History: Modifying an Existing Style Sheet

Style sheet file

1. For the theme that you want to base a new theme on, find its CSS file in the (Tiki root)/styles directory. Please note that the CSS files are not in the (Tiki root)/templates/styles directory. In a default Tiki installation, there are two directories named styles under the Tiki root:
   • (Tiki root)/styles (for CSS files)
   • (Tiki root)/templates/styles (for theme-specific sub-directories that contain .tpl files)
2. Copy the CSS file, rename it to match your new theme name, and put it in the (Tiki root)/styles directory with all the other CSS files — for example, (Tiki root)/styles/newtheme.css.
3. Edit newtheme.css to give your theme its style.
4. If your theme is to use background and other images, it's best to create a subdirectory for them within the styles directory--giving it your theme's name.
   • For example, (Tiki root)/styles/newtheme/

Places to start

As of TikiWiki 2, theme-related files are in a transition period, moving away from old-school table-based layout and toward liquid layout method based on divs. Themes using the new method include, in the Tiki 2 package, Darkroom, Feb12, The News, and Tikinewt, and the themes on Themes_for_TW2 (the "fixed-width" themes of which use a table for layout due to IE7's lack of support for the display:table CSS property). The focus of these themes has been on more modern and economical use of CSS, so any would be a good model for a custom theme. It's best to avoid basing a custom theme on an older theme.