Customizing the journal page

Hi (especially @NateWr),

are there any plans to allow customization of the journal page in OJS 3?

I already searched the forum but only found hints how to change the template or develop a child theme.

We would (at least) like to be able to place content at the top (below the announcements) and to choose if the current issue will be displayed or not. The way it is, the journal page does not differ too much from “Current” (if you don’t have announcements).

Developing a child theme is a solution but that way you cannot use other themes anymore.

best,
Carola

Hi @carola,
it is really easy to modify templates/frontend/pages/indexJournal.tpl - especially if you would like to move certain content to the top, or uncomment other parts (such as the latest issue part).
Best,
Márton

Hi @carola,

We don’t have any plans at the moment. Most of our theme work is going into new themes, which may have different homepage layouts but generally feature the same information.

In the long term I think we’ll explore using the Theme Options system to put more layout options into a single theme. But I don’t know if that’s on the radar yet. @Vitaliy might have a better idea.

@carola, at the University of Kansas Libraries, our tech staff created a child theme of the Bootstrap themes that moves the text describing the journal so that it is located just under the masthead of the Home page instead of at the bottom of the page. The Announcements and the latest issue contents are below this description.

You will be able to see what this looks like after we complete our upgrade to v.3 in September. Please let me know if you would like to try it.

Hi @mreedks,

thank you for your answer! And yes, I am very interested in trying out your theme.

Is it / will it be open source? We plan to develop our own child theme as well, and it might be a good inspiration for us.

best,
Carola

Hi @carola

our first installation runs now on OJS 3. For this I’ve development some child themes based on the default theme.
For example:
https://crossasia-journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/iaf/index

If you have questions, feel free to ask them. I’ve also made a small presentation (in German) a few weeks ago. I could give you the Powerpoint file, if you’re interested.

Kind regards
Daniela

Hi @UBWolf,

thank you! Yes I am interested in the file. I’ll send you an email.

best,
Carola

Old Gregg theme has quite customized index journal page. You can use some features from it, if you want in your child theme development, like browse latest articles and latest issues. Backend is here: https://github.com/Vitaliy-1/oldGregg/blob/master/OldGreggThemePlugin.inc.php
and the front-end is here: https://github.com/Vitaliy-1/oldGregg/blob/master/templates/frontend/pages/indexJournal.tpl

At the backend needed variables are assigned to templates (function names are self-explanatory). It all can be done from a child theme.

Hi @Vitaliy,

thank you! That’s a very useful example with a lot of good ideas! It will definitely help us,

best,
Carola