Anatomy of a Concrete CMS theme - Overview

This Concrete CMS package has been developed to be a clear and highly commented example of how to create a basic Concrete CMS package, as well as a Concrete CMS theme, using up-to-date practices.

The package could be used as the starting point for a new theme add-on, or simply referred to for learning purposes.

The theme outlined is intentionally very simple, and does not utilise more advanced theming features such as editable theme settings/colors. Is is a complete example however, and requires no more than basic CSS and HTML skills to extend and use for custom purposes.

Location within Concrete CMS's directory and installation

Packages such as this one are placed within the top level packages directory and are installed via the 'Extend Functionality' dashboard page. A newly installed theme is not automatically applied to a site, it can be applied via the 'Activate' button witin the Pages & Themes section of the dashboard

If you have downloaded this package from github, the package folder may have been labelled anatomy_theme-master - ensure that you rename the folder to just anatomy_theme before attempting to install it.

Package structure

Within this package you'll find:

• this README.md file - this isn't required in a package, but can be safely included to include additional notes
• a controller.php file - this file defines the package details and what it installs
• a themes folder - this is where the theme folder is stored
• an icon.png file - a 97px by 97px png graphic, which is displayed against the package within the dashboard

Next step

For now, note the name of the package folder itself, anatomy_theme, which is two lowercase words seperated by an underscore.

Next, open the controller.php file and review its comments.