Support legacy theme technique for backwards compatibility, and update the theming docs

4 files changed, 20 insertions, 20 deletions

diff --git a/app/views/layouts/default.rhtml b/app/views/layouts/default.rhtml
index 2c19c76f3..4008760a1 100644
--- a/app/views/layouts/default.rhtml
+++ b/app/views/layouts/default.rhtml
@@ -34,6 +34,8 @@
         <!--[if LT IE 8]> 
         <style type="text/css">@import url("/stylesheets/ie7.css");</style> 
         <![endif]-->
+	<!-- the following method for customising CSS is deprecated -- see `doc/THEMES.md for detail -->
+	<%= stylesheet_link_tag 'custom', :title => "Main", :rel => "stylesheet"  %>
         <% if force_registration_on_new_request %>
         <%= stylesheet_link_tag 'jquery.fancybox-1.3.4', :rel => "stylesheet"  %>
         <% end %>
diff --git a/config/routes.rb b/config/routes.rb
index a238e2102..48bf92e75 100644
--- a/config/routes.rb
+++ b/config/routes.rb
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@ ActionController::Routing::Routes.draw do |map|
     map.with_options :controller => 'general' do |general|
         general.frontpage           '/',            :action => 'frontpage'
         general.blog '/blog', :action => 'blog'
+        general.custom_css '/stylesheets/custom.css', :action => 'custom_css'
         general.search_redirect '/search',      :action => 'search_redirect'
         # XXX combined is the search query, and then if sorted a "/newest" at the end.
         # Couldn't find a way to do this in routes which also picked up multiple other slashes
diff --git a/doc/CHANGES.md b/doc/CHANGES.md
index 61890275a..753560873 100644
--- a/doc/CHANGES.md
+++ b/doc/CHANGES.md
@@ -5,9 +5,9 @@
 * Base design refactored: CSS simplified and reduced, base design colours removed, now provided in example Alaveteli theme override
 
 ## Upgrade notes
-* Themes created for 0.4 and below will need to be changed to match the new format.  
+* Themes created for 0.4 and below should be changed to match the new format (although the old way should continue to work):
   * You should create a resources folder at `<yourtheme>/public/` and symlink to it from the main rails app.  See the `install.rb` in `alaveteli-theme` example theme for details.
-  * Your styles should be moved from `general/custom_styles.rhtml` to a standalone stylesheet in `<yourtheme>/public/stylesheets/`
+  * Your styles should be moved from `general/custom_css.rhtml` to a standalone stylesheet in `<yourtheme>/public/stylesheets/`
   * The partial at `general/_before_head_end.rhtml` should be changed in the theme to include this stylesheet
 
 
diff --git a/doc/THEMES.md b/doc/THEMES.md
index a4793a6fd..c2381b61f 100644
--- a/doc/THEMES.md
+++ b/doc/THEMES.md
@@ -50,24 +50,21 @@ These means that a file at
 `vendor/plugins/alavetelitheme/lib/help/about.rhml` will appear in
 place of the core "about us" file.
 
-There's a special file at
-`vendor/plugins/alavetelitheme/lib/views/general/custom_css.rhtml`.
-Its contents are automatically included as the last CSS file in the
-header of the site.  In theory, it should be possible to do quite a
-lot of layout customisation by only changing this file.
-
-Your CSS is likely to reference various images such as a logo,
-background images, etc.  We don't have a nice way of supporting these
-at the moment.  The current practice is to place them in
-`vendor/plugins/alavetelitheme/public/images/` and then symlink this
-directory to somewhere within the `public/` folder in the main
-Alaveteli Rails app, e.g.:
-
-   ln -s $ALAVETELI_SITE/vendor/plugins/alavetelitheme/public/images/ public/images/my_images
-   
-...and then refer to these in your custom_css.rhtml like so:
-
-    background-image: url("../my_images/navimg/my-logo.png");
+Rails expects all its stylesheets to live at `<railshome>/public`,
+which presents a problem for plugins.  Here's how we solve it: the
+stylesheet and associated resources for your theme live (by
+convention) in at `alavatelitheme/public/`.  This is symlinked from
+the main Rails app -- see `alavetelitheme/install.rb` to see how this
+happens.
+
+The partial at
+`alavetelitheme/lib/views/general/_before_head_end.rhtml` includes the
+custom CSS in your theme's stylesheet folder (by convention, in
+`alavetelitheme/public/stylesheets/`), with:
+
+     <%= stylesheet_link_tag "/alavetelitheme/stylesheets/custom" %>
+
+...which will, of course, need changing for your theme.
 
 # Customising the request states