Setting up a custom theme

Almost immediately after installation, you will want to override the default theme. There is currently no mechanism to “import” a theme, and there is no current ecosystem for themes, so you will most likely be cloning the default theme for your site.

Log into the Administrative interface for your site, and click “Themes” in the left-hand navigation. A new subsection will slide down, with “Manage…” as the first item. Click it.

The subsequent page will display some basic information about the default theme, and at the bottom you will see a button: Create a clone of this theme.

Click the button, and fill out the form, giving your theme a new name, and indicating which files and directories you wish to copy over to the new theme.

You do not have to copy anything by default, but in general you probably want to copy

/layout_templates/

The outer HTML structure of all of your pages

global page_head include file

The main file that loads CSS and javascript into the page head

global pagebanner.inc include file

The template included as the page header (logo, site title, etc)

global footer.inc include file

The footer included on every default page template

The _site_settings.scss and site.scss SASS files are automatically copied to the new theme, but you can indicate if you want the (empty to begin with) site.css file to be copied over as well.

The manifesto.css and administration.css files should only be modified by an experienced Manifesto developer, as you could severely affect the backend interface.

If you want to immediately have the new theme applied to your site, check the box to Activate.

After submitting the form, you will be shown a confirmation page with a few more pieces of information. Submit that form, and you’re all set with your new theme.