Theme styles

Introduction

The archive’s appearance and colour scheme are defined by a theme style.

A theme style is a set of editable properties that are compiled against a template to produce a Cascading Style Sheet used by the browser to style the archives web pages.

There are two templates – light-on-dark and dark-on-light. You can think of these templates as a formula for creating a colour scheme base on whether your theme style will have light text on a dark background or dark text on a light background.

There are two example theme style sets pre-installed on the archive that demonstrate each of these templates ­– Desert Nights and Coastal Glare. The former using the light-on-dark template and the latter uses the dark-on-light template.

The style that is used by the archive is called the ‘default style’. While the archive can have multiple theme styles, only one style can be used as the default at any one time. Portal archives can use a different default style from the master archive to clearly distinguish between each of the archives.

Theme styles are modified using the Style editor within the archive. The editor logically groups, labels and describes each of these properties to simplify a rather extensive set of properties.

The process of creating your own theme style or modifying an existing style can be time consuming and complicated; after all, there are over 160 editable properties in a theme style. The following suggested workflow can take some of the frustration out of editing your archives appearance.

To view the Theme styles page, navigate to:

1. Main Menu
2. Administration tab
3. Theme styles hyperlink

Your User account must have Administration access permission enabled to view and preview theme styles. To create, modify and remove styles you must be logged in using a Super Administrator account.

If the hyperlinks, pages and resources for Theme styles are not available on the archive, try logging in with an account with higher administrative privileges or as a Super Administrator.

Creating or copying a theme style

You will be required to login using a Super Administrator account to create new styles.

1. Navigate to the Theme styles page by going to: Main Menu → Administration tab → Theme styles hyperlink.
2. In the Actions button menu, select New style.
3. In the New style wizard, enter a Name for your new style and select the template for the new style in the Use template field. Click Continue.
4. In the Copy style step, you can choose to copy the style properties of an existing style or use the default template properties. Make your selection in the Use styles list.
   
   Note: you can only copy styles from existing styles of the same template type.
   
   Click Continue.
5. The new style will begin compiling, once finished, the wizard will display the outcome of the process. Click Done to return to the Theme styles page.
   
   See Editing theme styles and Setting the default theme style for the archive for what to do next.

Editing theme styles

You will be required to login using a Super Administrator account to modify styles.

1. Navigate to the Theme styles page by going to: Main Menu → Administration tab → Theme styles hyperlink.
2. In the list of styles, locate the style you wish to edit and click its title hyperlink.
3. In the Edit style page, make your changes to the style’s properties, then click Save to compile the style.

Previewing a theme style

Previewing a style does not change the style for other users logged into the archive. The style being previewed will only be shown in your browser.

1. Navigate to the Theme styles page by going to: Main Menu → Administration tab → Theme styles hyperlink.
2. Click Preview style in the row of the style you wish to preview.
3. Once you’ve finished previewing the style, return to the Theme styles page and click Stop preview to display the default style for the archive.

Setting the default style for the archive

You will be required to login using a Super Administrator account to set the default style.

Note: You cannot make a style the default if it is out-of-date. If you receive this message, simply open the style in the Edit style page and save it. This will force the style to recompile, and you should then be able to make the style the default. 

1. Navigate to the Theme styles page by going to: Main Menu → Administration tab → Theme styles hyperlink.
2. In the list of styles, locate the style you wish to use as the default and click Make default beneath the title of the style.
3. On the Make default style page, click Default style.

Removing theme styles

You will be required to login using a Super Administrator account to remove styles.

Note: If you are removing the default style, you must first create or assign another style as the default for the archive.

1. Navigate to the Theme styles page by going to: Main Menu → Administration tab → Theme styles hyperlink.
2. In the list of styles, locate the style you wish to remove and click Remove beneath the title of the style.
3. On the Remove style page, click Remove style.