Add a custom theme to Communities
Community owners can customize the appearance of a community by choosing from a selection of themes that change the colors used in the community. Administrators can modify or add to the selection of default themes provided with Communities by customizing the existing themes, or by defining custom themes and adding them to the Communities configuration file, communities-config.xml.
If we are performing other customizations that apply to all the applications in Connections, for example, if we are customizing the header and footer used in the product, we might need to alter or customize the themes available in Communities to ensure they work as expected in the environment. Consider adding themes that match the customizations you have made in other areas, for example, themes that match the customized header and footer.
To configure community themes to work with the corporate branding and best meet the needs of the organization, consider the following options:
- No themes defined. If we remove all the community themes defined in communities-config.xml. the corporate branding is applied throughout the Connections applications, and community owners are no longer given the option of choosing a theme when creating or editing a community.
- Multiple themes defined. If multiple themes are defined in communities-config.xml. community owners can apply one of these themes when creating or editing a community. That theme then takes precedence for that community over any global customizations or branding that have been applied to all the applications.
- One theme defined. If communities-config.xml.contains a single theme, any corporate customizations are applied to pages that are not community-specific, for example, the Public Communities page, and that single theme is applied to all community-specific pages. Because only one theme is available, the option to choose a theme does not display when users are creating or editing a community.
If we customized community themes in an earlier version of Connections, there is no migration path provided for importing the changes into IBM Connections 4 or later. Before upgrading to IBM Connections 4 or later, ensure that you review and make a note of the existing customizations to community themes so we can verify them post-migration and rework if necessary.
- Define a community theme
To define a custom theme for Communities, we typically start by copying an existing theme. The stylesheets for Communities are compartmentalized so the color information is stored separately from the overall structure of the page. This separation makes it easy to change the page's color without disrupting the layout.
- Add a theme to the Communities configuration file
After defining a custom theme, add it to the Communities configuration file, communities-config.xml.
- Specify the name of a custom theme
After adding a custom community theme to the Communities configuration file, specify the name of the new theme by adding a custom string containing the theme label to IBM Connections.
- Remove community themes
To make a specific community theme unavailable to the users, or to disable all community themes, we can do so by editing the Communities configuration file, communities-config.xml.
- Customize the new theme
Customize the new theme in Connections. The new theme is a packaged theme, available as a catalog offering on Greenhouse, and included by default in Connections 5.0. Once enabled, it can be customized through the Connections customization directory.
Parent topic:
Customizing
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