Overriding Templates with the theme_merge Folder

If you are using the shared 'global_design_mode_theme' resource, all your sites will share the core design mode theme framework. This is our recommend approach and ensures that all sites will see new theme features as we update the core version. All your main design work for a site's look and feel is handled using the browser-based Design Mode tools.

However, sometimes you might want to add some customisation for a given site, whilst continuing to use the global theme resource for the rest of the theme.

The theme_merge folder solves this problem.

Firstly create a new folder inside the folder for a given site. For example /sites/YOURSITEFOLDER/theme_merge

You can then add any or all of the following files and folders inside the theme_merge folder:

/css/
/graphics/
/javascripts/
/css/email.css
/email/email.tpl 
/settings/advanced_image_styles.json
/settings/advanced_image_styles_email.json
/settings/advanced_text_styles.json
/settings/image_sizes.json
/settings/image_sizes_email.json
/settings/shortcode_replacements.json
/templates_columns/
/templates_widgets/

Files in the 'css', 'graphics' and 'javascripts' folder will all be available using the absolute paths starting with those folder names on that site's domain name. i.e www.example.com/css/new-file.css

The /css/email.css file and the /email/email.tpl replace the existing files completely for the given site and are used to generate the email templates for all auto responder and ‘Compose’ emails.

All the .json files are combined with the values from the shared theme resource.

Files in templates_columns and templates_widgets will be added to the list of available column layouts and widgets for the given site. They will be .tpl Smarty template files. Learn more about creating widgets.