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To accomplish this, we provide custom theming as part of the standard on-boarding experience. The process involves several members of the team: a dedicated service team member, a front end developer, and a product owner to manage the delivery and timelines and facilitate the process.
In general terms, the process works in this general order.
Sales brings us a new Resort → Resort is assigned a Client Services team member → Services and Product Owners work out on-boarding timelines and allocate staff resources → Services and AW “designer” meet with Resort to decide on theme options → Theme Setup Task is assigned to Developer → Client Services works with Resort on feedback → Client Services works with Developer to resolve feedback.
The standard theme offering includes up to 20 hours of development resources. Most themes will take less time than that, however that time does include revisions based on feedback from the resort.
Theming is accomplished primarily through the use of dedicated CSS files for each resort, contained within a Theme folder. When the Resorts Store loads, their theme CSS gets applied to the DOM after any application specific CSS, overriding default values as needed to achieve the desired theme results.
It is recommended that you use AW Theme Designer for the theming process.
Other items that their theme folder contains include images (jpg), logos (png or svg), fonts (if embedding), theme config files (json), and custom header/footer files. When working on themes, you will be updating all of these files in the theming process. 90% of the theme set-up is accomplished through the editing of resort specific SCSS files contained in their theme folders. More details on the specific theme setup process can be found here: Step By Step Theme Guide
What does theming include?
Theming is part design, part development. Theming is applied to varying degrees on both the resorts Commerce and Identity platforms.
We will apply their brand colors appropriately to the design templates.
We will optimize and scale and crop images wherever necessary for the theme. That includes logo images, hero and slider images, various page background images, spinner/loader images, and create favicon sets.
We will also embed or import brand fonts into our Commerce platform and apply them as defined in any brand guides that resorts provide. We do not provide font embedding on the Identity platform.
Finally, within reason, we will attempt to apply similar general aesthetics to the Commerce theme as those found on their brand site. This includes button styles, card styles, font styles placement, color placement, and integration of their brand header/footer using our site scraper when possible or development of a simple header/footer using their brand colors and logo, and a front end developer to provide technical support via the Purchase Team support channel on Slack if needed.
Theming has evolved considerably over time. The first iteration of theming involved creating custom theme directories for each resort and writing custom CSS for each resorts theme. Theme Designer V1 improved the process by implementing custom CSS variables, limiting the theme options, and generating the CSS files via the stand alone Theme Designer app. Theme Designer v2 moved the stand alone app into the browser, allowing real time theme updates. It also did away with the individual theme directories for each resort, and moved the theme files to storage containers on Azure. This enabled theme updates to be done by the CS team without the need to deploy code by using the Theme Designer App.
Cloud Theming.
Our Cloud architectures front end (PUI) requires the use of the Theme Designer App to configure the theming, so any resorts onboarding to Cloud will require the use of Theme Designer. Theme Designer CSS can co-exist with legacy theme CSS to support the slow migration of resorts from their Legacy theme to the Theme Designer theme. This means that resorts can use our cloud infrastructure and a Theme Designer CSS file without using the actual Theme Designer Theme.
Theme Version Support.
While we do still support our legacy themes to a very limited degree (P1 fixes only), the CS team now uses AW Theme Designer v2 for the theming process so that they can expedite the entire onboarding experience and make theme updates without needing to involve engineering.