ElkArte Community

Steps to update old themes

June 21, 2019, 04:50:02 am

I was browsing through the theme section and everything seems to be outdated (except few) and i was wondering is there a way to update the themes to latest. I like to try and update the themes, how to get started and what to look into?

Re: Steps to update old themes

Reply #1 – June 21, 2019, 10:56:28 am

I am not sure how but you can start with its css. Grab it and paste them into custom css of default EA theme.

Re: Steps to update old themes

Reply #2 – June 21, 2019, 10:57:58 am

To understand it better, only css files need to updated or the templates as well?

Re: Steps to update old themes

Reply #3 – June 21, 2019, 12:07:45 pm

It really depends on the theme you are updating. Css as I mentioned is only a start. Templates, icons can be looked slowly into thereafter. At least that is how I upgraded my own theme (not finished though).

Re: Steps to update old themes

Reply #4 – June 21, 2019, 06:58:39 pm

Thanks for the clarification. I will install ElkArte locally and try updating the themes.

Re: Steps to update old themes

Reply #5 – June 21, 2019, 11:52:20 pm

In 1.1 vs 1.0 there was a lot of restructuring of the css to fully separate the "structure" from the "style" (color, corners, borders, etc) This started in 1.0 but much more was done in 1.1.  

Anyway if you were to do a diff (use this program if you are on windows https://github.com/WinMerge/winmerge-v2/releases ) you will see massive change BUT you don't need to do most of those changes to get a 1.0 theme to convert, its just "nice" and makes color and basic look changes easier for others.

One big change was moving from png icons and sprite sheets to svg icons (massive accessibility improvement) so you need to update the various icon blocks in the css, use the new stuff in place of the old or you end up with massive looking icons.

Font Awesome was depreciated in 1.1, but you can still easily enable it should a theme rely on those icons.

I think for one of my themes I did the "basic" updates that were required, and for another I did more of the full css restructuring, so look around for those as a potential guide as well.

Re: Steps to update old themes

Reply #6 – June 22, 2019, 06:50:58 am

If i was web designer i would have understood your points. But i am novice, as you instructed i will slowly learn things. Thanks!