praiadeseselle/wire/modules/AdminTheme/AdminThemeUikit/README.md

AdminThemeUikit

This document currently covers customization of Uikit styles and instructions on how to upgrade the core Uikit version.

Customization

Short version

You can easily customize AdminThemeUikit in 3 simple steps:

1. Install the ProcessWire Less module.
2. Specify the “reno” or “rock” base style in /site/config.php.
3. Create and edit /site/templates/admin.less and see your changes in the admin.

Either step 2 or 3 can be optional too, more details below.

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Long version

Now that you know what to do, let’s run through 3 steps above again, but with more details:

1. Install the “Less” module

Download and install the “Less” module from https://processwire.com/modules/less/. This module is required to compile customizations to AdminThemeUikit. If this module is not installed then all of the capabilities described here will not be available.

2. Choose a base style

To proceed, edit the /site/config.php file and specify what base style you want to start from. Currently you can specify either “reno” or “rock”, like in the example below:

$config->AdminThemeUikit('style', 'rock'); 

Below are descriptions of both base styles:

• Reno: The “reno” base style is the default that you see when using AdminThemeUikit. It is named after Tom Reno (aka Renobird) creator of the AdminThemeReno module. The reno style of AdminThemeUikit attempts to retain much of the color scheme of Tom’s original theme. If you choose to use this style, you can optionally skip step #2 since reno is the default.

• Rock: The “rock” base style is designed to use the default UIkit UI as much as possible and have only one single primary color that can easily be changed without destroying the overall look and feel. This makes it easy to customize for your client’s color scheme. It is named after Bernhard Baumrock who is the creator of this style and the system that enables you to customize AdminThemeUikit in ProcessWire. Because this style is largely stock Uikit, it is intended as a base to build from for your own custom admin style. While it looks quite nice in its stock form, you should also think of it as your blank canvas.

If you selected the “rock” style and want to see what it looks like before moving to the next step, simply reload/refresh the ProcessWire admin in your web browser and it should compile and use it.

3. Create and edit an admin.less file

Create a new LESS file named /site/templates/admin.less for your customizations and add a style or two just to test things out. For example:

div { border: 1px solid red; }

Save the LESS file and the admin theme will automatically recompile and include your change(s). Click reload/refresh in your web browser to start the recompile and see the changes.

• Whether using “reno” or “rock”, you can modify any LESS variable from UIkit or the base style, including all UIkit variables like @global-font-family or @global-margin, and so on… there are hundreds of variables available to you. See the LESS variables reference later in this document.

• If you are using the “rock” base style, you can set the primary color like this: @rock-primary: blue;

• If there is a compile error, you will see it in an admin error notification. In that case, correct the error in your admin.less file, save and refresh again.

• Note that the default compiled CSS file is: /site/assets/admin.css. Do not make changes to this css file directly as ProcessWire may periodically recompile it during version upgrades and such.

Additional notes

• ProcessWire monitors the timestamps of your custom .less file and the resulting .css file. If your .less file is newer than the .css file, it will automatically recompile.

• ProcessWire also monitors for changes to your $config->AdminThemeUikit settings. If any of those settings change, it will automatically recompile.

• If you are using @import statements in your .less file, ProcessWire does not monitor the times of files that are imported. In this case, to trigger a recompile, you should either make some minor change to your admin.less file so the timestamp is updated, or you should use the recompile config setting described in the next section.

LESS variables reference

• Rock style
• Reno style
• Uikit base
• Uikit components

Further reading

See the README in AdminStyleRock which has additional topics of interest related to customizing AdminThemeUikit: https://github.com/baumrock/AdminStyleRock

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AdminThemeUikit $config settings

The $config->AdminThemeUikit array has various settings you can customize in your /site/config.php file. Below is an example of all settings with their default values:

$config->AdminThemeUikit = [
  'style' => '',
  'recompile' => false,
  'compress' => true, 
  'customCssFile' => '/site/assets/admin.css',
  'customLessFiles' => [ '/site/templates/admin.less' ], 
];

When modifying a setting from your /site/config.php file, you can specify one or more of them in a PHP array like above, or you can specify any individually using a method call like in the example below. Use whatever definition style you prefer.

$config->AdminThemeUikit('style', 'rock'); 
$config->AdminThemeUikit('compress', false);

Description of all settings

style (string)

Admin theme base style: reno, rock, or blank for system default. The default value is blank. When blank, ProcessWire uses the current system default, which is presently “reno”.

Advanced option: you may also specify a .less filename relative to the ProcessWire installation root. However, if you are looking to start a theme from scratch, the the “rock” style combined with your own /site/templates/admin.less may be what you really want.

recompile (boolean)

This is a runtime-only setting that when set to true forces the recompile of the admin theme. When necessary, set this to true for one request, then set it back to false, otherwise it will recompile the admin theme on every admin page load (maybe that’s what you want in some cases too). But in most cases you should not need this setting as ProcessWire already monitors your admin.less file for changes.

compress (boolean)

When true, compiled CSS will be compressed or minified so that it consumes less bandwidth. The default value is true. You might choose to set this to false when doing custom admin style development and debugging. Otherwise you should leave this at the default value, which is true.

customCssFile (string)

The target custom .css file to compile custom .less file(s) into. The default value is /site/assets/admin.css. If you modify this value, it must be in a location that ProcessWire can write to. Within /site/assets/ is the only directory that is known writable to all ProcessWire installations, though individual installations may vary.

customLessFiles (array)

These are the custom .less files that you want to be compiled. The default value is one file: /site/templates/admin.less. The given file(s) must be relative to the ProcessWire installation root directory.

Note for customCssFile and customLessFiles

Chances are you won’t ever need to change these settings, but just in case you do, please make note of the following. Your values for these settings should literally begin with one of the following paths below. Meaning, the literal words, regardless of your actual /site/ directory name (if you happen to be using something different).

• /site/assets/
• /site/templates/
• /site/modules/

This is because the paths above are automatically converted to their actual values at runtime. This ensures the same value works everywhere (development, production, staging, etc.) and regardless of whether the site is running from a subdirectory or not.

Should you choose to use a different location, that’s also okay, but just note that ProcessWire will not perform any runtime conversion on it.

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Upgrading the core Uikit version

This section is likely only of interest to core or admin theme developers.

1. Download a fresh copy of Uikit from GitHub: https://github.com/uikit/uikit/archive/refs/heads/develop.zip

2. For this step choose either option A or B below, depending on what is simpler for you, likely option A:

   Option A: Replace the /src/ and /dist/ directories from the old Uikit installation in AdminThemeUikit/uikit/ with those directories from the new installation.
   Then you may remove these unnecessary directories from it:

   • src/scss/
   • src/js/

   Option B: Replace the uikit/ directory with the new one, and then remove unnecessary files and directories in the new uikit/ directory, including:

   • build/
   • tests/
   • src/scss/
   • src/js/
   • *.json
   • *.lock
   • .* (all hidden files)

3. Edit the AdminThemeUikit::upgrade constant and set it to true temporarily.

4. Increment the AdminThemeUikit::requireCssVersion constant by 1. This will ensure that custom /site/assets/admin.css files will also be recompiled on individual installations. If you don’t want that to happen then skip this step.

5. In your browser, reload any page in the admin and it will generate a new pw.min.css file in the correct location, overwriting the old one.

6. Set the AdminThemeUikit::upgrade constant back to false. Changes can now be committed.