Topic: Theme Conventions
Topic type:
What are the elements that need to be in a theme for it to work with Kete?
Originally written by Walter McGinnis, Kete Project Lead for Katipo Communications, Ltd.
Part of the How to Use Themes Guide
A Kete theme is simply a folder with certain standard subfolders and files. Here's what you need to know:
- the theme's folder should be named after what you want the theme called, but with underscores between words (and no other special characters, please). So if you wanted to call your theme "Black and Blue" the folder would be named "black_and_blue".
- each theme needs a folder inside of it named "stylesheets" for its CSS files
- each theme needs a folder inside of it named "images" for any images that it depends on
- each theme needs to have a sample.jpg file that is a thumbnail of what theme looks like. Please no image files larger than 200 pixels wide. This file should be in the "images" folder.
- it's a good idea to take a look at the Stylesheet Best Practices topic, feel free to add your own best practices there, too.
Most of the action is in your stylesheets folder.
Themes operate by taking the styles that Kete includes and simply rewriting only the styles that the theme wants changed. Check the theme repository for examples.
Lastly, to share a theme, or upload it to your site, you must package it up in a zip, gzip, or tar file.
