(see below for a list of theme changes in recent Geeklog versions)

Creating a Theme for Geeklog

Creating a theme for Geeklog is easy and quite fast. If you can manipulate HTML files then you can create a theme! There's no need to learn PHP.

Creating a theme

First, copy an existing theme that is most similar to what you want to implement (if one exists). If what you will do is radically different (and we hope so!) then copying any one will do. Copy the existing theme to the name you want your theme to have (please, no spaces in the theme name):

cp -R /path/to/geeklog/public_html/layout/Yahoo /path/to/geeklog/public_html/layout/My_Theme_Name_No_Spaces

Change into your new theme directory:

cd /path/to/geeklog/public_html/layout/My_Theme_Name_No_Spaces

Now edit the templates to suit your needs. Keep in mind that templates, generally are partial HTML files. The directory you just created holds ALL templates Geeklog needs but you will only need to modify a small few to make a huge impact on the look.

In particular these are the templates you will undoubtedly want to change:

header.thtml
footer.thtml
blockheader.thtml
blockfooter.thtml
storybody.thtml
storybodytext.thtml
featuredstorybody.thtml
featuredstorybodytext.thtml
archivestorybody.thtml
archivestorybodytext.thtml
style.css

How themes work

When rendering a theme, Geeklog starts with header.thtml which builds the site's header and then goes on to include the left column of blocks (look for the variable {left_blocks} and the leftblocks.thtml file). The middle part of a site consists of the stories which are built using the storytext.thtml and storybodytext.thtml (for normal stories) and featuredstorytext.thtml and featuredstorybodytext.thtml (for featured stories) template files. The footer.thtml file then builds the right column of blocks (variable {right_blocks}, file right_blocks.thtml) and the site's footer. Blocks themselves consist of the blockheader.thtml and blockfooter.thtml files.

The above only describes how Geeklog's main page and stories are rendered. More templates exist for the various editors and lists you will see in Geeklog, as well as for the calendar and almost every other part of Geeklog.

There is currently no complete list available that explains which template file is used for which part of Geeklog. However, in most cases the use should be obvious when you have a look at the file and directory names in your theme's layout directory. If you're unsure which template file is used to render a certain part of Geeklog, have a look at the URL. You will notice the name of a PHP file there, e.g. the users.php file when you view a user's profile. Open that file and search for '.thtml'. For the profile you will find these lines (in function userprofile()):

$user_templates = new Template ($_CONF['path_layout'] . 'users'); $user_templates->set_file (array ('profile'=>'profile.thtml', 'row'=>'commentrow.thtml', 'strow'=>'storyrow.thtml'));

You don't need to understand PHP code to see that this uses the template files profile.thtml, commentrow.thtml, and storyrow.thtml. The first line also indicates that these are taken from the users directory within the theme's layout directory.

An incomplete list of variables that can be used in templates files is also included.

Testing a theme and further information

After you have edited your themes, you are now ready to test it out. Simply go to http://mygeeklogsite/usersettings.php?mode=preferences - in the theme drop-down select your newly created theme (note the name of your theme is the same name as the directory for your theme).

Finally, you may want to update the logo and other images in your theme's images directory.

For the template system we are using PHPLib's template class (http://phplib.sourceforge.net/). Read their documentation and, optionally, look at /path/to/geeklog/system/classes/template.class.php to see how it is implemented. Even with this knowledge it may not be clear which templates are used in conjunction with one another (i.e. storybody.thtml and storybodytext.thtml together make up the complete format of a single story). If you have questions join our mailing list at http://lists.geeklog.net/listinfo/geeklog-users or check us out in IRC at irc.freenode.net in #geeklog.

Tips and tricks

Themes and WYSIWYG editors: The template files used by Geeklog are not complete HTML files - they contain only parts of the HTML that Geeklog puts together to build a proper HTML document. This, however, seems to confuse some WYSIWYG HTML editors and some of them tend to add the HTML which they think is missing from the file, thus making it unusable for Geeklog.
We suggest you use a simple text editor to edit your themes.

PHP in themes: You can use PHP in the header of a theme, i.e. in the header.thtml file. If you want to use custom PHP functions, you can put them in the file functions.php within your themes directory.

Different look for left and right blocks: You can give the blocks on the left and right a different look. See this story on the Geeklog homepage for details.

Polls: To use multi-colored bars in the graphical display of poll results, you can use the {answer_counter} and {answer_odd} variables in the pollbooth/pollvotes_bar.thtml template file. {answer_counter} will be replaced with a running number for each answer, hence bar{answer_counter}.gif would result in bar1.gif, bar2.gif, etc. Giving each of those GIFs a different color would give you a different color for each answer.
{answer_odd} will alternate between 0 and 1 for every answer, hence bar{answer_odd}.gif will result in bar0.gif for the first, third, fifth, etc. answer and bar1.gif for the second, fourth, etc. answer.

Left blocks in the right column: $_CONF['left_blocks_in_footer'] (in config.php) is a rather curious option. It makes the {left_blocks} variable available in the site's footer (i.e. footer.thtml) while at the same time disabling it in the header (header.thtml).
The idea is that this can be used for two-column layouts (one column for the blocks and one column for the content) but when you want to have the blocks on the right side. Simply moving all blocks to the right will not work as expected, as you'd end up with no blocks at all on those pages that normally only display the left blocks (e.g. article.php or the admin pages). Setting $_CONF['left_blocks_in_footer'] = 1 will fix this, so that the blocks, while internally still treated as left blocks, will actually be displayed on the right.
The theme's header.thtml, footer.thtml, and leftblocks.thtml will probably need some adjustments. It is also recommended to leave the $_CONF variable unchanged in config.php and overwrite it in the theme's functions.php instead. That way, you can even leave your users a choice between, for example, a "normal" theme and one with the blocks on the right.

Theme changes in Geeklog 1.4.0

As usual, any missing new theme files can simply be copied over from the default theme (Professional) that ships with Geeklog.

Admin templates

Geeklog 1.4.0 comes with revamped Admin sections which required a lot of theme changes. We therefore suggest that you simply replace the entire admin directory of your theme with the admin directory from Geeklog's default theme (Professional) as it ships with Geeklog 1.4.0 and apply any modfications you may have made to your Admin templates again afterwards.

Note: The new icons for "Command and Control" (moderation.php) in the Professional theme use a white background. For themes with a dark (or other non-white) background, you can download these icons as PNGs with alpha transparency (note that Internet Explorer can not display images with alpha transparency unless you include a JavaScript "hack" into your theme, so you may want to convert those icons to normal transparency or simply set the background to that of your theme).

Advanced editor

To use the included advanced editor (FCKeditor) you will need the following new template files:

comment/commentform_advanced.thtml (for comments)
submit/submitstory_advanced.thtml (for story submissions)
admin/story/storyeditor_advanced.thtml (Admin's story editor)
staticpages/templates/admin/editor_advanced.thtml (for the Static Pages editor, located in /path/to/geeklog/plugins)
advanced_editor_header.thtml (included by all of the above)

You also have to add {advanced_editor} to the <head> section of your theme's header.thtml file.

Other changes

The comment templates commentbar.thtml and thread.thtml have changed due to changes in the comment handling.
New directories trackback and admin/trackback containing several new template files have been added for the trackback support.
New variables {send_trackback_link}, {send_trackback_url}, and {lang_send_trackback_text} are available in the story and article template files. They provide a complete link as well as the URL and link text allowing you to send a trackback comment for the current story.
The links and admin/link directories have been removed. Links are now a plugin and the plugin's templates can be found in /path/to/geeklog/plugins/links/templates.
The pollbooth and admin/poll directories have been removed. Polls are now a plugin and the plugin's templates can be found in /path/to/geeklog/plugins/polls/templates.
The preferences/profile.thtml template now has additional fields for the password change (old password, confirmation field for the new password).
The search form, search/searchform.thtml has a new option for the number of search results per page, while the hard-coded option to search for links has been removed (since Links are in plugin now, it will show up as part of the {plugin_types} option).


An additional variable, {services}, has to be added to the
    loginform.thtml template file if you plan to allow users to log in
    to your site using remote authentication.
If you plan to enable Trackbacks on your site, you may want to add links to
    a story's trackbacks section to your story template files, e.g.
    {start_trackbacks_anchortag}{trackbacks_with_count}{end_trackbacks_anchortag}. See the Professional theme's story template files for
    examples.
For the site statistics, the file stats/sitestatistics.thtml has
    changed (entries for the links and poll have been removed and a new entry
    for the number of active users has been added). There is also a new file,
    stats/singlesummary.thtml, that is used for plugin entries.
The navbar directory is now part of a Geeklog theme (previously
    used by some plugins, e.g. the Forum plugin). It contains two files,
    menuitem.thtml and navbar.thtml, as well as two images,
    button.gif and button_over.gif.




Theme changes in Geeklog 1.3.11

There are no mandatory theme changes in Geeklog 1.3.11, so themes made for Geeklog 1.3.10 will work just fine without any modifications.

A few minor additions / new options have been introduced:

A new variable, {camera_icon}, can now be used in the story
    and comment template files to display the small camera icon (the same as in
    the Who's Online block) to link to the author's user profile (only if they
    uploaded a userphoto).
The {layout_url} variable is now available in the templates
    for the story, link, and event submission forms.
Also in the submission forms, a variable {separator} is now
    available in addition to the misspelled {seperator}
    variable.
A new variable, {calendar_mode}, can be used in the
    calendar/events.thtml template file to ensure that the "add event"
    link will take the user to the proper event submission form for either the
    site calendar or the personal calendar.


Theme changes in Geeklog 1.3.10

General note: To upgrade your custom theme for use with Geeklog 1.3.10, you can simply copy over any new template files from the Geeklog default theme.

The biggest change in Geeklog 1.3.10 is that we now ship it with only one
default theme (the Professional theme, kindly provided by Victor B. Gonzalez)
and that the previously included themes are now available as a separate
download.

Admin templates

Most themes don't change the template files in the theme's admin
directory, so you can often save yourself a bit of work by simply replacing
the entire admin directory with the one from the Geeklog 1.3.10
distribution.


The story editor, admin/story/storyeditor.thtml includes new
    options for the story archiving and for editable story IDs. It is
    recommended to make a copy of this file and re-apply any changes you may
    have made to your copy again afterwards!
The list of polls, admin/poll/polllist.thtml now supports
    paging, i.e. uses the {google_paging} variable.
The list of events uses paging and a row number now (files affected:
    admin/event/eventlist.thtml and
    admin/event/listitem.thtml).
The plugin editor, admin/plugins/editor.thml, now displays 2
    version numbers for the plugin: The installed version and the (possibly
    differing) version of the actual code.  In the latter case, it will also
    display an update button.

    The list of plugins, admin/plugins/pluginlist.thtml and
    admin/plugins/listitem.thtml, also displays the 2 version numbers
    and now supports paging when more than 25 plugins are installed.
The topic editor, admin/topic/topiceditor.thtml, contained a
    hard-coded "10" for the default number of stories per pages. The new
    variable {default_limit} provides the actual default value now.
admin/mail/mailform.thtml has been changed to look slightly less
    ugly ...


Other templates


Added two new templates for the new story archive feature. This allows you
    to theme olderstories differently. By default Geeklog 1.3.10 ships with
    these template files not themed and the same as a standard story. The new
    template files are archivestorytext.thtml
    archivestorybodytext.thtml
Due to various changes in the comment engine, it is recommended that you
    copy over all the comment template files from the comment directory
    (comment/reportcomment.thtml is actually a new file).
In calendar/dayview/dayview.thtml, i.e. in the calendar's day
    view, the hard-coded am/pm times have been replaced by variables of the
    form {xx_hour} (where 'xx' is 0-23).
In the event details template, i.e. in calendar/eventdetails.thtml,
    the event type and an edit icon were added (this change was only made in
    Geeklog 1.3.10rc3).
A "location" field was added in the user's profile: Added {lang_location}
    and {user_location} in users/profile.thtml and {lang_location},
    {lang_location_text}, and {location_value} in
    preferences/profile.thtml.


Optional changes

The following is a list of optional changes (mostly new variables that are
now available). This information is mostly of interest for those who want to
develop their own themes.


{article_url}, i.e. the full URL to an article, is now also available in
    article/printable.thtml.
In links/linkdetails.thtml the new variable {link_actual_url} now
    contains the actual link URL (instead of a link to Geeklog's
    portal.php).
The following variables are now available in calendar/eventdetails.thtml:
    {event_state_name} (full name of the state), {event_state_only} and
    {event_state_name_only} (abbreviated and full state name without the comma),
    {event_edit} (link to edit the event, if allowed for the current user),
    {edit_icon} (same, but with the edit icon instead of a text link),
    {lang_event_type} and {event_type} for the event type
The topic image is now available through the {topic_image} variable in
    topicoption.thtml and topicoption_off.thtml
Several class names have been introduced so that the various lists that
    Geeklog uses can now be styled individually: list-feed, list-new-comments,
    list-new-links, list-new-plugins, list-older-stories, list-personal-events,
    list-site-events, list-story-options, list-whats-related (the names should
    be self-explanatory).

    Use {list_class_name} to get the actual class name, and {list_class} to get
    class="classname".
Several class names have been introduced so that the 2 small calendars
    in the calendar's month view can be styled: .smallcal, .smallcal-headline,
    .smallcal-week-even, .smallcal-week-odd, .smallcal-week-empty,
    .smallcal-day-even, .smallcal-day-odd, and .smallcal-day-empty



Theme changes in Geeklog 1.3.9


In header.thtml, you can now use the new variable
    {allowed_menu_elements} as an alternative to using
    {menu_elements}. The new variable takes the
    $_CONF['XXXloginrequired'] settings into account, i.e.
    it will only list those entries that the current user has access to.
The admin/syndication directory, containing
    feededitor.thtml, listfeeds.thtml,
    listitem.thtml, and selecttype.thtml has been added.
Template files comment/comment.thtml and
    comment/thread.thtml have been added and
    comment/startcomment.thtml has been changed to implement
    template-driven comments.

    Please note that comment/comment.thtml was changed again
    in Geeklog 1.3.9rc2.
A {link_edit} variable has been added to
    links/linkdetails.thtml so that admins can edit links directly
    from the links section.
An "edit" icon has been added: images/edit.gif. The new variable
    {edit_icon} can be used as an alternative to
    {edit_link} in the story template files and in
    links/linkdetails.thtml.
In the calendar/calendar.thtml file, the "mode" parameter has been
    added to the << and >> buttons, so that users stay in their
    personal calendar when browsing through months.
A new file, admin/group/groupmembers.thtml, has been added and
    admin/group/listitem.thtml has been changed for the new
    alternative option to add users to groups.
A new file, admin/block/listside.thtml, has been added and
    admin/block/listitem.thtml and admin/block/listblocks.thtml
    have been changed for the enhanced block list.
A {google_paging} variable has been added to
    admin/link/linklist.thtml. Also added a column number to
    linklist.thtml and admin/link/listitem.thtml.
All template files where the user can enter a URL are now using a new
    variable, {max_url_length}, instead of a hard-coded number of
    characters for the max. length of the URL. Files affected:
    admin/block/blockeditor.thtml,
    admin/event/eventeditor.thtml,
    admin/link/linkeditor.thtml,
    admin/topic/topiceditor.thtml,
    submit/submitevent.thtml, submit/submitlink.thtml.
The hard-coded &nbsp; has been removed from the
    {welcome_msg} variable. The blank was then added to the
    header.thtml of the Classic, XSilver, and Yahoo themes (the other
    themes either look fine without it or didn't use {welcome_msg}
    in the first place).
An extra table has been removed from the
    users/profile.thtml file of the XSilver theme so that the
    username now lines up properly with the other entries.


Theme changes in Geeklog 1.3.8

Theme changes in Geeklog 1.3.8 were mostly aimed at moving as much of the
hard-coded HTML into template files as possible. Other changes were made to
give theme authors better control over the layout and a small portion of changes
were done to incorporate new Geeklog features.

New template files

This is a list of the new files. You can safely copy these over from one of
the standard themes that ship with Geeklog (most of these files contain HTML
that was previously hard-coded into Geeklog).

adminoption_off.thtml
loginform.thtml
topicoption.thtml
topicoption_off.thtml
useroption_off.thtml
admin/database/listbackups.thtml
admin/database/listitem.thtml
admin/user/edituser.thtml
admin/user/plainlist.thtml
comment/commentbar.thtml
comment/startcomment.thtml
pollbooth/pollanswer.thtml
pollbooth/pollblock.thtml
pollbooth/pollcomments.thtml
pollbooth/pollresult.thtml
pollbooth/pollvotes_bar.thtml
pollbooth/pollvotes_num.thtml
preferences/boxesblock.thtml
preferences/commentblock.thtml
preferences/deleteaccount.thtml
preferences/digestblock.thtml
preferences/displayblock.thtml
preferences/displayprefs.thtml
preferences/excludeblock.thtml
preferences/language.thtml
preferences/privacyblock.thtml
preferences/profile.thtml
preferences/theme.thtml
preferences/username.thtml
preferences/userphoto.thtml
search/resultauthdatehits.thtml
search/resultrowenhanced.thtml
search/resultsummary.thtml
search/resulttitle.thtml
users/newpassword.thtml


Note: preferences and admin/database are new directores.


Changed / updated template files

These files have changed since Geeklog 1.3.7, i.e. they may contain new
variables, table columns, etc. If you haven't changed these files in your
existing theme, it is probably best to simply copy them over from one of the
themes that ship with Geeklog (with the exception of style.css and
header.thtml, see below).

style.css (see below)
header.thtml (see below)
admin/block/blockeditor.thtml
admin/block/listblocks.thtml
admin/block/listitem.thtml
admin/event/eventeditor.thtml
admin/event/eventlist.thtml
admin/event/listitem.thtml
admin/group/grouplist.thtml
admin/group/listitem.thtml
admin/story/liststories.thtml
admin/topic/listitem.thtml
admin/topic/topiceditor.thtml
admin/topic/topiclist.thtml
calendar/editpersonalevent.thtml
calendar/eventdetails.thtml
search/searchform.thtml
search/searchresults.thtml
submit/submitevent.thtml
users/getpasswordform.thtml


In style.css, four classes have been added that are used in the
new search code of Geeklog 1.3.8. Instead of copying over the entire file, you
will probably only want to copy over the code for those four classes:
searchAuth, searchDate, searchHits,
highlight.

If the header.thtml of your theme is using the
{menu_elements} variable, then you do not need to make any
changes to it. If it is not using that variable, then you will need to make one
change to it. In that case, search your header.thtml for the link
to the story submission form, i.e. something like
    <a href="{site_url}/submit.php?type=story">

and change it to read
    <a href="{site_url}/submit.php?type=story{current_topic}">



Removed template files

If you have a file named commentheader.thtml in your theme
directory, you can safely remove it. It isn't used at all.


Theme changes in Geeklog 1.3.7

Please note that all the following changes are optional. Themes
made for Geeklog 1.3.6 will work just fine with Geeklog 1.3.7 - no changes
are necessary.

New features and improvements


  Theme-based topic icons are now supported by setting $_THEME_URL
    in the theme's functions.php file. The variable should point to
    a directory that has the same hierarchy as Geeklog's images directory
    (note that the path to topic images is stored relative to Geeklog's
    public_html directory).

    Example:
    $_THEME_URL = $_CONF['layout_url'];
  The $_BLOCK_TEMPLATE "hack" can now be applied to the
    What's Related and Story Options blocks, as well. Use
    whats_related_block and story_options_block as the block
    names.
  The What's Related and Story Options blocks are now available as
    separate variables using {whats_related} and
    {story_options}, respectively
    (the {whats_related_story_options} variable for both blocks is
    still available).
  Several new variables can now be used in the story templates, e.g.
    {contributedby_fullname} for the full name of a story author and
    {contributedby_photo} for his/her user photo.
  When the new config variable $_CONF['showfirstasfeatured'] is set
    to 1, then the first story on every page is rendered using the
    template files for featured stories, even when the story is not marked as
    featured.


Other changes


  The template file admin/plugins/installform.thtml has been
    removed since it isn't used any more.
  Two new optional template files,
    admin/plugins/newpluginlist.thtml and
    admin/plugins/newlistitem.thml, have been added to support
    formatting of the list of plugins which haven't been installed yet. If
    these files do not exist, hard-coded HTML is used to present the list.
  The template file admin/link/listitem.thtml has been changed
    so that all the links are clickable.
  COM_pollResults() doesn't use the side block templates any
    more when called from pollbooth.php. Therefore, you can now use
    different layouts whether the poll results are displayed in a side block
    or on the separate poll results and comments page.
  Removed the Normal / Archive / Refreshing drop down menus from the admin
    story and poll editors of the themes that ship with Geeklog. The setting
    of this dropdown isn't used in Geeklog anyway and has just confused users
    in the past ... (files admin/story/storyeditor.thtml and
    admin/poll/polleditor.thtml)



Theme changes in Geeklog 1.3.6

There have been a lot of changes in the themes for 1.3.6 to get rid of the
last pieces of hard-coded english texts so as to make localisation easier.
Most of these changes have been made in the Admin editors (admin 
directory) and the calendar (calendar directory). If you created
your own theme for an earlier version of Geeklog, we recommend that you copy
over these two directories from one of the themes that come with Geeklog
(choose one that is similar to your own theme or which it was originally based
on). It seems like most Geeklog themes didn't change these files anyway, so
this shouldn't be too much of a hassle ...

Other changes

  The template file admin/mail/mailform.thtml has been added.
    This form for sending emails to other users of the site was previously
    hard-coded into Geeklog.

    If you followed the above advice and copied over the admin
    directory to your theme, you got this file already.
  Two new files menuitem_last.thtml and
    menuitem_none.thtml have been added to give theme authors better
    control over the items in menu bars ({menu_elements} and {plg_menu_elements}
    variables in header.thtml). The template file
    menuitem.thtml is now used to render the first and any following
    menu items - with the exception of the last menu item, which is rendered
    using menuitem_last.thtml. If there are no menu elements for a
    menu bar, menuitem_none.thtml is used.
  New files have been added and the existing files have been changed for
    the links section (links directory). Again, we recommend to just
    copy over those files from one of the themes that ship with Geeklog.

    The new files are: categoryactivecol.thtml,
    categorycol.thtml, categorynavigation.thtml,
    categoryrow.thtml, pagenavigation.thtml
  The user profile has been extended to include a list of the last 10
    stories as well as the total numbers of stories and comments posted by that
    user. Have a look at the file users/profile.thtml to see the
    changes or just copy that file over from one of the themes that ship with
    Geeklog. You should also copy over the file users/storyrow.thtml
    which describes the block for the last 1o stories.
  The Classic theme has been updated to have an "Edit" link (for
    StoryAdmins) in every story now.

    Files changed: storybodytext.thtml,
    featuredstorybodytext.thtml
  In the Classic and Digital Monochrome themes the "contact" link now
    points to the form to send an email to the admin user instead of using a
    mailto: link with the site's email address from
    config.php.


CSS changes

The underscore '_' is not a valid character in CSS. Therefore, some class names used by the Geeklog calendar have been changed to use the dash '-' instead. You may need to change your stylesheet accordingly.

Names that changed: cal-oldday, cal-today,
cal-futureday, cal-nullday, weekview-curday,
weekview-offday
A new class named pagenav can be used to format the paged
  navigation.

  Please note that this change was made after the release of Geeklog
  1.3.6rc1 and affects the use of the paged navigation in
  admin/user/userslist.thtml and links/links.thtml: In
  1.3.6rc1, the navigation was wrapped in <p> tags in those files. As
  of Geeklog 1.3.6 however, the function producing the navigation will wrap
  it in a <div> automatically.


Note: Theme authors are encouraged to specify a character
set in the header.thtml of their themes like this:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset={charset}">

Geeklog will replace the {charset} variable with the proper
character set based on the currently used language file. Also make sure that
you put the above line before the <title> tag in
the <head> section of your header.thtml file.



  The Geeklog Documentation Project

    All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. GeekLog is copyleft.