Discourse Theme how to install?

Hello,
I was wondering, since I have just found out this site recently, and noticed how cool everything has seemed to be customized in a way I also wanted it. So I did a bit of research and found out in sitepoint’s github, there’s the discourse-theme thing. Was wondering if anyone knows how to install the theme that is in github?

Any help would be appreciated

  • DC
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@cpradio or @mittineague can tell you about it, I think.

While the theme was created and it is handled by the SitePoint HQ Team (we’re only volunteers here at the forum), I know that they have tried to install it and play with it.

Something I should have done too but… time is my worst enemy. Or I have to do too many thngs. Or I want to do too many things.

Anyway, I can’t help you directly but I’m hoping that one of them will be able to.

Of course, I’m assuming that you have your own copy of Discourse installed somewhere

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Yes I have already gotten my Discourse installed onto my server, just wanting to try using sitepoint’s theme that looked spectacular. Thanks for your reply though! Hope they will help me with it :smiley:

  • DC
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Hi Daniel_Chu

I’m guessing you are referring to

There are two ways to modify Discourse in ways not presented via the Admin UI

* A lot can be achieved using the Admin UI so IMHO you should look into what can be done there if you haven’t already. eg.

.
But if what’s there isn’t enough, you can:

  • Hack the Core code
  • and maintain your own Fork
    or
  • reapply your hacks every time you upgrade

(read - Maintenance Nightmare / Security Risk - so please don’t)

  • Use a plugin

The above linked SitePoint theme is a plugin.
To install it please see
https://meta.discourse.org/t/install-a-plugin/19157?u=mittineague

* Note, Discourse uses SCSS. so if you are wanting to make your own tweaks you should be somewhat familiar with it though CSS alone will get get you far

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Sweet, now that I have installed the plugin into my discourse, it looks the same. But, I have also encountered some problems

And I also have questions on How I can change the logo, and those navigation links? I don’t seem to be able to find it in Admin UI.

Any help would be appreciated
Thank you

  • DC

Some changes take effect right away. Other times Discourse uses the precompiled assets and the changes are not used.

Did you clear the server cache and rebuild?

Yes, its a fresh install of discourse with just categories added in to it as well.
Those errors still exist and I’m still not able to find places to customize my nav bar

Hmmm, I just tried it on my localhost.

Depending on Setting values and what other plugins are installed, I would expect some kinks. But it seems a fresh install should have less problems to work out not more. (but maybe not).

Anyway, are you seeing something like this?

[quote=“Daniel_Chu, post:5, topic:225429”]
How I can change the logo, and those navigation links? I don’t seem to be able to find it in Admin UI.
[/quote]

Looking for this?

Yes, I see it just exactly like the one on this site. Just that my categories won’t have color shown even if I already set a color for it in the setting. And when I click into the categories it gives me an error loading page.

And yes, I saw that customize css/html in the setting but when I modifies the text or anything, it doesn’t seem to affect anything. Also, I don’t see a logo option in that Crawler Links’ customization tab

Thanks

  • DC

The Core logo settings are at
Admin → Settings → Required

But the plugin bypasses those settings somewhat anyway.

Discourse is not like WordPress, not everything can be done via a UI.
Much requires digging into the Ruby / Ember / HBS code

The files you want involving the logo are

../assets/javascripts/discourse/widgets/header.js.es6
../assets/javascripts/discourse/widgets/sitepoint-logo.js.es6
../assets/javascripts/discourse/templates/header.hbs

You will also want to dig around and remove / replace the SitePoint links.

And that will require me to use SSH to dig into it correct?
The only way I can access into /var/www/discourse is by doing ./launcher enter app
As well as, if thats the correct way to change things, would I need to rebuild app? I’m assuming by rebuilding it, it will overwrite? Not quite sure

EDIT: I’m still having server error when entering the categories. Do you have such problem?
Thanks for your help

  • DC

I don’t have that problem.

  • BUT - I have a Windows - GitHub- VirtualBox - Vagrant localhost install.

If it were me dealing with a web hosted site I would

  • fork the plugin to my own GitHub repository.
  • pull that fork into my computer
  • use an IDE to edit files / folders
  • push my changes to my GitHUb repository
  • install the changed fork into my development Discourse
  • test (repeating the edit, push, install, test steps until happy)
  • install the final plugin to my live Discourse

I guess some don’t have much trouble making small edits from a shell CLI, but I have a much easier time searching files and working with them in an IDE or even a simple text editor.

For that I often download the zip file instead of cloning a plugin especially when I’m only interested in analyzing the code.

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I’m going to try reinstall my discourse forum now. After removing the plugin, i found out even without that plugin I still get 500 internal server error so. Will give the results after the reinstall.

And was wondering, when you installed it, were you able to get the colors in the categories?

Thanks for your time

  • DC

When you created the categories did you click on one of the color boxes to assign that color to the category “badge”?

I’ve not created any without doing that, but it looks like the default light grey is what you’re seeing.

Yes Im certain that I did. I have not yet reinstalled my discourse yet because I have yet to find an uninstall guide that suits centos 7 nor any other OS. Would you by chance know how to completely remove discourse?

Thank you

  • DC

CentOS ??

I may be wrong, but AFAIK only Docker is supported.
What install guide did you follow?

No, sorry, I am somewhat familiar with the Core code and plugins, but sysop is outside of my comfort zone.

Official Installation guide.

Last I knew, that specified that only Docker was supported.

The only officially supported installs of Discourse are the Docker based beginner and advanced installs. We regret that we cannot support any other methods of installation.

So after my reinstallation of the forum. I got the categories working again. But back to my original problem, category tags colors aren’t showing up, its only a blank grey background color


I’m positive that those categories have colors

Any other thoughts? Using the latest discourse version v1.6.0.beta7 +8
Thanks

  • DC

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