5 To change the look of friendica you have to touch the themes.
6 The current default theme is [duepunto zero](https://github.com/friendica/friendica/tree/master/view/theme/duepuntozero) but there are numerous others.
7 Have a look at [friendica-themes.com](http://friendica-themes.com) for an overview of the existing themes.
8 In case none of them suits your needs, there are several ways to change a theme.
9 If you need help theming, there is a forum @[ftdevs@friendica.eu](https://friendica.eu/profile/ftdevs) where you can ask theme specific questions and present your themes.
11 So, how to work on the UI of friendica.
13 You can either directly edit an existing theme.
14 But you might loose your changes when the theme is updated by the friendica team.
16 If you are almost happy with an existing theme, the easiest way to cover your needs is to create a new theme, inheritating most of the properties of the parent theme and change just minor stuff.
17 The below for a more detailed description of theme heritage.
19 Some themes also allow users to select *variants* of the theme.
20 Those theme variants most often contain an additional [CSS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSS) file to override some styling of the default theme values.
21 From the themes in the main repository *duepunto zero* and *vier* are using this methods for variations.
22 Quattro is using a slightly different approach.
24 Third you can start your theme from scratch.
25 Which is the most complex way to change friendicas look.
26 But it leaves you the most freedom.
27 So below for a *detailed* description and the meaning of some special files.
31 If you want to change the styling of a theme, have a look at the themes CSS file.
32 In most cases, you can found these in
34 /view/theme/**your-theme-name**/style.css
36 sometimes, there is also a file called style.php in the theme directory.
37 This is only needed if the theme allowes the user to change certain things of the theme dynamically.
38 Say the font size or set a background image.
42 If you want to change the structure of the theme, you need to change the templates used by the theme.
43 Friendica themes are using [SMARTY3](http://www.smarty.net/) for templating.
44 The default template can be found in
48 if you want to override any template within your theme create your version of the template in
50 /view/theme/**your-theme-name**/templates
52 any template that exists there will be used instead of the default one.
56 The same rule applies to the JavaScript files found in
60 they will be overwritten by files in
62 /view/theme/**your-theme-name**/js.
64 ## Expand an existing Theme
68 Many themes are more *theme families* then only one theme.
69 *duepunto zero* and *vier* allow easily to add new theme variation.
70 We will go through the process of creating a new variation for *duepunto zero*.
71 The same (well almost, some names change) procedure applies to the *vier* theme.
72 And similar steps are needed for *quattro* but this theme is using [lessc](http://lesscss.org/#docs) to maintaine the CSS files..
76 /view/theme/duepuntozero/deriv
78 you find a couple of CSS files that define color derivations from the duepunto theme.
79 These resemble some of the now as unsupported marked themes, that were inherited by the duepunto theme.
80 Darkzero and Easter Bunny for example.
82 The selection of the colorset is done in a combination of a template for a new form in the settings and aome functions in the theme.php file.
83 The template (theme_settings.tpl)
85 {{include file="field_select.tpl" field=$colorset}}
86 <div class="settings-submit-wrapper">
87 <input type="submit" value="{{$submit}}" class="settings-submit" name="duepuntozero-settings-submit" />
90 defines a formular consisting of a [select](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/select) pull-down which contains all aviable variants and s submit button.
91 See the documentation about [SMARTY3 templates](/help/snarty3-templates.md) for a summary of friendica specific blocks other then the select element.
92 But we don't really need to change anything at the template itself.
94 The template alone wont work though.
95 You make friendica aware of its existance and tell it how to use the template file, by defining a config.php file.
96 It needs to define at lest the following functions
101 and may also define functions for the admin interface
106 theme_content and theme_admin are used to make the form available in the settings, repectively the admin panel.
107 The _post functions handle the processing of the send form, in this case they save to selected variand in friendicas database.
109 To make your own variation appear in the menu, all you need to do is to create a new CSS file in the deriv directoy and include it in the array in the config.php:
112 'default'=>t('default'),
113 'greenzero'=>t('greenzero'),
114 'purplezero'=>t('purplezero'),
115 'easterbunny'=>t('easterbunny'),
116 'darkzero'=>t('darkzero'),
118 'slackr'=>t('slackr'),
121 the 1st part of the line is the name of the CSS file (without the .css) the 2nd part is the common name of the variant.
122 Calling the t() function with the common name makes the string translateable.
123 The selected 1st part will be saved in the database by the theme_post function.
125 function theme_post(&$a){
126 // non local users shall not pass
129 // if the one specific submit button was pressed then proceed
130 if (isset($_POST['duepuntozero-settings-submit'])){
131 // and save the selection key into the personal config of the user
132 set_pconfig(local_user(), 'duepuntozero', 'colorset', $_POST['duepuntozero_colorset']);
136 Now that this information is set in the database, what should friendica do with it?
137 For this, have a look at the theme.php file of the *duepunto zero*.
138 There you'll find somethink alike
140 $colorset = get_pconfig( local_user(), 'duepuntozero','colorset');
142 $colorset = get_config('duepuntozero', 'colorset');
144 if ($colorset == 'greenzero')
145 $a->page['htmlhead'] .= '<link rel="stylesheet" href="view/theme/duepuntozero/deriv/greenzero.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />'."\n";
146 /* some more variants */
149 which tells friendica to get the personal config of a user.
150 Check if it is set and if not look for the global config.
151 And finally if a config for the colorset was found, apply it by adding a link to the CSS file into the HTML header of the page.
152 So you'll just need to add a if selection, fitting your variant keyword and link to the CSS file of it.
155 Now you can use the variant on your system.
156 But remember once the theme.php or the config.php you have to readd your variant to them.
157 If you think your color variation could be benifical for other friendica users as well, feel free to generate a pull request at github so we can include your work into the repository.
161 Say, you like the duepuntozero but you want to have the content of the outer columns left and right exchanged.
162 That would be not a color variation as shown above.
163 Instead we will create a new theme, duepuntozero_lr, inherit the properties of duepuntozero and make small changes to the underlying php files.
165 So create a directory called duepunto_lr and create a file called theme.php with your favorite text editor.
166 The content of this file should be something like
169 /* meta informations for the theme, see below */
170 function duepuntozero_lr_init(&$a) {
171 $a-> theme_info = array(
172 'extends' => 'duepuntozero'.
174 set_template_engine($a, 'smarty3');
175 /* and more stuff e.g. the JavaScript function for the header */
178 Next take the default.php file found in the /view direcotry and exchange the aside and right_aside elements.
179 So the central part of the file now looks like this:
182 <?php if(x($page,'nav')) echo $page['nav']; ?>
183 <aside><?php if(x($page,'right_aside')) echo $page['right_aside']; ?></aside>
184 <section><?php if(x($page,'content')) echo $page['content']; ?>
185 <div id="page-footer"></div>
187 <right_aside><?php if(x($page,'aside')) echo $page['aside']; ?></right_aside>
188 <footer><?php if(x($page,'footer')) echo $page['footer']; ?></footer>
191 Finally we need a style.css file, inheriting the definitions from the parent theme and containing out changes for the new theme.
192 ***Note***:You need to create the style.css and at lest import the base CSS file from the parent theme.
194 @import url('../duepuntozero/style.css');
197 But I agree it is not really useful at this state.
198 Nevertheless, to use it, you just need to activate in the admin panel.
199 That done, you can select it in the settings like any other activated theme.
201 ## Creating a Theme from Scratch
204 Basically what you have to do is identifying which template you have to change so it looks more like what you want.
205 Adopt the CSS of the theme accordingly.
206 And iterate the process until you have the theme the way you want it.
208 *Use the source Luke.* and don't hesitate to ask in @[ftdevs](https://friendica.eu/profile/ftdevs) or @[helpers](https://helpers.pyxis.uberspace.de/profile/helpers).
214 If a file with this name (which might be empty) exists in the theme directory, the theme is marked as *unsupported*.
215 An unsupported theme may not be selected by a user in the settings.
216 Users who are already using it wont notice anything.
220 The contents of this file, with or without the .md which indicates [Markdown](https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/) syntax, will be displayed at most repository hosting services and in the theme page within the admin panel of friendica.
222 This file should contain information you want to let others know about your theme.
224 ### screenshot.[png|jpg]
226 If you want to have a preview image of your theme displayed in the settings you should take a screenshot and save it with this name.
227 Supported formats are PNG and JPEG.
231 This is the main definition file of the theme.
232 In the header of that file, some meta information are stored.
233 For example, have a look at the theme.php of the *quattro* theme:
239 * Author: Fabio <http://kirgroup.com/profile/fabrixxm>
240 * Maintainer: Fabio <http://kirgroup.com/profile/fabrixxm>
241 * Maintainer: Tobias <https://f.diekershoff.de/profile/tobias>
244 You see the definition of the themes name, it's version and the initial author of the theme.
245 These three information should be listed.
246 If the original author is not anymore working on the theme, but a maintainer has taken over, the maintainer should be listed as well.
247 The information from the theme header will be displayed in the admin panelö.
249 Next crucial part of the theme.php file is a definition of an init function.
250 The name of the function is <theme-name>_init.
251 So in the case of quattro it is
253 function quattro_init(&$a) {
254 $a->theme_info = array();
255 set_template_engine($a, 'smarty3');
258 Here we have set the basic theme information, in this case they are empthy.
259 But the array needs to be set.
260 And we have set the template engine that should be used by friendica for this theme.
261 At the moment you should use the *smarty3* engine.
262 There once was a friendica specific templating engine as well but that is not used anymore.
263 If you like to use another templating engine, please implement it.
265 When you want to inherit stuff from another theme you have to *announce* this in the theme_info:
267 $a->theme_info = array(
268 'extends' => 'duepuntozero',
271 which declares *duepuntozero* as parent of the theme.
273 If you want to add something to the HTML header of the theme, one way to do so is by adding it to the theme.php file.
274 To do so, add something alike
276 $a->page['htmlhead'] .= <<< EOT
277 /* stuff you want to add to the header */
280 The $a variable holds the friendica application.
281 So you can access the properties of this friendica session from the theme.php file as well.
285 This file covers the structure of the underlying HTML layout.
286 The default file is in
290 if you want to change it, say adding a 4th column for banners of your favourite FLOSS projects, place a new default.php file in your theme directory.
291 As with the theme.php file, you can use the properties of the $a variable with holds the friendica application to decide what content is displayed.