Themes

All about Themes (aka Skins in OLab3-speak)

Overview

Themes need to be sorted out in OLab4.6 - they kinda work but are not reliable.

In OLab3, there was a sameness to the appearance of Maps in general, and in particular, every Node in a Map looked largely the same. In OLab4, the author has much greater freedom in laying out each Node - there does not need to be any common appearance at all.

However, most designs benefit from some consistency in layout. In OLab3, we did this using Skins. In OLab4, we are using Themes.

A Theme is a simple HTML based header and footer that can be applied to every Node in a Map. Because of how OLab4 renders pages, we have opted to keep things simple with Themes. If you want to get more adventurous, it is better to sharpen up your CSS skills and manipulate Node content directly.

**insert img showing the header, body and footer of a typical Node in a Theme.

You can also insert OLab4 shortcodes into a Theme. For example, the following Theme…

**insert the HTML contents

…would appear like this…

**insert img with annotations linking the Theme items with how they appear when rendered.

Here are some shortcodes that you will find helpful within Themes:

• [[COUNTERS]] -- this shows all the Counters in a single area

• [[LINKS]] -- this shows all the available Links in a single area

• [[CONST:MapName]] - shows the current map's name

• [[CONST:NodeName]] - shows the current node's name

• [[HELP:UserGuide]]

A Change of Themery

Themes are a type of Scoped Object. You can choose from a list of server-level, course-level or map-level Themes.

This is set in the Map Details page.