Versions Compared

Old Version 3

changes.mady.by.user Tim Donohue

Saved on

compared with

New Version 4

changes.mady.by.user Tim Donohue

Saved on

Key

  • This line was added.
  • This line was removed.
  • Formatting was changed.

...

Theme Technologies

The DSpace UI uses the :

...

  • for general layout & webpage components (buttons, alerts, etc)
  • Sass, a CSS

...

  • preprocessor, for stylesheets. Sass is very similar to CSS

...

  • (an in fact, any CSS is valid Sass). But, Sass allows you to nest CSS rules & have variables and functions.  For a brief overview on Sass, see https://sass-lang.com/guide
  • HTML5, the latest specification of the HTML language

Familiarity with these technologies (or even just CSS + HTML) is all you need to do basic theming of the DSpace UI.

Creating a Custom Theme

Theme Directories & Configuration

...

The theming configuration can be found in the src/environments/environment.*.ts.  See User Interface Configuration.

Getting Started

  1. Start with the "custom" theme: The best place to start with a new theme is the "custom" theme folder (src/themes/custom). This folder contains the boilerplate code for all theme-able components. It's a scaffolding for a new theme which doesn't modify any of the "base theme" (src/app/ directories). This means that by default it's a plain Bootstrap look and feel, with a few tweaks for better accessibility.

...

  1. Create your own theme folder OR edit the "custom" theme: Either edit the "custom" theme directory, or copy the "custom" theme folder (and all its contents) into a new folder under src/themes/ (choose whatever folder name you want)
  2. Register your theme folder (only necessary if you create a new folder in previous step): Now, we need to make the UI aware of this new theme folder, before it can be used in configuration.

    1. Modify angular.json (in the root folder), adding your theme folder's main "theme.scss" file to the "styles" list.  The below example is for a new theme folder named src/themes/mydspacesite/

      Code Block
      "styles": [
  "src/styles/startup.scss",
  {
     "input": "src/styles/base-theme.scss",
     "inject": false,
     "bundleName": "base-theme"
  },
  ...
  {
     "input": "src/themes/mydspacesite/styles/theme.scss",
     "inject": false,
     "bundleName": "mydspacesite-theme"
  },
]

      NOTE: the "bundleName" for your custom them MUST use the format "${folder-name}-theme".  E.g. if the folder is named "arc/themes/amazingtheme", then the "bundleName" MUST be "amazingtheme-theme"

  3. Enable your theme: Modify your src/environments/environment.*.ts configuration file, adding your new theme to the "themes" array in that file.  Pay close attention to modify the correct file (e.g. modify environment.dev.ts if running in dev mode, or environment.prod.ts if running in prod mode).  The "name" used is the name of the theme's folder, so the below example is for enabling a theme at src/themes/mydspacesite/ globally.  You should also comment out the default "dspace" theme, if you intend to replace it entirely.

    Code Block
    // In this example, we only show one theme enabled. It's possible to enable multiple (see below note)
themes: [
 {
    name: 'mydspacesite'
 },
]

    NOTE: You can also choose to enable multiple themes for your site, and even specify a different theme for different Communities, Collections, Items or URL paths. See User Interface Configuration for more details on "Theme Settings".