Questions and answers on how to customize the default look of TWiki for your own needs, using style sheets. For configuring page elements, see
PatternSkinCustomization.
First Read: How to modify PatternSkin styles
PatternSkin uses 3 style sheets (attached to
PatternSkin):
- layout.css - the positioning of main page elements (blocks), widths and heights
- style.css - fonts, sizes, margins and paddings
- colors.css - border colors, text colors and background colors
When customizing your TWiki installation, you can either choose to completely rewrite all css styles, or to selectively override some styles. The latter option is by far less time consuming, but all depends on your graphical wishes.
Changing the color scheme
Have a look at
PatternSkinColorSettings.
When you need lots of graphic changes: Rewriting CSS
- Create a new topic that will contain your new CSS files
- Attach 3 new style sheets to the topic
- Point the CSS variables in TWiki.TWikiPreferences to your new files:
* Set TWIKILAYOUTURL = %PUBURLPATH%/%SYSTEMWEB%/YourNewTopic/layout.css
* Set TWIKISTYLEURL = %PUBURLPATH%/%SYSTEMWEB%/YourNewTopic/style.css
* Set TWIKICOLORSURL = %PUBURLPATH%/%SYSTEMWEB%/YourNewTopic/colors.css
When you need to make small adjustments: Adding to existing CSS
With CSS you cannot remove already defined classes, you can only add to it, or overwrite existing styles.
Overriding default CSS is done with 3 variables:
USERLAYOUTURL
,
USERSTYLEURL
,
USERCOLORSURL
.
- Create a new topic that will contain your new CSS files
- Attach 1, 2 or 3 new style sheets to the topic, dependent on your CSS setup (if you don't change much, you might as well put everything in one CSS file, layout, margins and colors)
- Point the CSS variables in TWiki.TWikiPreferences to your new files (below the
TWIKIXXXURL
variables):
* Set USERLAYOUTURL = %PUBURLPATH%/%SYSTEMWEB%/YourNewTopic/layout.css
* Set USERSTYLEURL = %PUBURLPATH%/%SYSTEMWEB%/YourNewTopic/style.css
* Set USERCOLORSURL = %PUBURLPATH%/%SYSTEMWEB%/YourNewTopic/colors.css
- If you use only little CSS and you've only attached one file, write:
* Set USERSTYLEURL = %PUBURLPATH%/%SYSTEMWEB%/YourNewTopic/style.css
Instead of setting these variables in
TWiki.TWikiPreferences, you can set these in your home topic, or in any other topic. Setting style URL variables in:
- TWiki.TWikiPreferences: the style is visible for all users, site-wide
- WebPreferences: the style is visible for all users in one web
- Home topic: the style is visible for that one user when viewing the site
- Some other topic: the style is only visible in that one topic
User styles are always loaded after TWiki styles.
The rest of this topic shows examples of small CSS changes.
Recipes
Hide the left bar
See example at:
PatternSkinCssCookbookNoLeftBar
Use different fonts
See example at:
PatternSkinCssCookbookFonts
No top bar
See example at:
PatternSkinCssCookbookNoTopBar
Centered page
See example at:
PatternSkinCssCookbookCenterPage
Centered page (with a border around the page)
See example at:
PatternSkinCssCookbookCenterPageBorder
Setting EditTablePlugin styles
See example at:
PatternSkinCssCookbookEditTableStyle
Style sheet documentation
See
PatternSkinCss for documentation of PatternSkin CSS classes