Tired of zipping / unzipping portal theme?
Dear all,
With the current theme editor you can change a lot of features in the portal. But you cannot change everything.
If you would like to change the look and feel of non-theme editor classes, you will need to edit property files. Please note: this is an ‘expert’ mode.
You can to this by zipping and unzipping the portal theme. It takes some time to unzip and zip the files, so I made a batch file for your convenience (and mine ofcourse 🙂 )
Downloading theme–
You can download your portal theme via System Administration > Transport > Transport Themes > Export Themes > yourtheme.
My theme is called dialogtest. I store the theme in a new folder, d:\Noel\theme\dialogtest.zip.
Normally you can unzip the theme, unzip the portal and ur zipfiles and start editing. After editing you will need to watch out if you are packing the right folders. This takes some time to clean up the zip file. I have made a batch file to unzip the portal theme. After this you can edit the properties files and pack it again to upload it in the portal finally.
Changes you will need for the batch files
1) Change the winzip location to your location
2) Change dialogtest into your portal theme zip name.
Batch file: unpack.bat – use it to unpack all files before editing
@echo off
SET wzip=”C:\Program Files\WinZip\WINZIP32.EXE”
IF “%1″==”” GOTO Usage
echo Unpacking portal theme %1.
echo.
echo Extract Winzip %1.zip to folder %1
%wzip% -e %1.zip %1
echo Changing directory to %1
cd %1
echo Extracting ur.zip to ur folder
%wzip% -e ur.zip ur
echo Extracting portal.zip to portal folder
%wzip% -e portal.zip portal
echo Deleting ur.zip
del ur.zip
echo Deleting portal.zip
del portal.zip
Goto finished
:Usage
echo Usage: unpack.bat filename
echo Where filename is portal theme filename without extension.
echo.
echo Example: unpack.bat dialogtest
echo.
echo Winzip is set to %wzip%
echo You can change the location of winzip in this batch file.
echo.
:finished
Please note: only ur.zip and portal.zip are extracted too!
After unpacking, your folder structure should look like:
Make changes to the property files, images or whatever. Now you can zip the folders via the second batch file:
Batch file: pack.bat – use it AFTER you changed property files. Usage: pack.bat filename
NB. It renames your old theme into dialogtest_old.zip, just in case 🙂
@echo off
SET wzip=”C:\Program Files\WinZip\WINZIP32.EXE”
IF “%1″==”” GOTO Usage
echo Packing portal theme into ZIP file %1.
echo.
echo Renaming %1 to %1_old.zip
ren %1.zip %1_old.zip
echo Switching to %1
cd %1
%wzip% -m -r ur.zip ur\*.*
%wzip% -m -r portal.zip portal\*.*
%wzip% -m -r %1.zip *.*
echo moving %1.zip to ..
move %1.zip ..
cd ..
rd %1
echo Done packing, you can upload %1.zip to the portal.
Goto finished
:Usage
echo Usage: unpack.bat filename
echo Where filename is portal theme filename without extension.
echo.
echo Example: unpack.bat dialogtest
echo.
echo Winzip is set to %wzip%
echo You can change the location of winzip in this batch file.
echo.
:finished
Now your folder will look like:
Upload the dialogtest.zip into the portal:
That’s all 🙂
/*
Noël Hendrikx – SAP Portal consultant @ Peppie Portals.
Specialized in Corporate branding SAP Portal / Adobe Interactive Forms.
UI Theming blog series
Portal theming – also waited a couple of years?
How to… UI Theme Designer – Installation
How to… UI Theme Designer – Migration
How to… UI Theme Designer – Locating elements
How to… UI Theme Designer – Transportation
How to… UI Theme Designer – Make use of the Custom CSS tab in the Portal!
Other blogs:
Tired of zipping / unzipping portal theme?
Tips for the Portal Content Studio
DSM Terminator and popup blockers (or not)
My best development friend – Autoresponder FTW
/*
Hi Noel,
it's very interesting information indeed!
I've downloaded my own theme with no trouble, however after extracted all these files, I've found a lot of PNG, GIF, some .properties and some XML, but...I'm not able to find any CSS file... so.. BUM!, I've hit the wall (of course it's not the first wall, and have for sure it won't be the last ).
I thought that you were talking about CSS edition... Am I wrong?
Thanks in advance!
Best regards,
Marcelo
PS1: I'm on 7.4 SP 06 using the "old" theme editor
PS2: whithin .PROPERTIES files, I think there are some "coded" CSS, but with none idea about how to edit them... for instance, adding new rule:
parFontColorStandard=\#58585a
parFontFamAsterix=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif
parFontFamBrcDiv=Verdana,sans-serif
parFontFamily=Trebuchet MS
parFontSizeCellMono=0.7em
parFontStyleH1=normal
parFontStyleReference=italic
parFontStyleStandard=normal
parFontWeightEmphasized=bold
parFontWeightStandard=bold
parFormLayoutRowHeight=1.55em
Hi Marcelo,
You are right, you can't change the css files directly since they are generated when uploading to the portal. But if you change the properties files, the portal will compile them to css files.
Bear in mind that the properties definition are not the css classes in your application. You will need to search for the definition as described in Portal theming - also waited a couple of years?
Check out this post also:
Unable to download CSS file to portal
Nevertheless, why don't you use the new UI Theme designer? Migration is not that hard, it took me one day for a customized theme with css hacks 🙂
Cheers,
Noel
Hi Noel, you're right.
I did some tryouts with new UI Theme Designer, but sadly I found a lot of issues. Nevertheless, our DEV was upgraded with SP6, so.. I'll give UI Theme a new chance 🙂
Thanks for sharing!
Best regards,
Marcelo
Hi Noel,
Nice tools. Really save a lot of time. Thank you.
By the way, I'm not sure if you experienced this. Maybe just an issue in my system.
When I use theme editor to save a change, the version number (I mean the fifth number of ur theme version) is increasing. (1, 2, 3... ). It's good. But once I use the theme transport to upload a theme zip file, no matter what value I put int metaData.properties, the version number is always been reset to 1.
Cheers,
Donny
Hi Donny,
I did experience this as well. The portal resets the custom version number indeed. I don't know why, but I think to make sure version numbers are in the same line of the ur version numbers for webdynpro java and backend (abap).
Cheers,
Noël
Hi Noel,
Very nice, the only thing is if you could set the file name in a variable and not hard coded.
Still, very good job.
BR,
Saar
Hi Saar,
This is untested, but I changed the batch file commands as well to make extraction / zipping easier.
Good old dos commands 🙂
Noël