Linchpin Theme - Documentation
Create a custom theme for your Confluence and Linchpin instance
Configuration
Select the Linchpin Theme in your configuration
After the app installation you can click the "Configure" button, to display a dialog with a short cut to "activate theme".
You can use that shortcut to activate your theme quickly. Or you can do it by hand:
As an administrator, click on Confluence Administration -> General configuration.
Under LOOK AND FEEL click on Themes and then select the Linchpin Theme as your default site theme.
Linchpin theme configuration
After you have activated your theme, you may have to refresh your browser to see the new "Linchpin Theme" menu.
Note :
Other Linchpin apps may integrate with Linchpin Theme and offer options which differ from the screenshot below.
Click on Configuration for to see the LTP standalone features. We will cover the other options later:
Dashboard
Linchpin dashboard
Choosing this option will remove the fixed Confluence "All updates" panel on the left.
You can use the full width for customization.
Default Confluence dashboard
This option makes your dashboard look the same as the Confluence default theme.
You can still customize your dashboard - see the options below.
Also, you can set the width of the right section, the left section will adjust automatically.
Background image
Here you can upload an image which will be used as background image on your Confluence dashboard. The background will only be visible on the dashboard.
Keep in mind: Since this background image will be scaled to the full width of the browser window, choose an image with an appropriate size to avoid blurry effects and performance issues.
Hide dashboard buttons
Choosing this option will hide the action buttons (invite users, create space) on your Confluence dashboard.
Dashboard tile layout
If this option is checked, the Confluence dashboard will appear in a nice tiled layout.
To edit your dashboard layout, you need to edit your Confluence "Default Welcome Message".
As an administrator you can find it under: "Configuration" →"Global Templates and Blueprints"
Header
- Logo image: You can upload your own logo here.
- Logo position: You can place your logo on the left or the right side.
Left: Logo and intranet name is on the left, search field and user menu on the right.
Right: Logo and intranet name on the right, search field and user menu on the left. - Header height: Sets the height of your header between 80-140 pixels.
- Header background color: The background color for the whole header.
- Header background image: An image to use as your header background.
You can choose to set your header background image to display only on your main dashboard or on every page. - Intranet name: Text which will appear next to your logo.
- Intranet name color: The color of your intranet name. Only shown if a name is set.
- Intranet name size: The font size of your intranet name. Only shown if a name is set.
- Color used for header icons: The icon colors in your header, such as the notification icon.
- Color used for notifications: The color of the notification count when someone mentions you, shares something, replies, etc.
- Subheader background color: The color for the bar below your header.
Buttons and links
Create button
For example, you can find a Create button on your dashboard.
It's used to create a page or post, etc.
Primary buttons
For example, you can find these in dialogs, like the one you see when clicking on the three dots next to the Create button.
- Primary button hover color: Changes the button hover color.
Global link color
"back to top" button
You can find this button at the bottom right corner, when you scroll down a page.
It allows you to quickly scroll back up to the start of your page.
- Background color of the "back to top" button: Changes the button background color.
- Background hover color of the "back to top" button: Changes the button hover color.
- Text color of the "back to top" button:
Content
- Page headline color: Changes the text color of the page title on every page.
- Headline color (1-6): Changes the text color of your headings. It applies a Confluence "Heading" style to your text.
- Information panel color: Changes the border color of the "Info" macro.
- Warning panel color: Changes the border color of the "Warning" macro.
- Tip panel color: Changes the border color of the "Tip" macro.
- Note panel color: Changes the border color of the "Note" macro.
- Panel icon color: Changes the icon color of your information, warning, tip and note panel.
Teaser
Define your teaser styles
An administrator can define preset teaser styles, which can be used in the Linchpin Teaser macro.
It is possible to create up to ten teaser styles. Only teaser styles marked as active can be selected in the macro.
- Active: Appears as a style selection in the Linchpin Teaser macro when set to active.
- Name: A name for your teaser configuration.
- Background: The background color of your teaser macro.
- Text: The color of text in your teaser macro.
- Border: The border color around your teaser macro.
Using the Linchpin Teaser macro
Note: The Image and Icon Teaser have been available since version 2.12
The Linchpin Teaser macro has several options:
- Teaser type: Select the style of your teaser.
- Standard teaser: Can display an image and/or text and adjusts to your image size. Text is visible all time.
- Image Teaser: Fixed size. To see your teaser text, hover over it.
- Icon Teaser: Fixed size, same as the Image teaser. To see your teaser text, hover over it.
- Teaser colors: Choose from a set of predefined colors (set by the administrator).
- Title: The title of your teaser (mandatory).
- URL: You can set a link destination for your teaser to link to e.g. a Confluence page, a web page, or an image. Linking to a Confluence page, the macro uses the short url to avoid broken links that occur when the destination page is moved or renamed. The title of the linked Confluence page appears below the input field. Enable the checkbox to open the link in a new window tab. A linked teaser will show an arrow on the right.
- Icon: Choose from a set of predefined icons which will appear in the center of your teaser. Only available for icon teasers.
- Button text: Enter text for your button. The button will appear below your teaser title. Only available for image teasers.
- Image: Upload or link an image, that will appear above your title.
To include more text (below the title), just insert the macro and write your text in the macro body.
Linchpin sidebar
Linchpin sidebar
The Linchpin sidebar is closed by default and is attached to the right side of your browser. To display it, click on the icon.
After it expands, you will see an overview of your favorite Confluence pages. Below are pictures of the closed and open sidebar.
You can search within your favorite pages, or remove them from your favorites by clicking on the star icon.
To close the sidebar, click the cross - it will collapse back to the right side of your browser window.
Note:
More options (tabs or icons) will be added when you use additional Linchpin apps.
See the "First Steps", or "Examples" page for more information.
- Activate the Linchpin sidebar: Enable or disable the Linchpin sidebar.
- Scroll behaviour: Choose whether the sidebar icons should scroll with the content or stay in a fixed position.
- Expert finder: Configure the "Custom User Search" macro from our other app "Linchpin Profiles". See the notes below.
- Background color of sidebar icons: Sets the background color of the icons on the left side of the sidebar.
- Icon color: Sets the icon color of the icons on the left side of the sidebar.
Configure your sidebar search (Expert Finder)
Note: This feature is only available if you have both Linchpin Manager and Linchpin User Profiles installed.
LTP uses a Linchpin User Profiles macro to provide the sidebar search.
Click on "Configure Expert-Search parameters" to open the macro configuration.
For more help, see the Linchpin User Profiles documentation.
Footer
Style your footer content
Footers are highly visible and you can access them from anywhere in your Confluence or Linchpin instance. Use the Linchpin Theme's footer color configuration to highlight the most important information or customize the footer to match your corporate design. You can set the color of the footer background, titles and links.
To edit the footer links or to add new ones, go to the Administration area → Linchpin Theme → Footer configuration (See: LinchpinThemePlugin-UserGuide2.9.0-Createindividualfooterlinks)
Select the footer configuration
Linchpin Theme gives you the option to create your own footer links. (Available since Linchpin Theme v2.9.0)
Add new footer columns
You can add new columns with links to your footer by clicking on the button "Add column". At the moment, you can set up a total of two columns for your footer links.
Insert your footer links
By clicking on the edit icon in the relevant column, you can enter each link.
Advanced
Custom CSS and JavaScript
You can enter your own custom CSS and JavaScript to add custom modifications to your theme.
Dashboard color
You can change the color of your dashboard but it will only affect the "Linchpin dashboard", see here for more information.
Please note:
All macros in Confluence are designed to use white backgrounds. Setting a different background color can lead to unwanted effects.
We suggest you place content in a "Layout Box" macro with a white background to override the dashboard color.
It will also allow you to set inner and outer widths and spacings.
Space layouts
Select the Space layouts configuration
Linchpin Theme gives you the option to assign a new layout per space.
You can assign your space layouts to a space directly (step 3), or you can add category labels to your spaces to group them and then assign the category to a layout (step 4).
In the next few steps we will show you how to do it.
Space layouts overview
Clicking on the space layout option will bring you to the overview of all configured space layouts.
The list will be empty if you have just installed LTP.
To add a space layout, simply enter a name for it in the input box and click on "Add space layout".
This will create a space layout which you can configure further. To do so, click the edit pencil.
Configure and apply your space layout
Now you will be presented a familiar screen, which looks like the "Configuration" for the global layout.
A space layout will override a global configuration.
- Name of space layout: This is the name of the space layout you are editing. You can rename it here.
- Assigned spaces: Here you can assign spaces to which your layout will apply.
- Assigned space categories: Here you can assign space categories to which your layout will apply. See the next step for how to assign space categories.
Note:
Space layouts have almost the same features of the global configuration, except for the dashboard settings and custom CSS/JavaScript.
If you need to use custom CSS/JavaScript for a specific space, do that in the global configuration.
A space layout will set a special body attribute which can be used as a CSS or JavaScript selector.
Apply a category label to your space
- Click on "Space directory" in your footer area, section "Intranet tools".
- Click on the space you want to assign to a category.
- Click on "Space tools" in the bottom left corner of your site and select "Overview".
- Click on "edit" next to your space category field.
- Type a new or existing label/text and save.
The label you applied can be used in the layout configuration, see below.
Apply your space category to a space layout
Just type in the name of your space category in the "Assigned space categories" field.
Custom landing spaces
Enabling the custom landing spaces
The custom landing spaces feature defines which space a user will see when they log in.
You can use this feature to redirect users based on their user profile data.
For example, when you have a bilingual site with German and English, every language has its own space in Confluence.
When a user logs in, you can redirect them to the page with the appropriate language, depending on which locale they have set.
Note:
This feature requires the Linchpin Manager app to work !
You can also use profile fields which are provided by Linchpin User Profiles app.
Define custom landing spaces for your users
Here you can see three attributes which represent a field in a user's profile.
Let's choose "Name" for the first attribute and "Locale" for the second, then click save.
The configuration below will extend. Now click on "Add landing space". It will ask you to type in data:
- Landing space: The name of a space, here we used "Demonstration Space".
- Name: A username in Confluence, here we used "admin".
- Local: A locale, here we used "de".
When a user logs in, this feature will check if the user is named "admin" and has the language "de" set (German).
If both of these match, then the user's landing page will be set to the "Demonstration Space". Each time they log in, they will see the "Demonstration Space".
Note:
If you choose multiple attributes, they all have to match. They are connected by "AND", not "OR".
Space types and space directory
Select space types
Linchpin Theme gives you the option to create space types to collect spaces categories together. Those will be displayed within the space directory in a separate section, so your users can find the spaces they are looking for more easily.
In the next few steps we will show you how to do it.
Space types overview
Clicking on the space type option will bring you to the overview of all configured space types.
The list will be empty if you have just installed LTP.
To add a space type, simply click on "Create".
Create new space type
By clicking on "Create" a dialog will be displayed where you can set the title and the space categories which should be included in the new space type. Please notice, that you can only select existing space categories.
For example you can create a type called "Teams" and add every category which relates to a team space.
If you want a new space category, please visit the relevant space and set up the new category.
Take a look at the brand new space directory
Footer configuration
New in 2.18: Login Screen
Create a custom login page
You can configure a background image and a welcome message, which will be shown on the Confluence login page.
A preview will be shown next to the configuration (on the right).
Export
Clicking on this menu item, will export your LTP configuration to an XML file.
Import
Clicking on this menu item, will let you restore your LTP configuration from an XML file.
Use the file you have previously exported the configuration to.
Linchpin Theme macros
Layout Box macro
You can use the Layout Box macro to arrange content on dashboards or pages. By using several nested layout boxes you can set columns or fancy content boxes.
The Linchpin Layout Box macro has several options:
- Background color: Background color of the layout box.
- Text color: Text color of the layout box.
- Width: Width of the layout box.
- Outer Spacing: Choose the outer margin of the layout box. You can use standard css input values: e.g. 10px, 5px 25px, 10px 20px 30px 40px, auto.
- Inner spacing: Choose the inner padding of the layout box. You can use standard css input values: e.g. 10px, 5px 25px, 10px 20px 30px 40px.
- Alignment of the box: You can set floats for every layout box. Several layout boxes in a wrapper layout box can appear as columns when all of them float left.
- Use box as a wrapper: if you are using floats, you can use a wrapper layout box by setting this option.
- CSS class: Set your own CSS classes that can be used to add additional styles like shadows, borders and so on.
New in 2.18: Spaces macro
Add this macro to display a list of spaces.
You can choose the following settings
- All spaces
- Favorite spaces
- Global spaces
- Archived spaces
- By category (add spaces with chosen category by autocomplete)
- By space name (add spaces by name via autocomplete)
A max. amount of 24 space ist shown by default, but you might load more spaces if are available
Additional features and styling provided by other Linchpin apps
Get more out of your "Linchpin Theme" with Linchpin apps
In combination with our new "Linchpin Manager" app, Linchpin users are now able to style additional apps to get full control of their theme.
| App Name | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Linchpin Launchpad | Provides a tab in your sidebar to list your configured apps and links. | |
| Linchpin Enterprise News | LTP provides additional styling for your news. | |
| Linchpin User Profiles | Provides the expert finder and contact manager for your sidebar. | Link |
| Navigation Menu Editor | LTP provides additional styling for your menu bar, below your header. | |
| Linchpin Manager | Provides cross-app functionality. |
Styling of the Navigation Menu Editor
Configure the drop-down & fly-out menus in the "Navigation Menu Editor" app right from within your Linchpin Theme.
Styling Cover Stories in Enterprise News
Define the look & feel of the "Cover Stories" macro, provided by the "Enterprise News Bundle" app by pre-defining color sets for different news types. Define color-sets for "title on color 1 & 2" and make them available in the macro for your frontend users.
Table of contents
Linchpin Theme - Documentation
Create a custom theme for your Confluence and Linchpin instance