Manage Styles
Styles, also known as themes or templates, are just one of the ways that you can personalise your new Serendipity blog. Styles are available to install directly from your administration screen, or you could download a zipfile of the style from the Serendipity repository, or even from the designer's own blog.
Many users of Serendipity eventually want to modify a style to suit their needs. All Serendipity themes are written using standard HTML and CSS, but with the addition of the easy to learn and very powerful Smarty templating language.
Installing a new style
By default Serendipity ships with several attractive styles for you to try. Simply login to your administration suite and click the "Manage Styles" link in the left menubar. This produces a list of all available themes with screenshots to make it easy for you. To the right of each style is an icon which is used to change to the style you select. You may be presented with a variety of icons. The icon with the floppy disk and CD indicates that the style is already installed and is available to select. An icon with a floppy disk and green arrow indicates that this style is available to download and install automatically, and clicking this icon will instruct Serendipity to save the style to your templates folder and then make it the style of choice for your blog. In rare circumstance you may even see a red icon, and this informs you that the style has changed since you last installed it.
If your Serendipity blog isn't able to use Spartacus, perhaps because your webhost won't allow it, you can still install new styles for your blog. Either visit the web-based version of the Serendipity repository or download a zipfile of the style directly from the template designer. You'll need to unzip the style and upload it (using ftp) to the templates folder of your Serendipity installation. Once you have uploaded your new style, select the style from 'Manage Styles' page within the administration suite.
If you have any questions about Serendipity styles, please be sure to visit the forums and ask your question in the themes forum.
