DSpace 7.x Best practice for creating custom themes?

[darryl....@usask.ca]

Any recommendations or best practices tips on creating and managing custom themes?

The UI customization page lists a number of methods -- edit the existing DSpace or custom theme, make a copy of the DSpace or custom theme, create an entirely new theme from scratch, or possibly "extend" the existing DSpace/custom theme -- but I'm wondering if anyone has practical experience/tips now that we're 5 major revisions into the 7.x release.  i.e. how are you managing the inclusion of any fixes to those core DSpace/custom themes into your own theme as new versions of the DSpace UI are released?  Creating a copy of one of the existing themes seems like it would make the job of incorporating fixes harder.

I've been toying with the idea of creating a branch from the current release (from the  dspace-7.5 tag for example) and then just making changes in the "custom" theme directory.  When 7.6 is released, I should (hopefully) be able to just merge the dspace-7.6 tag into my working branch and easily get all the fixes that were made to the custom theme. I've yet to put that to the test though.

How are the rest of you dealing with themes and version upgrades?

- Darryl

-----
Darryl Friesen, BSc
Programmer/Analyst
University of Saskatchewan
ICT / University Library

[Mark H. Wood]

I won't call it "best" until I've tried upgrading, but what I've been
doing is to extend the 'dspace' theme, copying the components that I
want to modify and creating new ones as needed.

The thought of being able to use 'git' to help merge changes is an
attractive one.

--
Mark H. Wood
Lead Technology Analyst

University Library
Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis
755 W. Michigan Street
Indianapolis, IN 46202
317-274-0749
www.ulib.iupui.edu