Creating a PocoCMS theme from scratch

Creating the simplest possible theme

Let's create the simplest possible PocoCMS theme. Spoiler alert: it will do absolutely nothing. This is the first step in a progressive series of theme building.

Components of the simplest possible theme

The minimum requirements for a theme are:

1. A subdirectory under .poco/themes. It will be used as the name of the theme
2. A README.md file in that subdirectory. It may be empty (and therefore useless)
3. A LICENSE file in that subdirectory.

Creating the theme files

Let's build that minimal theme.

• Navigate to the root directory of your site and create a directory at .poco/themes/t1:

mkdir .poco/themes/t1

Note: the directory name will also be the theme name.

• Create a file named .poco/themes/t1/README.md. That's right, it's going to be empty at first.

• Create a file named .poco/themes/t1/LICENSE. Populate it with a license determining how your user may profit from and redistribute the file. For inspiration see GitHub's LICENSE files or just grab this one and replace the copyright notice as needed.

Using the theme

• That's it. To use the theme just edit your root index.md to use it:

---
theme: t1
---

Well? How do I look?

And the answer to that question is... whelming.

We can do much better with very little effort.

Next: Add a classless stylesheet to your theme