Introducing Startup: The new default theme for Silverstripe CMS 6

Startup is a quick, easy-to-use, yet powerful way for you to try out Silverstripe CMS, or use it as a starting point for your next project.

If you are an experienced developer of Silverstripe CMS, you have probably noticed a change in the default frontend theme when performing a fresh install of Silverstripe.

With the release of Silverstripe 6, the installer now includes “Startup” as the default bundled theme. This replaces “Simple” which has been the default theme through Silverstripe major versions 3, 4 and 5. Startup serves the same purpose as Simple, by being a quick jumping off point to familiarise developers new to Silverstripe with some basic templates and styling. Additionally, more experienced developers can also use the Startup theme to quickly prototype and test new features and functionality.

Some notable features and improvements of the theme include:

• Fully accessible desktop and mobile menus out of the box. The theme comes with thoroughly designed and tested menu templates, allowing full keyboard operability. All functionality is written in plain Javascript so no transpiling tools are required if you decide to modify the code.

• CSS written using BEM best practices and CSS variables.

• Full WYSIWYG typography styling. The theme comes with full styling for headings, margins, blockquotes and anything else you can add to the Content field via the WYSIWYG. The styles have been designed and reviewed by our head designer and have been tested meticulously. We can recommend using the included CSS as a great starting point to the theme of your next project.

• Easily customisable and extendable templates.

The Startup package

In addition to this theme, we’ve created an add-on package(opens in new tab) which you can install to quickly have access to some essential modules and common template and class patterns. This package was designed with the intent of being a useful tool for new Silverstripe developers to get acquainted with common modules and design patterns.

Included modules

• Silverstripe Elemental(opens in new tab): Enables content authors to build webpages using modular content blocks (Elements). The package includes a basic setup and pre-defined block types.

• Silverstripe menu manager(opens in new tab): Allows you to define and manage custom menus (like the Main and Footer menus) directly within the CMS admin area.

• FocusPoint(opens in new tab): Gives content authors control to set a specific focal point on images for intelligent cropping when the image is resized.

Other customisations

The package also includes useful extensions to customise core Silverstripe models:

• Site Config extension: Adds global settings like a footer copyright line and a custom link button for the site header.

• Page extension: Extends the base page type with an introduction field and an option to hide the sibling menu.

• Image extension: Adds a field that allows for easy customisation of the alt text attribute for images.

Explore the Startup Theme(opens in new tab) and see what you can achieve on your next project, faster and with greater ease.