The theme used on Chiaribridges is created by Rocket Theme and uses the Gantry framework. Rocket Theme creates many new themes, all of which are accessed on their website using the Chiaribridges login. All themes require the Gantry 5 plugin, which is the framework that the themes use. This document references the documentation on the gantry website extensively and can be used to understand how it works better.

The Gantry framework is different that most Wordpress themes in that it doesn't use the Appearance section of the administration, other than to activate the theme. No customizations are done here, as with most themes, but rather under the top level menu option which includes the theme name. Once in the page builder, all aspects of the site appearance are done with the Gantry interface with the exception of the basic menu building block, which is still controlled via the Appearance -> Menu option, however the way the menu looks and is used it entirely controlled by Gantry. The only time the Appearance -> Menu is used is to create the base menu.

Chiaribridges uses the Notio theme. The basic building block for pages, is the outline. Each page generally has a separate outline, with the exception of content pages, which are the posts/articles for the site. An example of a non-post page is the homepage, which doesn't display any post content. The entire page is build in the Home Page (New) outline. For details on each part of the administrator, see Gantry Introduction. Make sure when viewing the documentation to select WordPress, as it defaults to displaying the documentation for Joomla and won't make sense with Chiaribridges, since it's powered by WordPress.

Within the Outline, there are several parts for configuring a page. The primary tab is the Layout tab. Within Layout there are a number of predefined sections which contain particles. The particles, such as menu, page content, and custom html each have a different function but are set to provide functionality without having to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. Menu gives the basic menu, page content displays posts, custom html allows any sort of html to be encoded on a page. For each theme there is a list of particles supplied, but it's fairly simple to add particles from other themes as desired.

Another tab on the outline is the Styles tab. There are two aspects to styles in that colors, typography, and other appearance options can be changed directly. The other aspect is the Recompile CSS button in the upper right hand corner. This button recompiles the CSS for a given outline which is usually done when changing the custom CSS. After changing the custom CSS file, the outline itself needs to be recompiled and then the base outline needs to be recompiled as well. If a particular CSS doesn't seem to be applied, one possibility is that the base outline hasn't been recompiled. Since the custom.scss file is used extensively on Chiaribridges, a good document is custom.scss to see the details of how it works.

The Content tab is next, and is generally left alone. The purpose is to control various aspects of a page when displayed and used for post content. The Page Settings page allows for additional content to be added to an outline. One easily missed section of this page is the ability to add JavaScript to an outline; if any custom JavaScript needs to be added to a page, a framework will likely need to be added.

Finally, the Assignments page allows the assignment of a page to an Outline. There are a number of ways to assign outlines to components in WordPress, such as menus, content or taxonomies however the way its used primarily is with page assignments. There is a small checkbox at the top of the page which will hide unassigned items; this is helpful to see what items are selected and can help determine why are particle outline is applied or not applied to page.

The final configuration topic for a theme is the Menu Editor. It allows for the configuration of a menu and the way it's displayed in the theme. It's important to remember that the action menu items and actions are configured through the WordPress menu Appearance -> Menu and the Gantry menu editor is for how it appears on the site and not what appears.

Advanced topics

Another key configuration section for a Rocket Theme theme is the custom files. The custom files are how changes are stored within Gantry, ie when an outline layout is changed, the YAML file, which makes up the layout, is also changed. While no understanding of the structure is necessary in most cases, information on customizations is helpful when trying to change how a particle works or adding new functionality via an imported particle. The key to altering a theme, is using the custom directory. Any time changes are made, the changes need to happen within the custom folder otherwise when a theme update is made, the changes will be lost. Nothing is written to the custom folder when upgrading a theme but all other folders are subject to an overwrite. Two things to keep in mind- if a particle has been changed and the update is in the custom folder, any updates to the theme that include changes to that particle won't be applied to the particle in the custom folder. As such, if a bug is found in the particle and is updated but that particle has had some functionality changed via the custom folder, the bug will still be present and until the updated particle is changed and updated in custom, the bug won't be fixed. The key is to read and understand the changelog in the update prior to applying it so that any updated particles will be updated once the theme is updated.

A final tutorial on Copying particles describes how to take a particle from one theme and import it into another theme. The particles consist of yaml, html, scss and sometimes JavaScript. While it is a fairly straightforward process to copy a particle, it's also very specific and important to follow the tutorial exactly. If any step is missed, it is unlikely to behave as expected.

Getting Support

There are many options to controlling the way Chiaribridges looks and acts. Nearly all of these are controlled through Gantry and specifically, the theme. A detailed understanding of HTML and JavaScript is helpful to control custom views. Many times a particular customization doesn't work properly and help is needed. Chiaribridges has an account with Rocket Themeand is the way to get support. Once at the Notio page, click on the Support button to see the topics that have been opened in the past. Part way down on the right side there is a button to create a new topic. Once the topic is created, one of the support staff at Rocket Theme will respond to the issue. Once the issue is completed, it's important to go back to the first interaction, select "Edit" and change the Title by adding [resolved] to the Title at the beginning. This will add a tag to the topic to let everyone know it is complete.