Part 6: Theme developers
This is the sixth part of Extension development: the book. A theme is how a site looks: its pagelayout, its templates for each kind of content, its stylesheets, scripts and images. In Exponential, a theme is an extension with a design folder in it, so everything the earlier parts said about extensions applies, and this part adds what is special about designs.
The chapters
| Chapter | What it answers |
|---|---|
| Themes are extensions | why a theme is packaged as an extension, and what that gives you |
| The anatomy of a design extension | every folder and file of a theme, from a real one |
| A theme with the RAD wizard | the quickest start, and what to check in what it writes |
| A theme by hand | the same, file by file, so you understand each one |
| Themes and siteaccesses | which site uses which theme, and how themes stack |
| Theme assets, the packer and CSP | stylesheets, scripts and images that load fast and pass the policy |
| Dark mode and design tokens in themes | one set of variables, two color schemes |
| Distributing a theme | licenses of fonts and images, Composer, packages |
| Where the designers' help continues | the template language and design help beyond this book |
Who this part is for
- Designers who know HTML and CSS and want their design to become a site theme. Part 2 of this book (The builder) explains templates and overrides; read at least The design chain first.
- Developers who package a theme for others, or for several sites of their own.
Related pages
- Previous: Case study: a pull request to an upstream author
- Next: Themes are extensions
- Templates and design
- A design inside an extension
- Extension development: the book
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.
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