Migrating Custom Themes After Installing a Service Pack

SAS 9.1.3 Service Pack 3 and Service Pack 4 include significant updates to both the Default theme and the Winter theme to support changes in the user interface. (For details about the theme changes that are included in each service pack, see List of Theme Changes for SAS 9.1.3 Service Pack 3 and List of Theme Changes for SAS 9.1.3 Service Pack 4.)

In order for a custom theme to work properly after you install Service Pack 3 or Service Pack 4, you must migrate your theme customizations by using the following steps:

1. After the service pack has been installed, locate the WAR files for the updated themes in the portal Web application's installation directory. Extract the contents of either SASTheme_default.war or SASTheme_winter.war (depending on which theme was used as the basis for creating your custom theme) into a working directory.

2. In the new working directory, rename the winter or default subdirectory to the name for your theme.

3. Open the theme descriptors SASthemes.xml and SolutionsThemes.xml in a text editor, and make exactly the same changes that you made to the previous versions of these files when you created your custom theme. For details, see Step 5: Update the Theme Descriptors in Steps for Defining a New Theme.

4. If the style changes for your custom theme are in a custom style sheet, then move your custom style sheet from your existing custom theme directory to the styles subdirectory of the working directory.

5. If you made customizations to style classes directly in Portal.css, sasStyle.css, or sasComponentsTheme.css when you created the custom theme, then you should create a new custom style sheet in the styles subdirectory of the working directory. In the new style sheet, include any style customizations that you had previously made to the other style sheets. (Creating a separate style sheet for your custom styles will make future upgrades easier.)

   Note: There is one exception to this approach. To customize the page that displays information maps, you must modify the styles directly in sasComponentsTheme.css.

   Define the new style sheet in SASThemes.xml by adding a new StyleSheet subelement. For details, see Steps 2.d and 2.e in Steps for Defining a New Theme.

6. Review the style class changes and additions in List of Theme Changes for SAS 9.1.3 Service Pack 3 or List of Theme Changes for SAS 9.1.3 Service Pack 4, and evaluate them as follows:

   1. If your custom style sheet includes modifications to any style classes that have been replaced with new classes, then update your custom style sheet to refer to the new classes.

   2. Review the style classes that have been added. If necessary, customize these classes to conform to your theme.

   3. Review the style classes that have been changed. If necessary, customize these classes (or modify your existing customizations) to conform to your theme.

7. If your custom theme includes any custom images, then move your images from your custom theme to the images subdirectory of the working directory, overlaying any images that the custom images replace.

8. Review the image changes and additions in List of Theme Changes for SAS 9.1.3 Service Pack 3 or List of Theme Changes for SAS 9.1.3 Service Pack 4, and evaluate them as follows:

   1. Review the list of images that have been added. If necessary, customize these images to conform to your theme.

   2. Review the list of images that have been changed. If your custom theme includes modifications to these images, then you might want to make similar modifications to the new images.

   Note: If you assign different names to any of the images, be sure to update the image definitions in SASThemes.xml.

9. Service Pack 3 includes changes to the following theme templates: searchactionsmenu.html, utilmen.html, and banner.html. Service Pack 4 includes changes to the banner.html template, as well as new and changed templates that are used in the interface for viewing information maps. (For details, see List of Theme Changes for SAS 9.1.3 Service Pack 3 and List of Theme Changes for SAS 9.1.3 Service Pack 4.)

   If your custom theme includes modifications to any of the changed templates, then you must incorporate your modifications into the new versions of these templates, which are in the templates subdirectory of the working directory.

   You might also want to make modifications to the new theme templates that were added. (If you modify a template, do not change the substitution variables. These variables are required by the portal Web application.)

10. Delete the old custom theme from the portal Web application. Then, compress your new working directory into a WAR file, and deploy the new WAR file by using the appropriate procedures for your servlet container.

    Note: It is recommended that you test your custom theme in a nonproduction environment before deploying it into a production environment. Instead of creating a WAR file, you can place the directory that contains the theme directly into the servlet container.

    If the custom theme has the same name that it had previously, then it is not
    necessary to run LoadThemeConnection.sas or UpdateDefaultTheme.sas.