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Customization

Individualize a publication

With appropriate knowledge, the appearance of publications can be adapted according to one's own corporate identity/corporate design.

Note: The following customization guide calls for a basic knowledge of CSS and HTML

You can customize the publications by using your own CSS or LESS files, text files (language specific) and HTML templates.

Use FTP or SCP (e.g. “WinSCP”) to access the files. All further paths refer to the root directory of the web application, e.g. “/opt/xyz-manja/htdocs/”.

Directories

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Templates
  • publication_templates/ – contains publication templates , one subdirectory per template,
  • public/custom/publication_templates/ – contains your individualized templates, one subdirectory per template.

 

Publications
  • var/publications/ – the actual publications are stored in this directory, one subdirectory per publication,
  • public/publications/ – contains the files of the publications that are publicly accessible via HTTP, one subdirectory per publication.

Default templates

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Manja contains multiple default publication templates. You can use them directly or use them as a starting point to create your own templates.

  • publication_templates/picture_collections_1/ – Image Collections – A list of collections as a self-contained web gallery.
  • publication_templates/picture_collections_2/ – Image Collections NEW – Web gallery, supporting audio and video, optimized for mobile devices.
  • publication_templates/picture_gallery_from_category/ – Image Gallery from Category – A single category as a self-contained web gallery.
  • publication_templates/picture_gallery_from_category_2/ – Gallery from Category NEW – Category as web gallery, supporting audio and video, optimized for mobile devices.
  • publication_templates/web_feeds/ – Web Feeds & Playlists: Media RSS, Atom, XSPF, SMIL, PLS, M3U, JSON.

Please do not change the default templates, your changes will be overwritten in the next software update.

Instead, follow the instructions at Create own publication templates.

Customizing a publication (example)

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Create a publication

Go to the Manja UI, visit “Administration -> Publications” and create a new publication named “example”, based on the default template “Image collections”.

 

Check directory

Now the directory var/publications/example and public/publications/example/ should exist.

 

Publication structure

The publication is an independently working web application, that communicates directly with the Manja server. The structure of this app is similar to the web application of the Manja UI:

  • config/ – contains configuration files
  • locale/ – contains language specific text
  • skin/ – contains one ore more skins with HTML templates, CSS files and images
  • lib/, js/, g/, modules/ – various app components

Unlike the Manja UI no custom-mechanism is required here and you can adjust the files directly in “skin/” and “locale/”.

 

Customizing the publication

Images, stylesheets, text and HTML templates can be customized here:

Some important files (within “public/publications/example/”):

  • skin/light/f/styles.less – the main CSS file
  • skin/light/t/page.html – the page layout (header, main, footer)
  • skin/light/t/main.html – the gallery layout
  • skin/dark/f/styles.css – CSS file for the “dark” skin
  • skin/dark/_skin.ini – contains (among others) the definition that the “dark” skin unses the HTML templates of the “light” skin

More files (in var/publications/example/):

  • locale/de.txt – german text
  • locale/en.txt – english text

Create own publication templates

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Copy a default template

First create a copy of the default publication template. To do so just copy the whole directory.

Example:
cd web/
cp -R publication_templates/picture_collections_2 public/custom/publication_templates/my

 

Adjust template settings

The copy is immediately available as publication template. To separate it from the default template you should at least edit title and description of the new template.

To do so edit the file “public/custom/publication_templates/my/_template.ini ” in the section [template] and change the options for “title” and “description”. You can either directly set the options “title” and “description” or set their language specific counterparts “title_en”, “description_en”, “title_de” and “description_de”.

You can also change the thumbnail image of the publication template by replacing the file “public/custom/publication_templates/my/_thumbnail.png”.

 

Customize the template

You can edit text, LESS files, HTML templates and images directly here, or copy them from the publication customized in the previous section.

Changes can be testet a lot easier and faster, if you customize a publication first. So you can check every adjustment directly in the browser. When you are finished just copy your changes into the publication template.

 

Test it

Create a publication based on your new template and test it at length.