We currently run Community Server 2.1 and are in the process of upgrading to CS 2008.
In our current configuration we have a large number of .CSS style files in subdirectories of "Themes" which are used for the look and feel of the forum and as we want the new version to have the same "Look & Feel" as the current version we assumed we can just import the CSS files within the Control Panel of CS 2008. However whenever we try to import any Style file it says:-
"An error occured while attempting to import your theme configuration file: Data at the root level is invalid. Line 1, position 1."
It does not matter which style file we try and import we still get this error.
So, what are we doing wrong here..
You cannot import CSS files in that way.
The Import option you see is to import an XML file containing the dynamic configuration of another CS2008 theme - that is the theme options you can set through the control panel (e.g. navigation bar colour, CSS Overrides). Typically you'd use this to move theme settings from a development machine to the live server.
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Dynamic configuration was not introduced until CS2007 (which includes the XML Theme file), so you'll have to import your customisations into CS2008 manually, however future upgrades should be smooth providing you don't modify the core CSS files.
OK, understood, thanks for that, but in Community Server 2.1 there are no XML theme files, just the style .CSS files, so how do we move our current forum style to Community Server 2008 other than start from scratch ?
Right, so the XML themes were introduced with CS2007, but I do not seem to find any tools for creating these XML files. Am I expected to just modify an existing theme with a text editor such as notepad ?
You talk about "import your customistation into 2008 manually" is there any tools for taking an existing CSS file from CS2.1 and converting it into the correct format XML theme file ?
Also, in CS2008 to re-create the look and feel we already have in place in 2.1 is the "theme.xml" file the only file which needs to be edited to achieve this objective ?
If you look at the theme configuration in CS2008, you'll see you're able to specify various settings of the theme through the contorl panel - e.g. for the Hawaii theme, you're able to specify the background colour and the colour of the sidebar boxes and more. These are the settings that can be exported / imported through the XML
You don't want to touch the theme.xml file to recreate your site's look and feel if you can avoid it. I would suggest overriding CSS you want to change using the CSS Overrides in the Theme section of the control panel as that will make things much easier. If you're making lots of chanages, you may wish to make them in a custom css stylesheet, and then just add a link to that stylesheet in the CSS Overrides.
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