CUNY Academic Commons

Boone Gorges wrote:

Hi Raffi - We can't make modifications to existing themes on the Commons, which may be used by many users on the network; moreover, future updates on third-party themes will overwrite our customizations.

We have a system whereby users can create theme customizations, which generally takes the form of a WordPress "child theme". See https://dev.commons.gc.cuny.edu/hosting-partner-handbook/#custom-themes-and-plugins and https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/advanced-topics/child-themes/ for more info. Due to limited resources, the Commons team is unable to create and maintain custom themes, though we are happy to help point you toward the proper documentation and to help you onboard the theme onto the Commons.

Thanks, Boone, but do I start on a particular theme file? If so, do I download that from somewhere or do you give me a file to start with?

A quick overview:
1. stand up your own instance of WordPress (ideally on a local machine)
2. install the Academica theme that you use on the Commons: https://wordpress.org/themes/academica/
3. install The Events Calendar
4. create a skeleton child theme (just the style.css and functions.php boilerplate from https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/advanced-topics/child-themes/#how-to-create-a-child-theme)
5. Switch to that new child theme
6. Find the proper template file in The Events Calendar. Looks like it'll be wp-content/plugins/the-event-calendar/src/views/single-event.php, but see https://support.theeventscalendar.com/153124-Themers-Guide for more info
7. Copy that file to wp-content/themes/[your-child-theme]/tribe-events/, and edit

Boone Gorges wrote:

A quick overview:
1. stand up your own instance of WordPress (ideally on a local machine)
2. install the Academica theme that you use on the Commons: https://wordpress.org/themes/academica/
3. install The Events Calendar
4. create a skeleton child theme (just the style.css and functions.php boilerplate from https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/advanced-topics/child-themes/#how-to-create-a-child-theme)
5. Switch to that new child theme
6. Find the proper template file in The Events Calendar. Looks like it'll be wp-content/plugins/the-event-calendar/src/views/single-event.php, but see https://support.theeventscalendar.com/153124-Themers-Guide for more info
7. Copy that file to wp-content/themes/[your-child-theme]/tribe-events/, and edit

OK, so I guess the academia theme on the commons is the standard version that is unmodified, correct?

Yes, that's correct.