First be warned that overlays will get overwritten as well. I will need Steve to confirm this as has has done all the coding in this area but I think you will find that WP removes the target folder before replacing it with the updated one. I know they plan to introduce file level updating at some point but we don’t have that available yet.

So the main question. I will probably need to know a little more about how you are doing things. What are you using to make the edits for example. The first thought is that php can no longer indentify the file as php code.

yes, this part of the overlays was done at the start of themes…  all overlays are specified in the spTheme.txt file in the base theme directory…  we really need to change that to instead scan the overlays directory to find available overlays…

so the overlay listed in that file must match the name of the overlay main css (php) file…

we have a ticket open to scan instead of requiring that list…

just to clarify things…

yes, the entire default theme (and our other ones) gets removed by the wp updater when upgrading… so any overlays you add will be lost too…  so again, best to build your own theme… http://codex.simple-press.com/codex/themes/theme-basics/creating-a-theme/

the wp devs keep talking about partial or incremental upgrades for plugins and themes but havent gotten to it yet… they did do incremental upgrades to core…

just committed changes so the theme overlay stuff works by scanning the overlays directory instead of requiring an edit to the theme definition file…

Thanks a bunch for all the info guys. My only worry with copying one of the themes is will the theme get out of date if any new design element is introduced? The only thing I’d like to do is change the colors to our sites’s colors to better integrate the forums.

at some point, we may try to allow the overlays to be located outside the theme, but we felt it was a big step as we were trying to introduce themes themselves…  so likely in the future, but not in 5.0… 

Once 5.0 releases final, outside chance tomorrow, but next weekend more likely, we will fight hard to maintain backwards compatibility…  the hope is that all user themes remain functional with future versions of sp just like wp…  final updates (we hope) to our 5.0 themes should be pushed out tomorrow either by formal release of updates…

of course, as you indicate, if we introduce new features, a theme may need to be modified in order to use the new feature… but we will document how to do that…

Sounds good, I’ll hold off till next weekend though before I start monkeying with things 🙂

we will be here!

and btw, the main idea of overlays is to make changing colors easier… but it really helps the most if you do a new theme and want to offer it to others with new colors…

if you understand css, you might find it just as easy to start with the css-only theme and modify it for your needs…

but overalys are cool… and will be more so if we locate them outside the theme in the future…

Yeah the overlays were a really nice feature for a admin such as myself that likes to have a default theme that is updated by the creators but the colors are easily managed by the admin.