Themes

Distributed themes and contributions are accepted under the terms of the CLA.md.

The forum ships with freshbored, a Bootstrap 5 dark navbar theme.

Theme Structure

A theme is a folder in themes/ containing at minimum a style.css file.

themes/mytheme/
├── style.css          # Required
└── manifest.json      # Optional

manifest.json

Optional metadata file:

{
    "name": "My Theme",
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "author": "Your Name",
    "description": "Theme description"
}

Localization

Themes can be localized independently from the core and from plugins. Each theme
gets its own translation scope (theme:<name>), so theme strings never
collide with the core or with plugins.

Place translation files under a lang/ directory using the language code as the
filename:

themes/mytheme/
├── style.css          # Required
├── manifest.json      # Optional
└── lang/
    ├── en.php
    └── it.php

Each file returns an associative array:

<?php
return [
    'tagline' => 'Welcome to the forum',
];

Strings are loaded automatically into the theme:<name> scope based on the
active language. Use the tt() helper to translate:

echo tt('mytheme', 'tagline');                  // -> 'Welcome to the forum'
echo tt('mytheme', 'hello', ['name' => 'Joe']); // with {name} placeholder

You may also call the core translation function directly with an explicit scope:

echo t('tagline', [], 'theme:mytheme');

If a key is missing in the theme’s language file, the key itself is returned
(untranslated) — so a theme that ships no lang/ directory still works
unchanged. The core translation function t($key, $params) continues to resolve
only from the core scope and is unaffected by theme translations.

Activating a Theme

1. Place the theme folder in themes/
2. Go to Admin Panel → Themes and click Activate
3. Or set the theme in config.php: 'theme' => 'mytheme'

Shipping a Theme as ZIP

To distribute a theme as a ZIP package:

1. Create a folder with the theme name (e.g., mytheme/)
2. Add style.css and optional manifest.json
3. ZIP the folder (the ZIP should contain the folder itself, not loose files)
4. Upload via Admin Panel → Themes → Install Theme

CSS Classes Used

The theme should style the following classes:

• .navbar-forum — main navigation bar
• .container — main content wrapper
• .footer — footer area
• .admin-layout — admin panel layout

Fields and buttons use Bootstrap 5 classes by default.