Theme for multiple installations

Software Support
1

How can I use a theme for multiple installations of OJS. I have two installations I would like to share the same theme without having to update both. In other words one change in a theme should be reflected in both installations, on the same server of course. I am using OJS 3.0.2.0.

Thank you for your time.

2

I do not think that you can do it with OJS, but maybe you could sync the folders in linux somehow? (not an expert here, but linux - How to sync two folders with command line tools? - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange)

3

I am looking to change the path to the plugins directory from
http://something.com/<ojs installation 1>/plugins
http://something.com/<ojs installation 2>/plugins
http://something.com/<ojs installation 3>/plugins
to
http://something.com/plugins
so that all installations can share the same plugins that I write.
Thank you.

4

To do that you would most likely need a lot of changes to the OJS core which would make upgrading extremely hard and would, in my opinion, beat the purpose you have: to minimize work.

I am not sure, but probably you could do something similar with Mojo: GitHub - marcbria/mojo: Multiple OJs Operations (aka. mojo) is a bash script to create multiple OJS (Open Journal Systems) installations and "rule them all".
The problem is that it does not support OJS3, or at least I think so. Have not used it myself though.

5

Okay I see.

I am happy with OJS having just two installations so its not that bad.

Can a Theme Plugin for OJS (3.0.2) be used as a theme for OMP (3.1)?

Thanks

6

Hi @dave4math,

We haven’t specifically written OJS and OMP to share theme plugins, but there is enough underlying shared code that I suspect you could do this without much difficulty.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

7

Of course you can do it. As @ajnyga explained, mojo is developed entirely over this idea.
(BTW, mojo not yet OJS 3 complient, but I’m working to make it run on 3 and with docker).

I short, you only need to create a symbolic link in your journal’s /plugins/themes/ and your changes will apply in both OJS.

I suggest trying this:

$ mkdir /whaterver/sharedTheme
$ ln -s /whatever/sharedTheme /journalpath1/plugins/themes/sharedTheme

(And the same for journal2)

Then, be sure your OJS recognizes the new plugin with:
$ cd /journalpath1
$ php tools/upgrade.php upgrade
(And the same for journal2)

Then, you only need to login into OJS, enable the new theme and change you journal’s appearance (step 5 in you configuration menu, I think).

Try it and report if you find problems.

Cheers,
m.

8

If you do this (share plugins folder), you need to be sure you disable journal managers ability to install and remove plugins.

Imagine your journal’s manager deletes a plugin… it means the files are removed and the rest of ojs installations won’t be able to find the files and will crash. I learned this by the hard way. :slight_smile:

I think OJS 3 allows you to block install permissions to your journal’s manager. It was not possible in OJS 2.x and this is why I developed adminLocker.

Any way… I need to recognize that, after lots of years with a “symlinked” architecture (mojo), I’m thinking in moving to isolated journal approach based on docker. You will have much more flexibility and control.