Customizing Oj s

8/12/2019 Customizing Oj s

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Customizing Your OJS Journal

Table of Contents

Preface .................................................................................................. ........................... 1

Introduction ..................................................... ....................................................... ........... 1

First Thing's First: The Look ................................................................................................ 2

Modifying the Journal Homepage Header ........ ...... ..... ...... ...... ..... ...... ..... ...... ...... ..... ...... . 2

Adding Homepage Content ...... ..... ...... ..... ...... ...... ..... ...... ..... ...... ...... ..... ...... ..... ...... ...... 3

Modifying the Journal Page Header .......... ...... ...... ..... ...... ..... ...... ...... ..... ...... ..... ..... ...... .. 3

The Journal Page Footer ...... ..... ...... ...... ..... ...... ..... ...... ...... ..... ...... ..... ...... ...... ..... ...... .... 3

Adding a New Navigation Bar Item ............................................................................... 4

Packaged Themes and Layout ....................................................................................... 4

Information for Librarians, Readers and Authors ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .. 6

Lists ..................................................................................... .................................... 6

Stylesheet Modifications ...... ..... ...... ...... ..... ...... ..... ...... ...... ..... ...... ..... ..... ...... ..... ...... ..... ...... .. 7

Stylesheet Locations ...................................................................................... ............. 7

Making Style Changes ................................................................................................. 8

Miscellany .............. ........................................................ ................................................. 10

Adding a Unique Image for Each Issue ...... ..... ..... ...... ..... ...... ..... ...... ...... ..... ...... ..... ...... . 10

Announcements ...................................................... .................................................. 11

Adding a Multilingual Interface ................................................................................... 11

Adding a Splash Screen ..... ..... ...... ..... ...... ..... ...... ...... ..... ...... ..... ...... ...... ..... ...... ..... ..... 12

Adding MP3 Support ................................................................................................. 13

Other Resources ............................................... ........................................................ ........ 14

A. common.css ................................................... ........................................................ ...... 14

PrefaceOpen Journal Systems is a research and development initiative of the Public Knowledge Project at the

University of British Columbia. Its continuing development is currently overseen by a partnership among

UBC's Public Knowledge Project, the Canadian Center for Studies in Publishing, and the Simon Fraser

University Library. For more information, see the Public Knowledge Project web site: http://pkp.sfu.ca.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License. To

view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/deed.en_CA or send a

letter to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA.

Introduction

As the global OJS community increases, the needto customize individual journals using our open source

software has become increasingly important. This document provides a brief overview of a few customiza-

tions to your OJS 2.x journal, including:

Changing the Header

Changing the Background Colour and Fonts

Adding a Unique Image for Each Issue
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/deed.en_CAhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/deed.en_CAhttp://pkp.sfu.ca/


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Adding Navigation Links

Providing News and Updates

Integrating Blogs, Wikis, Forums and More

Adding a Multilingual Interface

Adding a Splash Screen

Adding MP3 Support

First Thing's First: The Look

The Journal Manager can manipulate various aspects of the look of an OJS journal, without knowing very

much in the way of css or HTML. There is a page devoted specifically to changing a journal's look, found

under User Home --> Journal Manager --> Setup --> Step 5: The Look. The following instructions in this

section all relate to this page.

Modifying the Journal Homepage Header

Under Step 5.1: Journal Homepage Header, you can upload header images and logos, or otherwise edit

the header text, for the journal's home page.

You have to choose between using a text title or an image at the top of your homepage by toggling the

radio button between each. Any text you enter under the Text Title will appear at the top of your home

page; if you choose to use a title image instead, any banner image you upload here will appear in its place.

You can also upload a logo, which will appear to the left of the title text or image.

Figure 1. Uploading a Homepage Header Image

Keep in mind that the default header width is 820px, which would include both a logo and a title image,

if uploaded; uploaded images should be sized to fit reasonably well within these constraints.


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Adding a New Navigation Bar Item

Under Section 5.5: Navigation Bar, you can add a Navigation Bar link to the current set at the top of every

journal page. This can be an in-site link (for example, linking directly to a Submission page), or an external

link (linking to a journal sponsor's website).

An interesting use of additional navigation links is to add a blog or wiki for your journal, allowing formore interaction with your readers, and the development of an online community.

For example, if your OJS site is at http://mysite.com/ojs and you have an associated blog at http://

mysite.com/blog, you can add a link to that blog from the navigation bar

Figure 3. Adding a Navigation Bar Item

Packaged Themes and Layout

Under Step 5.6: Journal Layout, you have the option of switching between provided themes, uploading

your own stylesheet, and moving journal blocks around. Uploading your own stylesheet will be dealt with

later, as it this function can become a little bit more complex.

Changing Themes

OJS 2.2 comes with a number of themes that you can use. These themes will change the site colours, but

will not affect layout. Follow these steps to switch your theme:

Log in as Journal Manager, and navigate to User Home --> Journal Manager --> Setup --> Step 5: The

Look.

Scroll down to step 5.6 Journal Layout.

Choose your new theme from the drop-down menu beside Journal Theme.

Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save and Continue; your new theme should now be set.

Figure 4. Changing Themes


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If you assign a block to the middle 'unselected' field, it will not appear on your site.

You can highlight more than one block to move at a time; and you can use the 'big arrow' buttons at the

bottom of the 'unselected' field to move items directly from one sidebar to another.

If a sidebar is empty, it disappears and the resulting free space is taken by the middle content block.

You have to scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Save and Continue" for your changes to be recorded.

Information for Librarians, Readers and Authors

By default, OJS displays very open and general information for librarians, authors and readers on the right

sidebar. You can edit this information under Step 5.7: Information.

Lists

By default, OJS limits the maximum number of items per page to 25, and the number of page links to 10.

You can edit this default under Step 5.8: Lists.

Figure 7. Changing the List length

Although you can't see all 25 items in the following list example, you can see how the number of pages

has been limited to 10, event though this journal has published more than 250 articles. If a user clicks on

the 10th page link, the pages 5 thru 14 will be linked to from the bottom of the resulting page, while the

25 results for that page will be displayed.

Figure 8. Lists Example


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Stylesheet ModificationsA newly installed version of OJS comes with a default style sheet, with an attractive choice of colours

and fonts. In addition, themes can be enabled to modify colours site-wide. If you want to make further

changes, however, you will have to create and upload your own stylesheet.

Notice the extensive colour changes made for Critical Studies in Improvisation (http://www.criticalimprov.com/):

Figure 9. Colour Changes

This journal accomplished most of the changes you see by uploading a new stylesheet.

Stylesheet Locations

OJS links to many different stylesheets at any one time. This is the typical order in which stylesheets are

called, if they are all enabled:

common.css: every journal uses this stylesheet, and it can be found in styles/; you can see the appendix

for the full stylesheet as well.

sidebar.css, leftSidebar.css, rightSidebar.css, and bothSidebars.css: these can be found within the styles

directory as well; they apply structural rules to the sidebars, if being used.

(themeName).css: if you have enabled a theme from Setup: Step 5.6, the theme's stylesheet will be callednext. The stylesheet for any particular theme comes from the theme title: the stylesheet for Classic Blue

is classicBlue.css, for example. These theme stylesheets can be found in plugins/themes/(themeName)/.

journalStyleSheet.css: if you upload your own stylesheet, OJS renames it to journalStyleSheet.css and

places it in your journal file directory (for example, in public/journals/1/journalStyleSheet.css for the

first journal created with that particular OJS install).

fontSize stylesheets: there are three user-switchable stylesheets that control site-wide font size --

small.css, medium.css, and large.css. They can be found in plugins/blocks/fontSize/.
http://www.criticalimprov.com/http://www.criticalimprov.com/


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There are also location-specific stylesheets. These can be found in the styles/ directory:

articleView.css: called when an HTML article, abstract, or interstitial page is being viewed.

comments.css: called when comments are enabled and displayed.

help.css: used to style context-sensitive help pages that are displayed when a user clicks on "Journal

Help".

rt.ss: used to style the Research Tools sidebar, if enabled.

Changes made to one stylesheet can be overridden by another stylesheet. For example, since the fontSize

css files are last in the listed order, they are processed last by your browser, and their rules are applied last,

overriding every other stylesheet before it. This is good to keep in mind when it comes to troubleshooting.

So long as you don't edit the already-existing stylesheets, and keep to uploading your own modifications,

this shouldn't be a problem.

Making Style Changes

If you take a look at common.css, you'll notice that is has been broken down into the following sections:

Common HTML elements

Main layout elements

Navigation bar

Breadcrumbs

Additional text styles

Table styles

Form-specific elements

Other organizational elements

For basic changes, you'll want to find the element you want to change in common.css, examine the prop-

erties and values that have been defined, and then make a stylesheet that reflects the property and value

changes you want to make.

For example, to change the body background colour and font, find the body entry (it is the very first one

in common.css):

Example 1. CSS Example

body {margin: 0;

padding: 0;

background-color: #FBFBF3;

color: #111;

font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;

}

To change your site's background colour and default text, enter and save the following text as a new file,

and then upload it in Step 5.6 as a journal stylesheet:


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Example 2. CSS Example

body {

background-color: white;

font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;

}

This will override the first example's background-color and font-family values.

With just a few simple stylesheet changes, you can begin to make your OJS site your own.

Example 3. Uploading a new stylesheet for Newfoundland and Labrador Studies

body {

background-color: white;

font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;

}

#header {

background-color: #554b1a;

border-bottom: 1px solid black;

}

When you combine a journal header, the reorganization of some sidebar blocks, and a customized

stylesheet, the results can be quite noticeable.

Figure 10. Results of Uploading a Stylesheet


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If you have some experience working with style sheets, you will be able to make extensive customizations

to the "look and feel" of your new journal.

Miscellany

Adding a Unique Image for Each IssueAnother interesting enhancement is to add a unique cover image to each issue of your journal. This, of

course, requires a sustainable source of artwork!

The journal Postcolonial Text (http://postcolonial.org/) makes good use of this feature in their version of

OJS:

Figure 11. Issue Cover Art

These images are added when each issue is created by the Editor. There is also the option at the time of

issue creation to upload an issue-specific stylesheet, as well as an imagecaption.
http://postcolonial.org/http://postcolonial.org/


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Figure 12. Customizing an Issue

Announcements

The front page of a journal can be used as a communication space with your readers, announcing new

information about your journal by using the included Announcements module. This module can be enabled

by the Journal Manager in Step 4.4: Journal Announcements, and will appear as a link in the Navigation

Bar, and optionally on the home page.

Only Journal Managers can add announcements. You can control how many announcements appear on

the home page, if any.

Figure 13. Enabling Announcements

Adding a Multilingual Interface

OJS supports several languages, such as English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. Translations are also

underway for more languages in the near future. This allows your readers to have all of the links, text,

and help files in their own language.

You can make your journal unilingual in any of the languages supported by OJS, or you can make your

journal multilingual, by activating a drop-down language selector.


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To do this, your Site Administrator will need to install Languages from the Site Management menu. From

here, the Site Administrator must install any available languages to use with the journal, check them off

as supported by the journal.

Second, the Journal Manager must activate the all of the languages you wish to support, under User Home

--> Journal Management --> Languages.

If more than one language is enabled, users will be able to use a drop-down menu on the sidebar to choose

a preferred journal-wide display language. There will also be the option of entering text in different lan-

guages where appropriate, such as throughout the Journal Setup process, and when authors submit an ar-

ticle for consideration.

Adding a Splash Screen

Another way to add some artistic appeal to your journal is by adding a splash screen, which appears before

users are taken to the journal. Cosmos and History (http://www.cosmosandhistory.org) provides a very

nice example of this:

Figure 14. Cosmos and History Splash Screen

Which leads, in turn, to their main page:
http://www.cosmosandhistory.org/


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Figure 15. Cosmos and History Main Page

This is done by simply creating an index.html file for the splash screen, and adding a link to the journal

home page. In this case, the link is labelled "enter site".

Adding MP3 Support

An innovative customization from The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning

(http://www.irrodl.org/) is the addition of audio versions of their articles, using MP3 files:
http://www.irrodl.org/


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Figure 16. mp3 Functionality

The audio files were recorded outside of the OJS system, but were uploaded as supplementary files, asso-ciated with each article. This was done by the Section Editor, in the Submissions Summary section. Other

types of files can be added, including video.

These could also be added by the author, as part of their submission process.

Other Resources

To find out more about OJS, please consult the following resources:

The Public Knowledge Project Homepage: http://pkp.sfu.ca/

OJS Documentation: http://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs_documentation

The Support Forums: http://pkp.sfu.ca/support/forum

A. common.css

/**
http://pkp.sfu.ca/support/forumhttp://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs_documentationhttp://pkp.sfu.ca/


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* common.css

*

* Copyright (c) 2003-2007 John Willinsky

* Distributed under the GNU GPL v2. For full terms see the file docs/COPYIN

*

* Site-wide shared stylesheet.

** $Id: common.css,v 1.47 2007/11/14 22:36:20 asmecher Exp $

*/

/**

* Common HTML elements

*/

body {

margin: 0;

padding: 0;

background-color: #FBFBF3;

color: #111;

font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;}

div {

line-height: 140%;

text-align: left;

}

table {

border: 0;

border-spacing: 0;

font-size: 1.0em;

}

form {

margin: 0;

}

a {

text-decoration: underline;

}

a:link {

color: #375;

}

a:active {

color: #253;

}

a:visited {

color: #375;

}

a:hover {


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color: #253;

background: #CDC;

}

a.plain {

text-decoration: none;

}

ul {

margin: 0.25em 0 0.75em 0;

padding: 0 0 0 2.5em;

}

tt {

font-size: 1.25em;

}

label {

}

label.error {

color: #900;

}

input.textField, select.selectMenu, textarea.textArea, input.uploadField {

background-color: #F0F0E8;

color: #000;

font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;

border-top: 2px solid #666;

border-left: 2px solid #666;

border-bottom: 2px solid #E8E8E1;

border-right: 2px solid #E8E8E1;

font-size: 1em;

}

input.button {

padding-left: 0.5em;

padding-right: 0.5em;

background-color: #E8E8E1;

font-size: 1em;

}

input.defaultButton {

background-color: #375;

color: #FBFBF3;

font-weight: bold;

}

/**

* Main layout elements

*/

#container {


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line-height: 125%;

text-align: center;

}

#header {

padding: 0;

margin: 0 auto;background-color: #ABA;

text-align: center;

}

#headerTitle {

text-align: left;

margin: 0 auto;

padding: 0;

width: 800px;

}

#header h1 {

margin: 0 auto;padding: 0.5em 0 0.25em 0;

font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;

font-weight: normal;

line-height: 1em;

}

#body {

width: 800px;

margin: 0 auto;

}

#footer {

min-height: 50px;

position: relative;

clear: both;

background-color: #ABA;

text-align: center;

}

#footerContent {

width: 800px;

margin: 0 auto;

}

#main {

padding: 0.5em 0em 2em 0em;

}

#main h2 {

margin: 0em 1em 0.5em 0em;

padding-top: 0.5em;



}


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#main h3 {


padding-top: 0em;



}

#navbar {

margin-right: 0;

padding-bottom: 0.5em;

border-bottom: 2px dotted #000;

}

#breadcrumb {

padding-top: 1em;

font-size: 0.7em;

}

#content {margin: 0;

padding: 0;

padding-top: 0.5em;

font-size: 0.7em;

border-top: 2px dotted #000;

}

#content h3 {


padding-top: 0.75em;



font-size: 1.8em;

line-height: 1.35em;

}

#content h4 {





font-size: 1.5em;

}

#content h5 {



font-weight: bold;

font-size: 1em;

}

/**

* Navigation bar


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*/

#navbar a {

font-size: 0.65em;

letter-spacing: 0.05em;

}

#navbar a:link {

}

#navbar a:active {

}

#navbar a:visited {

}

#navbar a:hover {

}

/**

* Breadcrumbs

*/

#breadcrumb a {


}

#breadcrumb a.current {

font-weight: bold;

}

/**

* Footer elements

*/

#footer div.debugStats {

font-size: 0.6em;

}

/**

* Additional text styles

*/

span.disabled, label.disabled {

color: #666;

}

a.action, a.file {

font-size: 0.85em;

text-transform: uppercase;

}


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a.icon {


}

a.icon img {

border: 0;}

a.icon:hover {

background: none;

}

span.formRequired {

color: #333;

font-size: 0.9em;

}

span.instruct {

}

span.heading {

font-size: 0.85em;


}

span.highlight {


}

.nowrap {

white-space: nowrap;

}

pre {

background-color: #F0F0E8;

color: #000;

font-size: 1.25em;

}

/**

* Table styles

*/

table.info {

}

table.info td {

padding: 0;



}

table.listing {


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}

table.listing tr.highlight {

background: yellow;

}

table.listing td {padding: 0.25em 0.5em 0.25em 0.5em;

}

table.listing tr.heading td, table.listing td.heading, table.info td.heading

font-size: 0.85em;



line-height: 120%;

padding: 0.75em 0.5em 1em 0.5em;

}

table.listing tr.fastTracked {

background-color: #ABA;}

table.info td.heading {

padding-left: 0;

}

table.listing td.nodata, table.info td.nodata {

text-align: center;

font-style: italic;

}

table.listing td.headseparator {


font-size: 0.1em;

line-height: 1%;

}

table.listing td.endseparator {


font-size: 0.25em;

line-height: 10%;

}

table.listing td.separator, table.info td.separator {

border-top: 1px dotted #DDDDD0;

font-size: 0.1em;

line-height: 1%;

}

table.data {

}

table.data tr {


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}

table.data td {


}

table.data td.label {padding-right: 1em;

}

table.data td.value {

}

table.data td.separator {

padding: 0.5em;

font-size: 0.1em;

line-height: 1%;

}

table.data td.heading {padding-left: 0;

padding-right: 0;

}

table.nested tr {

padding: 0;

margin: 0;

}

span.nested {

padding: 0 4px 0 0;

font-size: 1.2em;

}

/**

* Form-specific elements

*/

span.formError {

color: #900;

font-weight: bold;

font-size: 1em;

}

ul.formErrorList {

color: #900;

}

/**

* Other organizational elements

*/

ul.menu {


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margin: 0;

padding: 0;

}

ul.menu li {

margin: 0;

padding: 0;padding-right: 1.5em;

display: inline;

}

ul.menu li.current {

font-weight: bold;

}

ul.menu a {

font-size: 0.85em;



}

ul.steplist {

margin: 0;

padding: 0;

list-style-type: decimal;

}

ul.steplist li {

margin: 0;

padding: 0;

font-size: 0.85em;


display: inline;


}

ul.steplist li.current {

font-weight: bold;

}

ul.steplist a {


}

ul.plain {

list-style-type: none;

padding-left: 1.5em;

}

div.separator {

width: 100%;

margin-top: 1em;

margin-bottom: 0.25em;

padding: 0;


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font-size: 0.5em;

line-height: 25%;

}

div.progressbar {

background-image: url(../templates/images/progbg.gif);background-repeat: no-repeat;

height: 27;

width: 505;

z-index:1;

}

Documents

Customizing Oj s