How to copy the Elemental theme to use as a base for new themes

This is a community-contributed tutorial. This tutorial is over a year old and may not apply to your version of Concrete CMS.
Apr 3, 2015

Here are the steps required to copy the Elemental theme to create a new theme called Test.

1. copy the elemental folder from the core themes directory into the application directory

copy from:
concrete\themes\

copy to:
application\themes\

2. rename the "elemental" folder to "test"

the theme folder name:
- must be lowercase
- cannot use spaces
- cannot use hyphens
- underscores can be used to separate words
Example:
my_theme

3. go to the Pages & Themes area in the dashboard

4. first error:

An unexpected error occurred. 
Cannot redeclare class Concrete\Theme\Elemental\PageTheme

5. first error fix: in page_theme.php

find:

namespace Concrete\Theme\Elemental;

change to:

namespace Application\Theme\Test;

when using folder names with underscores
- the underscore must be removed and replaced with CamelCase formatting
Example:
folder name: my_theme

namespace Application\Theme\MyTheme;

6. in your Test theme directory
version 5.7.4.2 or earlier
- open description.txt
- change "Elemental" to "Test"

if the folder was named my_theme
- change "Elemental" to "My Theme"

version 5.7.5 or later
- open page_theme.php
- look for getThemeName()

public function getThemeName()
{
    return t('Elemental');
}

change "Elemental" to "Test"

public function getThemeName()
{
    return t('Test');
}

7. install the Test theme

8. activate the Test theme

9. return to website

10. second error:

An unexpected error occurred.
File `../../../css/build/core/include/mixins.less` not found. in main.less

11. second error fix: in main.less (application\themes\test\css\main.less)

find:

@import "../../../css/build/core/include/mixins.less";

change to:

@import "../../../../concrete/css/build/core/include/mixins.less";

12. return to website

13. the site works and is now using a copy of Elemental called Test

Recent Tutorials
How To Add Page Last Updated To Your Concrete CMS Pages
Mar 7, 2023

Concrete CMS has a page attribute you can add to a global area called "Page Date Modified." Here's how to add it

How To Exclude Subpages from Navigation
Dec 24, 2022

How to exclude subpages from navigation - useful for a news or blog link in your main navigation where you don't want all the subpages to appear in a drop down menu.

How Can I Change The Maximum Size Of Uploaded files
Dec 13, 2022

This tutorial explains how to update your php settings.

Updating Concrete Themes from Version 8 to Version 9
Nov 24, 2022

This tutorial covers commonly encountered issues when upgrading a Concrete CMS theme from version 8 to version 9

Transferring ownership of an add-on and a theme
Nov 15, 2022
By katzueno.

If you encounter a Concrete CMS add-on or theme that you love but not being maintained, you may want to ask the author to help or take over the add-on or theme. Here is the quick step-by-step guide of how to transfer the ownership.

How to update Add-Ons if not on the Update Add-Ons Menu item
Jul 4, 2022

How to manually download an add-on and update it when your site's core versions isn't considered compatible with the add-on version.

Was this information useful?
Thank you for your feedback.