Installing a theme and mod effects

[landyvlad]

I know that quite a few mods appear to make modifications to theme templates.

Obviously if a theme is installed (eg default curve) then it will be fine; but what happens if I install a theme now (given I have numerous mods in place)?

Would it require mods to be uninstalled and reinstalled in order to ensure that the new theme templates get appropriate changes?

Seems a pain if that was needed each time a new theme was added/installed.

Guidance welcome.

[lurkalot]

Yep, sorry.  If the mod makes any changes to the theme(s) files then you'll either have to un-install and reinstall all your mods.  Or make the edits manually.  It's a PITA to be frank.

I say Uninstall "all" the mods because you should always un-install in the order they were first installed to avoid problems.  You'll no doubt come across this as you use SMF over time, assuming you haven't already.

And while on the subject of themes, here's another note. When you try out various themes and decide you don't like them. You go to theme settings and click the remove button.  This doesn't actually remove the theme, it just un-installs it from SMF.  It's still on your server taking up space.  You have to use your server file manager or FTP to actually remove it from the server.

[Antechinus]

I know that quite a few mods appear to make modifications to theme templates.

Obviously if a theme is installed (eg default curve) then it will be fine; but what happens if I install a theme now (given I have numerous mods in place)?

Would it require mods to be uninstalled and reinstalled in order to ensure that the new theme templates get appropriate changes?

Seems a pain if that was needed each time a new theme was added/installed.

Guidance welcome.

I understand why Lurkalot suggests uninstalling all mods in the reverse of the order in which they were installed. That is the completely idiot-proof way of doing it.

It may be possible to save some work by checking which mods edit which files (use the "Parse" button on the mod's download page). Any mod which does not edit theme files should not need to be uninstalled.

Also, any mod which only edits templates not used by custom themes would not need to be uninstalled. For example if your custom themes are fairly simple, and only contain index.template.php, then a mod which only edits Display.template.php would not be a problem.

Getting a list of which mod does what can be a bit of a pain, but may be worthwhile if you are likely to change themes in future.

Of course the other way is manual edits. These can be a pain, or can be a piece of cake. It depends on the mod and the theme. It also helps if you have some coding skills (not necessarily advanced).

[landyvlad]

Thanks for the info !