Themes can be used to kick start your SilverStripe projects, and generally make you look good.

Head to the Themes area of the website to check out the wide range of themes the community has built. Each theme has a page with links you can use to preview and download it. The theme is provided as a .tar.gz file.

1. Simply unpack the contents of the zip file into the /themes directory in your SilverStripe installation.
2. Change to the theme by putting the following line in your ./mysite/_config.php:

   SSViewer::set_theme("themename");

3. Visit your homepage, ensuring you flush the cache (append ?flush=1 to the URL).

See themes:developing to get an idea of how themes actually work and how you can develop your own.

If you want to submit your theme to the silverstripe directory then check

• You should ensure your templates are well structured, modular and commented so it's easy for other people to customise them.
• Templates should not contain text inside images and all images provided must be open source and not break any copyright law. This includes any icons your template uses in the frontend or the backend CMS
• A theme does not include any PHP files. Only 3 folders - css/, images/ and templates.

Your theme file must be in a .tar.gz format. A useful tool for this is - 7 Zip. Using 7Zip you must select the your_theme folder and Add to archive, select TAR and create. Then after you have the TAR file right click it → Add to Archive (again) → Then use the archive format GZIP.

Head over to the Themes Forum