Copying an Existing Theme's Files

If you want to jump start developing your theme, you can copy an existing theme’s files and build on top of them. The gulp kickstart task automates this process for you. It copies another theme’s css, images, js, and templates into the src directory of your own. While this is similar to extending your theme with a base theme or a themelet, kickstarting from another theme is a one time inheritance, whereas extending from another theme is a dynamic inheritance that applies your src files on top of the base theme on every build.

Note: The gulp kickstart task copies an existing theme’s files into your own, which can potentially overwrite files with the same name. Proceed with caution.

Note: Gulp is included as a local dependency in generated themes, so you are not required to install it. It can be accessed by running node_modules\.bin\gulp followed by the Gulp task from a generated theme’s root folder.

To kickstart your theme, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to your theme’s root folder and run gulp kickstart.

   

   Figure 1: Run the `gulp kickstart` task to copy a theme's files into your own theme.

2. Select where the theme is located. You can copy files from globally installed themes or themes published on the npm registry.

   Note: To globally install a theme, run the npm link command from the theme’s root folder.

   

   Figure 2: You can copy files from globally installed themes.

3. The theme’s files are copied into your own theme, jump starting development.

   

   Figure 3: The kickstart tasks copies another theme's files into your own, potentially overwriting files.

Related Topics

Building Your Theme’s files

Creating Reusable Pieces of Code for Your Themes

Deploying Themes