Multiple Backgrounds Using Same Theme?

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Hello everyone,

I'm new to Concrete 5 but am already amazed at how simple it is to get started. I have a question about custom themes, an answer to which I've not been able to find on this forum or elsewhere on the internet.

I've built a custom theme in HTML for a research laboratory. The HTML references an external CSS sheet, but also internally (i.e., within the HTML page) uses CSS to call a background image. With this design, I intended to create new pages from my template for each new study that the research lab is conducting, using a common theme that would call on the common external CSS file for most formatting. Each study's web pages, though, would have a custom background for the study. This would have been accomplished by simply having the background image be called "page_background.png" and located in the same directory as the page. Thus, each research study could have had its own folder and own background, while still using the same CSS file that all other pages would be using (across studies).

Now that I'm ready to convert my HTML template to a Concrete5 theme and have started looking more through the Concrete5 documentation, however, I'm confused about whether this is possible. Will I have control over the directory structure of my pages? If not, would the best alternative be to create a new template for each study, all drawing from the same CSS file, and to change the background for each theme within Concrete5 using CSS?

I would be very grateful for any advice or other guidance that you would be willing to offer me!

My best,
J.

 
12345j replied on at Permalink Best Answer Reply
12345j
id use a page attribute of a background image, that way you could change it for each page.
check this out.
http://www.concrete5.org/community/forums/customizing_c5/themes-and...
jlev replied on at Permalink Reply
Ah, I see! The thread to which you pointed me, as well as the thread at
http://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/themes/clearview/questions-and...
have helped me to understand your answer. Thank you very much!

One more follow-up question, if I may (I've also not been able to find the answer to this question): Is there a way to apply an attribute to multiple pages at once? For my project, I'll want to use the same theme to create Site A and Site B. Site A and Site B will each have several sub-pages, and the only difference between the two sites will be the background image. I'm happy to know that I can apply a background to each page using a custom attribute. Is there a shortcut for this, though, such that I could apply the same background attribute to Site A and all its sub-pages, and another to Site B and all its sub-pages?

Again, thank you! I very much appreciate your help!

My best,
J.
12345j replied on at Permalink Reply
12345j
i don't think so, but im not that good at attributes- you may still be able to.
damery replied on at Permalink Reply
damery
This sounds like you are looking for a template per study. That way you can change every page to have this or that template style.
Originally I was going to suggest a template with a layer that covers the background then you could go in and edit the page background layer with any uploaded image, but that may not be the kind of flex ability you are looking for... From what I hear I would suggest a default only set of templates for each study. Call them Study_Vapor; Study_Liquid so you can tell which study they go to.
jlev replied on at Permalink Reply
12345j and damery,

Thank you very much for your help. This makes much more sense to me now. I have a much better idea of what I need to do -- I may incorporate aspects of both of your answers in my final project, using templates for each study while also allowing page-level tweaking for some parts of the site with page attributes.

Again, thank you!

My best,
J.