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+---
+layout: page
+title: Themes
+---
+
+# Alaveteli's themes
+
+<p class="lead">
+    Alaveteli uses <strong>themes</strong> to make the site look and run
+    differently from the default.
+    Simple changes like colour and logo are relatively easy, but themes can also
+  control more complex things like <em>how</em> the site behaves.
+</p>
+
+When you customise your Alaveteli site, there is a lot you can change just
+by editing the [config settings]({{ site.baseurl }}docs/customising/config).
+But if you want to change the way the site looks, or add more specific
+behaviour, you'll need to make a **theme**.
+
+You don't need to be a programmer in order to make simple changes, but you will
+need to be confident enough to copy and change some files. If you're not sure
+about this, [ask for help](/community)!
+
+## What you might want to change
+
+The most common requirement is to brand the site: at a minimum,
+[inserting your own logo](#changing-the-logo) and [colour scheme](#changing-the-colour-scheme).  You may also want to tweak
+the different states that a request can go through.  You'll also want
+to edit the categories that public bodies can appear in (i.e. the
+groupings on the left hand side of the
+"[View authorities](http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/body/list/all)" page
+on WhatDoTheyKnow.
+
+There may also be other things you want to customise -- drop a line on
+the developer's mailing list to discuss what you need.  We're still working
+out the best way of doing these kinds of customisations!
+
+In any case, the important principle to bear in mind is that the less
+you override and customise the code, the easier your site will be to
+maintain in the long term.  Any customisation is possible, but for
+each customisation beyond the simple cases documented here, ask
+yourself (or your client), "can we possibly live without this?"  If the
+answer is "no", then consider starting a discussion about a pluggable
+way of achieving your goals, rather than overriding any of the core
+code.
+
+## General principles
+
+We try to encapsulate all site-specific functionality in one of these
+places:
+
+* Site [configuration]({{ site.baseurl }}docs/customising/config)
+  (e.g., the name of your site, the available
+  languages, and so on &mdash; all in `config/general.yml`)
+* Data (e.g. the public bodies to whom requests should be addressed)
+* A theme, installed in `lib/themes`.
+
+This document is about what you can do in a theme.
+
+By default, the sample theme ("alavetelitheme") has already been
+installed.  See the setting
+[`THEME_URLS`]({{ site.baseurl }}docs/customising/config/#theme_urls)
+in `general.yml` for an explanation.
+
+You can also install the sample theme by hand, by running:
+
+    bundle exec rake themes:install
+
+The sample theme contains examples for nearly everything you might
+want to customise.  You should probably make a copy, rename it, and
+use that as the basis for your own theme.
+
+## Make sure your theme is as lightweight as possible
+
+The more you put in your theme, the harder it will be to upgrade to
+future versions of Alaveteli.  Everything you place in your theme
+overrides things in the core theme, so if you make a new "main
+template", then new widgets that appear in the core theme won't appear
+on your website.
+
+Therefore, you should consider how you can brand your website without
+changing much in the core theme.  The ideal would be if you are able
+to rebrand the site by only changing the CSS.  You will also need to
+add custom help pages, as described below.
+
+## Branding the site
+
+The core templates that comprise the layout and user interface of an
+Alaveteli site live in `app/views/`.  They use Rails' ERB syntax.
+For example, the template for the home page lives at
+`app/views/general/frontpage.html.erb`, and the template for the "about
+us" page is at `app/views/help/about.html.erb`.
+
+Obviously, you *could* edit those core files directly, but this would
+be a Bad Idea, because you would find it increasingly hard to do
+upgrades.  Having said that, sometimes you may want to change the core
+templates in a way that would benefit everyone, in which case, discuss
+the changes on the mailing list, make them in a fork of Alaveteli, and
+then issue a pull request.
+
+Normally, however, you should override these pages **in your own
+theme**, by placing them at a corresponding location within your
+theme's `lib/` directory.  These means that a file at
+`lib/themes/alavetelitheme/lib/views/help/about.rhml` will appear
+instead of the core "about us" file.
+
+### Changing the logo
+
+Alaveteli uses Rails' [asset pipeline](http://guides.rubyonrails.org/asset_pipeline.html) to convert and compress stylesheets written in
+<a href="{{ site.baseurl }}docs/glossary/#sass" class="glossary">Sass</a>,
+the css extension language, to minified concatenated css. Assets are stored in core Alaveteli under `app/assets` - in `fonts`, `images`, `javascripts` and `stylesheets`.
+The default theme has corresponding asset directories in `alavetelitheme/assets` Asset files placed in these directories will  override those in the core directories. As with templates, a file at `lib/themes/alavetelitheme/assets/images/logo.png` will appear on the site instead of the logo from `app/assets/images/logo.png`.
+
+### Changing the colour scheme
+
+Alaveteli uses a set of basic
+<a href="{{ site.baseurl }}docs/glossary/#sass" class="glossary">Sass</a>
+modules to define the layout for the site on different device sizes, and some basic styling. These modules are in `app/assets/stylesheets/responsive`. The colours and fonts are added in the theme - alavetelitheme defines them in `lib/themes/alavetelitheme/assets/stylesheets/responsive/custom.scss`. Colours used in the theme are defined as variables at the top of this file and you can edit them here.
+
+### Changing other styling
+
+To change other styling, you can add to or edit the styles in `lib/themes/alavetelitheme/assets/stylesheets/responsive/custom.scss`. Styles defined here will override those in the sass modules in `app/assets/stylesheets/responsive` as they will be imported last by `app/assets/stylesheets/responsive/all.scss`. However, if you want to substantially change the way a particular part of the site is laid out, you may want to override one of the core sass modules. You could override the layout of the front page, for example, by copying `app/assets/stylesheets/responsive/_frontpage_layout.scss` to `lib/themes/alavetelitheme/assets/stylesheets/responsive/_frontpage_layout.scss` and editing it.
+
+You can load extra stylesheets and javascript files by adding them to `lib/themes/alavetelitheme/lib/views/general/_before_head_end.html.erb`
+
+## Adding your own categories for public bodies
+
+Categories are implemented in Alaveteli using tags.  Specific tags can
+be designated to group authorities together as a category.
+
+There's a file in the sample theme,
+`alavetelitheme/lib/public_body_categories_en.rb`, which contains a
+nested structure that defines categories.  It contains a comment
+describing its structure. You should make a copy of this file for each
+locale you support.
+
+## Customising the request states
+
+As mentioned above, if you can possibly live with the
+[default Alaveteli request statuses]({{ site.baseurl }}docs/running/states),
+it would be good to do so.  Note that you can set how many days counts
+as "overdue" in the main site config file &mdash;
+see [`REPLY_LATE_AFTER_DAYS`]({{ site.baseurl }}docs/customising/config/#reply_late_after_days).
+
+If you can't live with the states as they are, there's a very basic
+way to add to them (which will get improved over time).  There's not
+currently a way to remove any easily.  There is an example of how to
+do this in the `alavetelitheme`.
+
+To do add states, create two modules in your theme,
+`InfoRequestCustomStates` and `RequestControllerCustomStates`.  The
+former must have these methods:
+
+* `theme_calculate_status`: return a tag to identify the current state of the request
+* `theme_extra_states`: return a list of tags which identify the extra states you'd like to support
+* `theme_display_status`: return human-readable strings corresponding with these tags
+
+The latter must have one method:
+
+* `theme_describe_state`: Return a notice for the user suitable for
+  displaying after they've categorised a request; and redirect them to
+  a suitable next page
+
+When you've added your extra states, you also need to create the following files in your theme:
+
+* `lib/views/general/_custom_state_descriptions.html.erb`: Descriptions
+  of your new states, suitable for displaying to end users
+* `lib/views/general/_custom_state_transitions_complete.html.erb`:
+  Descriptions for any new states that you might characterise as
+  'completion' states, for displaying on the categorisation form that
+  we ask requestors to fill out
+* `lib/views/general/_custom_state_transitions_pending.html.erb`: As
+  above, but for new states you might characterise as 'pending'
+  states.
+
+You can see examples of these customisations in
+[this commit](https://github.com/sebbacon/informatazyrtare-theme/commit/2b240491237bd72415990399904361ce9bfa431d)
+for the Kosovan version of Alaveteli, Informata Zyrtare (ignore the
+file `lib/views/general/_custom_state_transitions.html.erb`, which is
+unused).
+
+## Adding new pages in the navigation
+
+`alavetelitheme/lib/config/custom-routes.rb` allows you to extend the base routes in
+Alaveteli.  The example in `alavetelitheme` adds an extra help page.
+You can also use this to override the behaviour of specific pages if
+necessary.
+
+## Adding or overriding models and controllers
+
+If you need to extend the behaviour of Alaveteli at the controller or model level, see `alavetelitheme/lib/controller_patches.rb` and `alavetelitheme/lib/model_patches.rb` for examples.