It has come to my attention that the current default theme setup was lacking. I got tired of making a change in 3 places for every change in one of the tpl files so I figured out a way to make all the themes rely on a default set of files to pull from to help ease some of the issues associated with updates to the template files.

I have made a change in the way templates are called from the template folder. Now you no longer have to upload all of the template files to your theme directory. You only need to upload the files that have changes from the default template. To summarize if you like the Mean_Yellow theme and want to change the listings layout instead of making the changes and uploading the entire theme directory you need only upload your changed listings.tpl file into the correct theme directory then it will automatically load that file and pull all the other tpl files from the Default folder.

• If you are using one of the OAC default themes, start by merging your default theme with the newly released Default theme, use a program such as winmerge or diff. It is a good idea to make sure the Default theme is current with the updates made in v1.5.0b as the Default theme will have all of the new language file definitions reflected in the code.

• Once you have the new changes merged with your templates upload the Default theme and overwrite your existing Default theme.

• If you have not completed the Language upgrade guide you should do that now then proceed with the next step.

• At this point if you have not already done so upload the Changed php files released in the v1.5.0b upgrade and set the flag “force_compile_enabled” to true to make sure all of your templates will recompile correctly.

• If you have made custom changes to one of the other default template sets merge those with your new Default theme.

• Look for duplicate files located in your theme directory any files that are identical to those located in the Default theme folder can be removed from your correct theme directory and your site will still function properly.