup > RAD (/setup/rad) and choose the design extension tool, or go directly to /setup/designextension.
2. Under What it is fill:

3. Under What goes in it tick the parts you want (The design wizard's parts). Tick all and Tick none help.

4. Press Refresh preview. Every file, before it is written lists each path with its size; click a heading to read the file. Open all and Close all expand or fold them.

5. Choose:

   • Create in extension/ writes the files to extension/<name>. The wizard never writes over an extension that exists and writes nothing outside extension/<name>.
   • Download as zip gives you the same files as <name>.zip without writing anything (Downloading the wizard's result as a zip).

6. After Create, the page says "Written to extension/<name>. Switch it on with the lines below, then clear the caches." The lines are:

   [ExtensionSettings]
   ActiveExtensions[]=<name>

7. Activate the theme (Activating a theme), regenerate the autoloads, clear the caches, and set SiteDesign=<name> for a test siteaccess.

What to check afterwards #

• php -l extension/<name>/ezinfo.php and xmllint --noout extension/<name>/extension.xml pass.
• From Exponential 6.0.15 on, the wizard writes extra.ezpublish-legacy-extension-name in composer.json, a working page_head.tpl and pagelayout.tpl, the Frontend stylesheet and script lists, and, with Template operators, autoloads/eztemplateautoload.php. For a theme generated by an older wizard:
  • composer.json: add "ezpublish-legacy-extension-name": "<name>" under extra (The Composer installer and the folder name).
  • The generated page_head.tpl and pagelayout.tpl: fix the title, print the stylesheets and scripts and write a plain character set (Three edits the generated head and layout need).
  • If you ticked Template operators, add autoloads/eztemplateautoload.php (Template operators in a theme).

Related pages #

• From the wizard's output to the first commit
• RAD tools, RAD security
• Tutorial: create a theme extension
• Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.