How-To: Create a Custom Theme by Copying the Default Theme

This is a quick write up on how to create a custom theme based on the default theme. This is useful in the event you want to make changes but don't want them overwritten or lost during the update process. For in depth information regarding themes, please refer to the article in our doc:

http://cumulusclips.org/docs/guide-to-cumulusclips-themes/

To create your custom theme follow these steps:

1) Navigate to the directory: /cc-content/themes.

2) Copy and paste the default theme folder. Give the new folder a valid URL friendly name.

3) Edit the theme.xml file in your new theme. Change the name and description. This is what appears in the Admin Panel.

4) Login and navigate to the Admin Panel -> Appearance -> Themes and activate your new theme.

5) Done! Now you can modify your theme to your liking and not worry about losing your changes during updates.

The steps above make a complete copy of the default theme. This isn't completely necessary, because CumulusClips uses a fallback approach to custom themes. You really only need to copy/create the specific template files you want to customize. The system will fallback to the default theme if it needs a file it cannot find in your theme. This is useful to keeping your themes small and not duplicating logic, but it is more advanced.