Sandbox

Switching Themes via StyleCatcher

1. In Movable Type navigate to Design > Styles.
2. Choose “Sanbox Themes” in the left nav.
3. Select a theme.
4. Apply theme.

Installing Themes Manually

1. Download desired theme from Sandbox Designs Competition.
2. Place the theme folder in $MT_HOME/mt-static/plugins/Sandbox/themes/ .
3. Navigate to Design > Templates. Open the “Styles” index template.

4. Replace the content of the “Styles” index template with a link to the stylesheet of the newly added theme in the styles.css index template. (Replace “THEME-NAME” with the name of the theme.)

   @import url(<$mt:StaticWebPath$>plugins/Sandbox/themes/THEME-NAME/style.css);
   

5. Save & Publish the “Styles” index template.

6. View your blog.

Customizing a Theme

1. Create a new index template for your custom styles named Custom Styles with an output file of custom-styles.css

2. After the @import in the Styles index template, add a link to your Custom Styles template after the link to the theme you wish to customize. If you wanted to customize the Moo-Point theme after using StyleCatcher to enable it, the code would look like this might look something like this:

   /* This is the StyleCatcher theme addition. Do not remove this block. */
   @import url(<$mt:StaticWebPath$>support/themes/moo-point/moo-point.css);
   /* end StyleCatcher imports */
   @import url(<$mt:Link template="Custom Styles"$>);
   

3. Add any styles you wish to override into the Custom Styles index template. Click Publish & Save, then view your site.

Roll Your Own Theme

1. Create a sibling folder next to an existing theme, or duplicate an existing theme to base your theme upon.

2. Update the link to the theme in the Styles index template to point to your new custom theme and then click Save & Publish. Your Styles index template might look like this:

   @import url(<$mt:StaticWebPath$>plugins/Sandbox/themes/custom-theme/style.css);
   

3. Edit or add styles and images to your new theme. Because the theme file isn’t managed through MT (though it can be if you have the theme file published as an index template) there is no need to republish after making changes to your stylesheet.