Themes

A theme is a collection of different Styles, each holding a specific layout definition. Inside a Panel Portal you can have as many different themes as you wish, but only one can be active at a time. You can specify one theme to be the default, and this theme will then be used whenever no other theme is specified. You can however select other themes to be used for specific pages and components.

To set a theme as default, right-click on the desired theme and select Set as Default - . Forsta Plus will display the text (DEFAULT) next to the default theme in the Panel Portal toolbox.

Figure 1 - The default theme

You can allow the panelists to select a theme so they can "personalize" their portals. To give the panelists this possibility, place a Theme Selector component into the master page for the portal (go to Visual Components for more information). If a panelist chooses not to select a different theme, then the portal will be presented using the default theme.

You can also have Forsta Plus select the theme to be used depending on a panelist's answer to a question in the panelist questionnaire. For example you could have Forsta Plus use different themes for males and females under and over the age of 20. In this case you use the Theme Code property to set up the specifications.

Once you have set up the Theme Code functionality, you can define in the email link that the panelist uses to open the portal the theme to be used.

Theme Codes

You can program Forsta Plus to select a theme automatically for a panelist depending on answers given in the questionnaire. This involves using the Theme Code property, which causes the default theme to be overwritten.

Note: If a Theme Selector component is included on the Master page for the portal, then the theme specified in the Theme Selector will over-write the theme specified by the Theme Code. You are therefore recommended to remove the Theme Selector component (if one exists) from the page master before starting this procedure.

1. Ensure that the Themes folder in the Panel Portal toolbox contains the themes you wish to be available for the panelists.
2. In the panel questionnaire (Panel Setup menu), include a single question and give it a logical name, for example "ThemeCode".
3. Add the theme options as the answers to this question, and set the codes for the answers to be something specific.

For example, if the themes available are to be "Green" and "Orange", then it would be logical to set the question's answers to "Green" and "Orange", and the codes to "g" and "o" respectively as in the figure below - .



Figure 2 - Example of a Single question in the panelist questionnaire to set the theme for a panelist

As the theme selection is to be automatic, the question would normally be "hidden".

4. Generate the database for the panelist questionnaire.
5. In the Panel Utilities > Panel Portals page, select the portal you wish to work with.
6. In the Panel Portal toolbox, double-click on the Portal node or right-click on it and select Properties.

The Properties page for the portal opens.

7. Click the down-arrow beside the Theme Code Variable field and select the variable (question) that you have created earlier.
8. Save the changes.
9. In the Panel Portals toolbox, the Themes folder contains the available themes. Double-click on a Theme or right-click on it and select Properties.

The Properties page for the theme opens as shown below - .



Figure 3 - The Properties page for the Green theme

10. In the Theme Code field, type the code for the theme as specified earlier in the procedure.

In the example above, the code for the Green theme was set to g.

11. Save the changes.

You can now go into the Panel Management > Single Panelist Editor page and set the ThemeCode variable to the desired theme for specific panelists, and you can also of course use a panel rule to set the theme for sets of panelists simultaneously.

Adding a Theme Code to the Email Link

Once you have set up the Theme Code functionality you can add a Theme Code to the email link that is sent to the panelists. To do this, type:

tc=<precode>

onto the end of the link that is to be sent to the panelist.

This can also be done automatically using scripting and piping, but this is only for advanced users and the details are beyond the scope of this manual.

Note: Adding a Theme Code to the email link will automatically over-ride all other theme selections.