Newbie - how to modify themes - best practices?

garret

Hello
after search for a CMS I have been happy to find AUTOMAD

I have the beginnings of a web site up and running
and will be using your system for the foreseeable future
THANKS!

So questions

your documentation is very good
and I am slowly trying to work my way thru it

But one of the first and easiest things to do to learn a system
often is to take an already existing theme
And begin to modify it

how do I directly modify (or override) an existent theme?
I would like to :
change the size of the Brand at the top of the page
change the typography (the globally used font and size)
change the method of indicating a link anchor (something other than the underline)
remove the search button (don't need and takes up too much space on mobile)

things that would normally be just a tweak of a CSS file
but in this case on this platform I'm not so sure
there seem to be a number of interdependencies between the files

I am looking for - best practices - for the modification
is there an easy way to duplicate a theme? (or fork a theme? rename a theme?)
is there a preferred method for overriding a theme? or just a page of a theme? (an additional css file?)

can I just just modify the LESS files? (and if so how do I make the system aware of the changes?)

it would be great if any changes would not interfere with an update to a theme
is that possible?

I currently am using the "dahmen/automad-adam" theme
using nothing but left-sidebar pages (for that classic indexibit feel)

thanks in advance for your help

garret

mad

garret Hi Garret! I think the most important thing is to keep your modifications when updating the modified theme. You have basically two options here:

You can upload a custom CSS file and add it to the itemsHeader variable. That is a bit quick and dirty, but allows for updating the theme in case there are new features available.
You can duplicate the whole theme directory and remove all Composer references from that copy. This way you can just edit any file of the theme and no update will ever reset your changes.

And when you're done with your theme, just publish it! 😀

garret

Thanks for the information
I'll go with the CSS addition
as I dont really know how to
"remove all Composer references"

That covers my font issues

I'd still like to figure out a way to remove the search field...
as on mobile it takes up way way too much space
esp on android phones

mad

garret Hi, you can remove the search field by leaving the Url Search Results variable empty in the shared settings.

garret

mad
humm..
if I leave it "empty" there is a slash "automagicly" placed there
as in it was empty?
what I'm trying to do is to REMOVE all search function
so that there is no field , no icon what so ever
as it takes up too much space and I dont need it

any thoughts?

mad

garret As I wrote above, you have to leave the field empty in the shared data and settings! I think you are removing it in the page settings and that is the wrong place!

Please take a look at the documentation. The basic concept of global defaults and page settings is described there very detailed.

garret

ahhhh "General Data and Files" = "Data Settings"
OK
You were right

now the search is gone from the Mobile version of the site (yay!)

But the search icon remains on the desktop version
and clicking on it - take the user to an vast empty page of nothing!
Yikees

so... almost!

any more clues?

mad

garret Hey, you're right! It is actually a bug. Of course it shouldn't show up on a mobile device. I just published a fix for this. Please update the theme package. The search icon should be removed then.

Thanks for pointing this out! 😀

garret

thanks!
I guess now that ive found a bug - im no longer a nubie 😄

mad

garret Haha, true! 👍🏻🥳