Customize

Since django-knowledge ships with default themes and styles, you might have to spend a little time perfecting your look. However, it should work right out of the box with minimal setup (or none!) if you don’t mind the defaults.

Templates

The default base template is django_knowledge/base.html which contains a single {% block knowledge_inner %} tag. This base template loads two css files from your static (see below): reset.css and base.css.

If you have your own template shim/wrapper:

  1. Copy and modify django_knowledge/base.html to your own template folder. Edit it as you see fit.
  2. Include {{ STATIC_URL }}knowledge/css/main.css for knowledge specific styling. You should purposefully leave out {{ STATIC_URL }}knowledge/css/reset.css if you don’t want us to reset your existing base styles.

If you do decide to change the base template via the KNOWLEDGE_BASE_TEMPLATE setting, your new template might look something like this:

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <title>{% block title %}{% endblock title %} | Johnny's Support Center</title>

  <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}css/my-own-reset.css">
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}css/my-own-style.css">

  <!-- don't forget to add me! -->
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}knowledge/css/main.css">
</head>

<body>
<div class="wrapper">

  <div class="header">
      Welcome to the Johnny's app!
  </div>

  <div class="content">
    {% block knowledge_inner %}

      {% block content %}
        <!-- your tradition content is loaded here if not django knowledge -->
      {% endblock content %}

      <!-- django knowlege is loaded here -->
    {% endblock knowledge_inner %}
  </div>

  <div class="footer">
      Copyright 2012
  </div>

</div>
</body>
</html>

That isn’t to say that our css styles will fit in perfectly, but we’ve been careful to namespace under dk-` the majority of our css classes, so conflicts should be minimal.

If you want to use the included template shim/wrapper:

1. Ensure static resources are loading for {{ STATIC_URL }}knowledge/css/reset.css and {{ STATIC_URL }}knowledge/css/main.css. 2. Done.

Modifying common singular sections:

There are two very common areas for modification:

  1. django_knowledge/welcome.html - The support header containing the link and phrase “Welcome to our Support Center”. Simply override this locally by copying and editing templates/django_knowledge/welcome.html to your project.
  2. django_knowledge/sidebar.html - The sidebar containing links to the homepage, ask a question and categories. Likewise, simply override this locally by copying and editing templates/django_knowledge/sidebar.html to your project.
  3. django_knowledge/form.html - The form loops over given forms and renders them. Likewise, you can simply override this locally by copying and editing templates/django_knowledge/sidebar.html to your project.

Static

As long as you are using Django’s static files system, setting up static files should be as easy as python manage.py collectstatic. If not, you can always copy your files manually to a legacy MEDIA_URL and override the base template according to the above templates section.

Likewise, feel free to override the included CSS with your own rules in your own stylesheets. We’d recommend not editing the included CSS, as an update or collectstatic might overwrite them.

CSS

We purposefully namespace the majority of our CSS classes with dk- in order to keep them from conflicting with your existing CSS. There are two included CSS files:

  • reset.css - The majority of the base classes that act on body, typography, etc... This is ripped from Blueprint (though Blueprint is not a prerequisite). This should probably only be included if you aren’t using your own shim.
  • main.css - This contains the real meat of the styles. Most of these are namespaced so they shouldn’t affect your other styles (IE: the header/footer your shim has). However, the inverse is not true. Your styles may (and probably will) effect knowledge’s css. You’re kind of on your own here.

Table Of Contents

Previous topic

Alerts

Next topic

Performance

This Page