|
Themes define a look and feel for Confluence. Confluence ships with several themes that you can use, such as the default theme and or the left-nav theme. Theme plugins, on the other hand, allow you to create your totally customized look and feel. A theme can be applied to an entire Confluence site or to individual spaces. Stylesheet themesCreating a theme which only relies on stylesheets and images is much simpler than customising HTML, and more likely to work in future versions of Confluence. Custom HTML themesCreating a new theme with custom HTML consists of two steps:
Installing your themeTo install it within Confluence, please read Installing and Configuring Plugins Manually. Example themesThere are several other themes that you can use as examples to learn from and extend. Stylesheet themes: Custom HTML themes: We've also prodvided a Confluence Space export for theme developers. You can import this space into your development Confluence, and check each page to make sure all of the Confluence content looks good in your new theme. You may also want to read Including Cascading Stylesheets in Themes. |
Labels
Except where otherwise noted, content in this space is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia License.
Comments (54)
May 25, 2005
Anonymous says:
Hi, could it be possible to get the css include instructions visible as soon as...Hi,
could it be possible to get the css include instructions visible as soon as possible?
I am in the middle of deploying 1.4 and would still need to edit the site wide and some specific .css files related to the theme
Lauri Siljamäki
May 25, 2005
Mike Cannon-Brookes says:
Lauri, While the CSS include page is coming, have a look at the livesearch plug...Lauri,
While the CSS include page is coming, have a look at the livesearch plugin included with the Confluence distribution. The way it bundles JavaScript is the same way you would bundle CSS into a theme plugin, using a <resource> tag.
Cheers,
Mike
Jun 22, 2005
Nicholas Poore says:
Two questions. First I was on this page but not logged in. I clicked the login...Two questions. First I was on this page but not logged in. I clicked the login button from this page, shouldn't I be redirected back to this page after I login? Second question. From a theme the decorators in the theme like page.vmd can you call a confluence plugin? Not a velocity macro but a confluence plugin. I tried the normal <bracket>plugin name</bracket> (I tried putting the brackets in there but got Unknown macro) like you would use it in your wiki.
Jun 29, 2005
David Loeng says:
Strange. When I logged in, Confluence properly redirects me back to this page. ...Strange. When I logged in, Confluence properly redirects me back to this page.
Yes you can call confluence macros from a decorator. Use:
$helper.renderConfluenceMacro("{color:red}red text{color}")Aug 17, 2005
doggy mcdog says:
Could I ask where is the best spot to find Theme plugins? There was no theme plu...Could I ask where is the best spot to find Theme plugins? There was no theme plugins included with the eval version and I don't see any central atlassian repository for theme plugins anywhere. Thanks
Aug 22, 2005
David Loeng says:
There source code for our default themes are bundled in the evaluation version. ...There source code for our default themes are bundled in the evaluation version. You have to build them and install them yourself to use them. (I've patched our next major version so that these are built and installed for you).
These themes can be found in the 'themes' directory in the Confluence download zip. Cd to this directory and run this command:
> ant build -Dtheme=<specifynameoftheme>
I assume you have ant installed. If not you can download it from here
Cheers,
Dave
Aug 22, 2005
Anonymous says:
The tabless theme is throwing an error of not findingthe vewattachments action i...The tabless theme is throwing an error of not findingthe vewattachments action in /pages?
Aug 24, 2005
David Loeng says:
Filed an issue for this: http://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONF-3848 Will fix ...Filed an issue for this:
http://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONF-3848
Will fix for next release. Thank for pointing it out.
Cheers,
Dave
Nov 10, 2005
Andrew Mole says:
Does Confluence include support for other languages (such as German or Simplifie...Does Confluence include support for other languages (such as German or Simplified or Traditional Chinese)? I was assuming that this would be provided as a theme.
Also, is Confluence able to cope with Unicode text (such as Chinese fonts)?
Nov 13, 2005
Jens Schumacher says:
At the moment we support Chinese characters in pages and page titles. What you c...At the moment we support Chinese characters in pages and page titles. What you can't do yet is 'translate' Confluence into another language - by this "Add Comment" would read "Commentez Ici" in a French version.
However, this will be done soon. We are currently working on the final localisations for JIRA (supports 10 languages right now) and then we will move onto Confluence. We're hopeful this will be in 2.1 or 2.2.
Cheers,
Jens
Dec 21, 2005
Michal Szklanowski says:
Guys, I always felt that one thing in Conflucence is somehow missing, but befor...Guys,
I always felt that one thing in Conflucence is somehow missing, but before I saw adaptivist.com I didn't know what I missed. This is simply TYPOGRAPHY.
If you look at Confluence user interface, it looks very modern and pretty. Once you become to work with the Wiki pages on day-to-day basis, you realize that they are not that simple to read. It's because of the font. The default font used for Confluence is simply not meant for reading on the screen longer texts. When I entered Adaptivist site, I immediately realized, what is the benefit of their scheme. They provide modified CSS which looks great and moreover is more readable. Just look at the default font compared to Confluence default.
I wonder guys, if you can think of improving the default scheme, by changing the CSS, and allowing for more readable font, headings, etc. It's relatively minor change, but will have a big impact on the buy-in from customers. My customers (internal departments in my company) are concerned because of readability of Confluence standard font. Please do not take it as rant, I'm pretty serious. I have identified it as major flaw when I present this solution to my customers. Can one of Confluence guys comment on this?
Michal.
Feb 02, 2006
Ash Maurya says:
I am writing a new theme and basing it on the tabless theme. I have got it almos...I am writing a new theme and basing it on the tabless theme. I have got it almost complete except for one last thing I can't figure out: How can I include notation-quick-help on the edit page screen? The tabless theme does not show it and I have not been able to find how it gets included in the standard theme.
Greatly appreciated...
Feb 08, 2006
Jens Schumacher says:
The following code is responsible for displaying the quick help. You will have t...The following code is responsible for displaying the quick help. You will have to integrate it into your page.vmd. This part is used for all kind of help sections, not only on the edit page.
Note that the table cell tags are due to the surrounding layout. You might have to change/remove them to display it nicely in your theme.
Cheers,
Jens
Mar 03, 2006
amyoung says:
Re: Michal's comment above, I agree. I would like Confluence much more if it w...Re: Michal's comment above, I agree.
I would like Confluence much more if it were easier to get at the styling. One thing that I use is a left-hand nav of my own choosing – meaning one that's not just dynamically generated lists, but "static" links to things like "Contact Us", or links with supporting text, like
[Edit Publications]
Change the status of a publication
or add a hyperlink to the PDF
Also, I think readability could be improved by a two-column layout in some places.
Lastly, I'm not so keen on the performance of the adaptivist.com Blender – I'm using Safari with a very fast connection, and it hangs and does some weird styling thing, then "jumps" into place with the horizontal nav where it should be...odd.
Mar 03, 2006
Guy Fraser says:
The performance issues are down to this: http://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONF-5...The performance issues are down to this: http://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONF-5418 - it affects a growing number of plugins (themes, macros, etc). That said, we do use far too many graphical plugins on our website
Have you tried Firefox? It's a bit like Safari, but without the bugs 
Mar 03, 2006
amyoung says:
I'm interested in using it for a website, so I can't really dictate what browser...I'm interested in using it for a website, so I can't really dictate what browsers our site visitors will use...
Thanks for the feedback!
Mar 03, 2006
Guy Fraser says:
There are a couple of bugs with the menus in Safari so any feedback you could pr...There are a couple of bugs with the menus in Safari so any feedback you could provide would be extremely useful in helping us fine tune the theme.
Regarding navigation bars, or "column layouts", we're already working on that feature, but it'll be a while yet because we're busy with some new plugins for ourselves and our clients.
Any votes for CONF-5418 are most appreciated
Mar 03, 2006
amyoung says:
I will add some feedback tomorrow.I will add some feedback tomorrow.
Mar 04, 2007
Guy Fraser says:
If you're using the Left Nav theme, you can add headings and links to your "Navi...If you're using the Left Nav theme, you can add headings and links to your "Navigation Page" and I think they become part of the menu at the side - is the menu in Entries 2006 the sort of thing you are after?
From vague memory, David Peterson posted that the syntax is something like:
Menu section title * link * linkMar 03, 2006
amyoung says:
Yes, thanks! I will give it a try. (You should write an O'Reilly book about "Con...Yes, thanks! I will give it a try. (You should write an O'Reilly book about "Confluence Styling: the missing manual"
)
Mar 03, 2006
amyoung says:
Also nice would be a gallery of pages styled with different colors and decorator...Also nice would be a gallery of pages styled with different colors and decorators – after a few hours of surfing, I can't really find anything...
Mar 03, 2006
Guy Fraser says:
Do you have any examples (perhaps from other software or websites) that you coul...Do you have any examples (perhaps from other software or websites) that you could show us?
Also, are you from the University of Illinois?
Mar 03, 2006
amyoung says:
Here's perhaps something similar: http://www.csszengarden.com/ You can click on ...Here's perhaps something similar: http://www.csszengarden.com/ You can click on the links under "Select a design" to see a new skin/theme/style. (Yes, I am from UIUC.)
Mar 03, 2006
amyoung says:
So many tables for layout are a bit of concern to me, too. I know I can just und...So many tables for layout are a bit of concern to me, too. I know I can just undo them, but a DIV-based structure would be preferable. (I envision having all kinds of styling labor if we go with Confluence...)
Mar 03, 2006
Guy Fraser says:
Yep, they can be a pain. In a future version, there's only one table in the whol...Yep, they can be a pain. In a future version, there's only one table in the whole theme (for compatibility with certain browsers when showing columns / nav bars). We should probably move this discussion to email: gfraser@adaptavist.com
Mar 24, 2006
nzhu says:
I am a very freshman to this Confluence thing, so maybe my questions are very st...I am a very freshman to this Confluence thing, so maybe my questions are very stupid. Please bear with my ignorance. My first question is that: I have chnaged in /themes/leftnavigation/src/etc/templates/leftnavigation/includes/navlinks.vm file to set 'Browser Space' to 'Browse' and 'Add Content' to 'Add Page'; in fact very simple thing, just some wording in display. After thatI have Confluence restarted and navigate a left navigation theme space, but nothing changed there. Anything I missing here? This is kind of urgent, so any help and suggestion are highly appreciated.
Thanks,
Ning
Mar 25, 2006
Dan Hardiker says:
You have edited the source for the theme, but not rebuilt it into a replacement ...You have edited the source for the theme, but not rebuilt it into a replacement JAR. Here's how to do it:
There are other routes to get the same effect, but that should get you going.
Mar 28, 2006
Andrew J says:
Is there more comprehensive documentation on writing themes for Confluence? For ...Is there more comprehensive documentation on writing themes for Confluence? For example, the '$mode ' variable seems to be a variable defined by Confluence and can be used by the decorator page to determine what type of page is being rendered.
Are there other global variables like this? (i'm assuming there's one to a username, permissions credentials, context, etc. but I can't seem to find them documented).
Thanks!
Dec 08, 2006
EnBW says:
I found out, that some variables like $mode are explicit set to a value by anoth...I found out, that some variables like $mode are explicit set to a value by another decorator (vm). A good explanation which objects are available in the different decorators would be great!
Apr 19, 2006
amyoung says:
For some reason, my themes-related files aren't in my confluence root directory ...For some reason, my themes-related files aren't in my confluence root directory (which also holds decorators/ and dashboard/, just for reference). Should they be? (They're in the home directory where I unzipped my tarball.) Currently, when I edit the themes (like 'tabless') it doesn't influence the wiki pages. I wonder if moving the themes/ directory would help. Thanks for any suggestions.
Apr 20, 2006
David Soul [Atlassian] says:
Amyoung, Confluence themes are stored individually as jar files in the dir...Amyoung,
Confluence themes are stored individually as jar files in the directory 'confluence\WEB-INF\lib'. Editing the themes hasn't had any effect yet because you need to have Apache Ant create a jar file from the updated theme directory, then copy the jar file into the lib directory. Check out the instructions at the address below
http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Deploying+the+theme+as+a+plugin
Hope that helps.
David
May 03, 2006
Guy Fraser says:
Can fully customised colour schemes be created? From the documentation above, it...Can fully customised colour schemes be created? From the documentation above, it looks like there are only a few specific things that can be altered by a colour scheme. With the Builder theme we'd like to have a much wider array of settings, not just the default Confluence colours. Also, once a custom colour scheme is defined, how do we then get hold of the settings so as to use them in the CSS we output?
May 10, 2006
David Soul [Atlassian] says:
Though the documentation concentrates on the colour-scheme element to get users ...Though the documentation concentrates on the colour-scheme element to get users started, themes can extensively modify your page using decorators. You can modify the layouts on a per-page or global basis. For example, you can modify the printable layout on the admin screen, you can export that modification across Confluence as a Velocity file bundled in a theme plugin. To apply theme, bundle it as a plugin and select under Administration -> Themes to override the existing decorators.
Hope that helps
David
May 12, 2006
Guy Fraser says:
Hi David, My question was more in relation to the next version of our Builder T...Hi David,
My question was more in relation to the next version of our Builder Theme - we've been adding a vast array of new features for version 2.0 and wanted to set colours of the new panels (sidebars for example) using the "Colors" option in site/space admin.
Oct 31, 2006
Brian Esmail says:
I'm having an issue with the leftnav theme. I can't get it to hide childre...I'm having an issue with the leftnav theme. I can't get it to hide children. If I comment out render children then it will hide them on all pages except ones linked off the left navigational menu. Is there any way I can get around this?
Nov 09, 2006
Don Willis says:
This question is under discussion in the forums: http://forums.atlassian.com/thr...This question is under discussion in the forums: http://forums.atlassian.com/thread.jspa?messageID=257236566
Apr 04, 2007
Kevin Klein says:
All I want to do is make some simple markup changes to the default theme. Can I ...All I want to do is make some simple markup changes to the default theme. Can I do this? Do I have to jump through flaming hoops just to change, say, a border color? Replace some code with semantic XHTML?
Apr 05, 2007
Jonathan Nolen says:
Hi Kevin, Unfortunately, yes, we're still at the flaming hoops stage. You can c...Hi Kevin,
Unfortunately, yes, we're still at the flaming hoops stage. You can customize the colors of your site. Though my guess is that you're after something a little more in-depth than that. Unfortunately, that requires creating a theme, which is still quite a bit more involved than we would like.
Cheers,
Jonathan
Apr 20, 2007
Nick Jensen says:
i get an invalid archive message when downloading the confluence test space. us...i get an invalid archive message when downloading the confluence test space.
using winzip 11.1, will not decompress.
any suggestions?
May 03, 2007
David Chui says:
i get an invalid archive message when downloading the confluence test space Co...Could you please clarify what you are trying to achieve?
Regards,
David
Oct 01, 2008
Alain Moran says:
I get the same problem when I try to install the ThemeDevelopersTestSpace.zip sp...I get the same problem when I try to install the ThemeDevelopersTestSpace.zip space backup
Here is the output of the backup action:
Oct 06, 2008
Azwandi Mohd Aris says:
Hi Alain, I believe the files were not properly compressed in a correct structu...Hi Alain,
I believe the files were not properly compressed in a correct structure. When uncompressed, the files entities.xml, exportDescriptor.properties and folder attachments should not reside in the ThemeDevelopersTestSpace folder. Having said that, please:
Meanwhile, I have raised a task for our documentation team to correct this. Thanks.
Cheers,
Azwandi
May 06, 2007
Mark says:
Newbie here: Does this theme show Current Page Navigation and Children in the l...Newbie here:
Does this theme show Current Page Navigation and Children in the left column or is that something you have to customize yourself? I was under the assumption that that was included here.
I'm running confluence 2.5
May 11, 2007
Mei Yan Chan says:
Hi Mark, You will need to make your own customization to achieve your required ...Hi Mark,
You will need to make your own customization to achieve your required navigation.
Regards,
Mei
Aug 10, 2007
alex says:
Hi, i am new to confluence and am trying to customize the left hand naviga...Hi,
i am new to confluence and am trying to customize the left hand navigation to give me an automatic line break when the 'theme tilte' exceeds the width of the left hand navigation.
any suggestions?
Dec 04, 2007
Mark Watkins says:
Hi, I am trying to alter the main page layout to include the list of attachment...Hi,
I am trying to alter the main page layout to include the list of attachments in the "View" screen - it seems many people don't notice the "Attachments" tab so I am experimenting to make the attachments more obvious. It's easy enough to add
but then I am left with an unsightly
There are currently no attachments on this page.
if there are no attachments. Anyone know how to detect if there are attachments in a decorator so I could avoid this? Thanks for any advice.
Dec 13, 2007
Ming Giet Chong says:
Hi Mark, Thanks for putting comments here. However,I would advice you to direct...Hi Mark,
Thanks for putting comments here. However,I would advice you to direct your questions to our forum and mailing list as there might be other user/developers who have already implemented it and should be able to share their ideas with you.
Regards,
MG
Mar 19, 2008
sasikanth says:
Hello, I just want to find out is there any way we can modify the .vm files and...Hello,
I just want to find out is there any way we can modify the .vm files and see the changes with out restarting the confluence.
I am trying to modify the veloci macros in .vm files but Is it a must to restart the server. Any alternatives
Thanks,
sasi
Mar 23, 2008
Choy Li Tham says:
Hi sasikanth, You can disable the velocity caching by setting the "velocimacro....Hi sasikanth,
You can disable the velocity caching by setting the "velocimacro.library.autoreload" to true in the velocity.properties file. For example:
This will allow even the macro library (macros.vm) to reload automatically. Additionally, you may be interested to look at the following documentation, which outlined disabling Velocity Caching in Confluence:
Meanwhile, prior to Confluence version 2.5.x, the velocity.properties file is located in <confluence_install>/confluence/WEB-INF/classes directory. For Confluence version 2.6.x and above, the velocity.properties file can be obtained via the confluence-2.x.x.jar, which is located in the <confluence_install>/confluence/WEB-INF/lib directory.
Regards,
Choy Li
Nov 16, 2008
Jason Stewart says:
Once we have extracted the velocity.properties file and edited it, do we need to...Once we have extracted the velocity.properties file and edited it, do we need to repackage it into the jar file? Or can we simply copy it into the WEB-INF/classes/ directory?
Nov 17, 2008
Ming Giet Chong says:
Hi Jason, You can simply copy it into the WEB-INF/classes directory. Please res...Hi Jason,
You can simply copy it into the WEB-INF/classes directory. Please restart your Confluence right after that.
Hope this helps. Thanks.
Regards,
MG
Oct 14, 2008
Johann Richard says:
Hello Is there a chance that you provide a recent export (Confluence v2.9) of ...Hello
Is there a chance that you provide a recent export (Confluence v2.9) of the Confluence Space export for theme development?
Thanks & best regards
Johann
Nov 16, 2008
Jason Stewart says:
I'm trying to modify the CSS in the clickr theme that is bundled with confluence...I'm trying to modify the CSS in the clickr theme that is bundled with confluence 2.7.1. I found the .jar file in <confluence-install>/bundled-plugins/clickr-theme-plugin-1.4.jar - I unjared it, modified the templates/clickr/clickr-css.vm file to include my changes, created a new .jar file and moved it back into the bundled-plugins directory and restarted confluence.
No Change...
It seems there is something more to modifying a theme that I don't understand. Could someone explain?
Nov 21, 2008
Azwandi Mohd Aris says:
Hi Jason, I am not particularly sure about this, but I often find Firebug helpf...Hi Jason,
I am not particularly sure about this, but I often find Firebug helpful when it comes to troubleshooting HTML and CSS. It will list down the styles associated to an HTML element and show you which stylesheet it is taken from. Hope that could be of some assistance.
-Azwandi
Add Comment