History: Three Ways to Make a New Theme

File arrangements

First, establish the basic file arrangement of your new theme. (See also Theme Options ).

First steps

• Pick a name for the theme. Check the styles directory to make sure there's not an existing theme (i.e., *.css file) with the same name.
• There is no authoritative register of Tiki theme names but, if you intend to share your theme, it would be good to check at themes.tikiwiki.org, mods.tikiwiki.org, and in the standard Tiki download package to make sure no theme already exists with the same name.

CSS file

• Create a new CSS file with the theme name you chose and place it in the styles directory (like styles/newtheme.css). (See CSS Overview for more details.)

Template (.tpl) files

• If at all possible, you should try to use the default template (.tpl) files for your new theme, since having custom files makes it harder to update your theme when the default files are upgraded. But if your new theme does use its own variants of the default templates, create a sub-directory in the templates/styles directory and give it the same name as your theme (like templates/styles/newtheme).
• Copy any files that you want to modify from the templates directory or from an existing theme's templates directory to your theme's templates directory.
  • For example, if your theme is a "fixed width" design not possible without a special tiki.tpl, such as a theme based on the Kubrick design, copy the files from templates/styles/kubrick (if Kubrick is installed, or copy from the Kubrick download package) to templates/styles/newtheme. Otherwise use copies of default template files. See Template Overview for more details.
  • Note: a theme will use the template files of another theme if its name is a hyphenated version of that theme. For example, if there is a theme named Simple that has its own template versions and you want to make a theme that uses those templates, then naming your theme something like simple-newtheme.css will cause your theme to use Simple's templates rather than the default ones.
• Once its CSS file is in place, your new theme has been added to your site. If you go to the Look and Feel admin page or User Preferences and check the drop-down menu for Theme, you'll find your theme listed. Of course, without changing the CSS and/or template files, the new theme will look unstyled or the same as the existing theme it is to be based on.

See next: CSS Overview and Template Overview.

Related information

Allow users to set the theme

On Admin > Look and Feel (Theme tab) (Admin > Login prior to Tiki 3.0) you can activate "Reg users can change theme"__.

Once activated users can change their theme in their Preferences page under My Tiki menu.

Under Modules you can also activate the switch_theme module which makes it very easy for any user to change themes.

Using multiple themes on your Tiki site

http://www.doc.tikiwiki.org/tiki-index.php?page=Theme+Control at doc.tikiwiki.or describes how to assign themes to

• A Tiki category
• A Tiki section
• An individual Tiki object (i.e., an individual wiki page, blog, gallery, etc.)

If you enable Theme Control, you will see a link to Theme Control in the Admin section of the application menu.

User groups can also be assigned a specific theme. Check doc.tikiwiki.org for details.

(from http://doc.tikiwiki.org/tiki-index.php?page=Styles and Themes)