Dave Burke - CS Nuglet: Rooting out "Hawaii"

CS Nuglet: Rooting out "Hawaii"

So you're going to do some heavy-duty theming on your brand new Community Server 2008.5 site. You've created a copy of the \Themes\Hawaii theme and named it "DBVT." Okay, maybe you didn't name it "DBVT," but there it is and you're ready to start customizing.

The first thing we do at this point is update the DBVT/theme.config so we can distinguish it from Hawaii when selecting our new theme in the Control Panel.

Okay, here is where we're entering Community Server Nuglet territory. To avoid theming weirdness and frustration in wondering why our styling changes aren't being reflected on our pages it's important to root out all appearances of "Hawaii" in the new DBVT theme pages and replace them with the path name of our new theme. Visual Studio 2008's Quick Find and Replace works pretty well for this.

So don't forget when creating a new site theme, root out "Hawaii" and be happy.

Comments (7) | Post RSS RSS comment feed

Posted on 10/1/2008 8:32:23 PM by Dave Burke
Categories: Community Server
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10/2/2008 12:11:13 AM Permalink

Hey Dave, I use this all the time too, but lately I've been forced to use SVN for some projects as that is what they are using for source control. The problem is that this will also update the files in the hidden SVN folders and cause havoc. So, if using SVN, you cannot use "Replace All" when "looking" in a specific file system folder. You will need to "Find Next" and only "Replace" on files that are not in the hidden SVN folders.
TFS FOR THE WIN!

Bill Bosacker |

10/2/2008 4:26:04 AM Permalink

TFS FOR THE WIN! HA-HA!!!

Then could we go low-tech with TextPad or some simple text find-replace utility to do the job in an SVN environment?

Dave Burke |

10/2/2008 1:17:53 PM Permalink

Hey Dave, I pretty much try to stay with the main stream tools and very seldom use anything else.  I used to use many different tools way back when, but trying to keep them all working, upgraded, and integraded was taking about the same amount of time that I actually spent coding.  Learning to use the built-in tools as you are doing here, may be a pain in the ass when Microsoft changes it with a new release, but it ends up saving countless hours in the end.

Until recently, the only 3rd party tools that I used are from RedGate and Lutx Roeder's Reflector (now owned by RedGate).  Since some clients don't have an SDLC process, one that is very lax, or they use SVN, I have been forced to use a 3rd party folder/file compare tool to keep things in sync as well.  Normally, you would just publish the application and replace what is in production, but you can't do that if people or the application are making permanent changes to the application on the server.

One is a management issue (people making changes directly) and the other is poor coding (the application storing objects in the web site folder space - ~/filestorage).  The later is a change imposed by Telligent when they removed the ability to store any type of object in the database.  Well, I didn't plan on such a large comment, so I think I'll close here.  Take it easy...

10/2/2008 9:45:48 PM Permalink

Why would you need to use anything other than Hawaii? Everyone should just use Hawaii and be happy with it!

That being said, I can't wait to see some customized and new themes developed for CS 2008.5 by the community, especially around the new Question and Answer UI updates for forums. I'd like to see other people's take on that.

BTW, have you seen the theme use for Community Server Evolution yet? Way Hot!

Dan Hounshell |

10/3/2008 5:31:17 AM Permalink

Hey, Dan!  You're sounding like more of a Community Server Core Team Developer every day.  I like it!

I'm also digging the CS2008.5 forums updates.  Good job.

I haven't seen Evolution at all.  Not much of an Intranet guy anymore.  I'm always eager to see a new way hot CS site though.

Thanks for the comments.

10/3/2008 5:32:18 AM Permalink

Lengthy comments from Bill Bosacker are welcome on this blog anytime!!!

So, Bill, you got a problem with TextPad?

10/4/2008 2:39:06 AM Permalink

I use Notepad all the time.

Dave Burke : Freelance .NET Web Developer specializing in Online Communities

CS Nuglet: Rooting out "Hawaii"

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