Editing the Main.vmd

Question

Hi All,

I need to edit the main decorator of the documentation theme. Confluence frustratingly doesn't allow me do this through the web interface. It throws an error:

You can not customise the site look and feel while a theme is active. You must first disable the currently configured theme.

Is there any workaround for this please? I just need to include a few bits to the header of the documentation theme.

Thanks

Jimmy P · Answer

I managed to find main.vmd in the decorators folder -- then tried to make a simple edit. However, the changes did not load when I refresh the page in the browser.

I have even tried to restart Confluence server, no luck! It still didn't pick up my changes (as if it loads from cache or somewhere else).

Any ideas how I can make changes to the main.vmd and get it applied? Thanks!

Giuliano C. · Answer

You can not customise the site look and feel while a theme is active. You must first disable the currently configured theme.

This is an expected behavior on Confluence. You can only customise a layout from the layout default theme. Also, to better understand how this customising question works or how to create a theme, refer to the following articles:

* http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/CONF27/Customising+Layouts
* http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/CONF27/Creating+a+Theme

About the main.vmd, it's used to control the header and footer of each page, not the page specific presentation logic. And we have the Decorator Macro that works with it in customisations, please, see the following page:

* https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Working+With+Decorator+Macros

Also, If the layout has changed so extensively as to not be visible, you can browse to the URL directly:

http://<confluence base url>/admin/resetdecorator.action?decoratorName=decorators/main.vmd

Substitute the base URL and the appropriate vmd file.

Don't forget to perform a backup of those files before the changings. Hope it helps you.

Kind Regards

AnisB · Answer

I have the same problem. I would like to add some macros to the page layout and it is not allowed. I tried to add a modified docmentation theme but that didn t work too