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CERN Lite Theme

All CERN WordPress websites come with a dedicated CERN WordPress theme installed and enabled.

Creating Content

Similar to how Drupal has "nodes" as its basic content units, WordPress organises content into two main types: Pages and Posts. A WordPress page is like a Basic Page in Drupal: they are for relatively permanent content that is not tied to a specific date, such as an "About Us" or "Contact" section. A WordPress post is more like articles in Drupal: they are chronological entries typically used for news, blog posts, or updates. Posts automatically appear in reverse chronological order on your website and can be categorised and tagged (similar to Drupal's taxonomy system).

The key difference from Drupal's node system is WordPress's block editor (called Gutenberg). While Drupal traditionally uses structured fields that you configure in advance, WordPress uses a more flexible block-based approach. Each block is a self-contained content element which is similar to paragraphs in Drupal, but more interactive and user-friendly. You can add, remove, and rearrange these blocks in real-time without needing to pre-configure content types or field structures These blocks function like drag-and-drop components, each with its own settings and formatting options; conceptually similar to Drupal's Layout Builder, but integrated into the core content editing experience.

Core Blocks

We support the following of the core (officially developed) WordPress blocks:

  • Author Name

  • Buttons

  • Code

  • Cover

  • Cover

  • Post Date

  • Details

  • Embed

  • File

  • Gallery

  • Group / Stack / Row

  • Heading

  • Image

  • List

  • Text & Media

  • Paragraph

  • Pullquote

  • Quote

  • Separator

  • Site Logo / Title

  • Table

  • Video

Custom blocks

We have created the following custom blocks to allow for more functionality beyond the core blocks

News

Insert a list of the latest posts on this website, filtered by category and tag.

Equivalent to a horizontal view layout, similar to Drupal's content view for displaying news.

Insert a grid of images and text, that can also act as links to other pages or websites.

Equivalent to the grid view format in Drupal, used to display image collections.

Countdown

Insert a timer that counts down to either an Indico event, or a custom date and time.

Equivalent to countdown display format for views to display countdowns for events or important milestones.

Global Site Settings

Inside the WordPress admin dashboard, there is a section on the left side menu called 'Customise'. This opens the Global Site Editor, which allows for settings and content that apply to all pages on the site to be edited.

Site Identity

The title of the site can be set, along with a custom logo if the site is for a specific CERN sub unit.

The branding style can also be selected, which changes the colour scheme of the site based on preconfigured options. Right now there are three options: Personal, Departmental, or Experimental, which are aimed to accommodate the different kind of sites that are hosted at CERN.

Compact mode can also be enabled, which displays content in a more dense format, suitable for internal, non-promotional sites, for example.

A banner can be set to display across the top of the site, on all pages, with three different severity levels: Information, Warning, and Error. If no banner text is added, the banner will not be displayed.

Social Media

Custom links to each social media platform can be added, and the icons with links to those handles will be displayed in the footer of every page on the site. If no link is present for a given platform, the icon will not be displayed.

The links can also be reset to the default CERN social media handles.

A menu is a set of nested links that constitute a navigation bar/list on the site. There is no limit on the number of menus that can be created, but only one can be assigned to each Menu Location.

Submenus can be created by dragging a menu item under another menu item in the menu editor, and are displayed as dropdowns inside navigation bars, and as nested items in navigation lists.

There are three locations for where menus can be shown on a given site: the main navigation in the header, and two columns in the footer. The header displays the links as a navigation bar, and the footer displays the links as lists.

Media

Anywhere where an image or video can be used, has multiple options for where that media can be sourced from:

Media Library

Images and videos can be uploaded to the WordPress site directory and used from there.

CDS

The IDs of images and videos stored on CDS can be inserted and the relevant media will be rendered on the site, without having to upload it.

External

Videos specifically can be embedded from outside sources such as YouTube.