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h2. Redesign Confluence!

Confluence is an amazing wiki, but people often want to change the way it looks to improve adoption or simply bring it in-line with other online applications and corporate identity. The Theme Builder plugin allows you to add and customise logo banners, menu-driven navigation, style sheets, footers and more...

{section}{column}{center}
[!constitutionday.png!|http://hancock.constitutioncenter.org/constitutionday/|Constitution Center - Learning Resources]
{center}{column}{column}{center}
[!bam.png!|http://www.bach-academie-montreal.com|Bach-Académie de Montréal - Festival Website]
{center}{column}{column}{center}
[!terracotta.png!|http://www.terracotta.org/confluence/|Terracotta - Product Resources]
{center}{column}{section}

Sites customised with Theme Builder look professional, stand out from the crowd and are easy to use regardless of how much content they contain. The theme effectively turns your wiki in to an agile Content Management System (CMS), simply by making it look nice. You're already looking at the results of the plugin in action - this website ([tutorial|Adaptavist Website Theme]).

h2. Why use the Theme Builder plugin?

Builder is the fastest way to customise Confluence - using a visual editor and simple wiki notation, perhaps with a bit of custom CSS if your designers are perfectionists, you can radically alter the way Confluence looks in a matter of days.

{section}{column}{center}
[!customware.png!|http://www.customware.net|CustomWare - Company Website]
{center}{column}{column}{center}
[!yourbuildingjavapolis.pngjpg!|http://wwwjavapolis.yourbuilding.org|Your Buildingcom|JavaPolis - Conference]
{center}{column}{column}{center}
[!cubs.png!|http://www.ldhuongviet.org|LIÊN ĐOÀN HƯỚNG VIỆT - Scouts Website]
{center}{column}{section}

But that's not the real reason people use Builder - it's the long-term maintenance of the theme that's important. Having a theme that's easy to edit whenever you need to, without needing to learn Java, HTML or Velocity, saves time and money. Furthermore, you can usually upgrade Confluence without the need to make any changes to your theme settings.

h2. How does it work?

Install the plugin then configure any number of Spaces to use the theme -- content will instantly look cleaner:

* Customise navigation to tailor it to the needs of your end users - headers, menubars, side panels and footers can all contain navigation elements.
* Inbuilt style sheet enhancements improve everything from heading styles to line spacing. This makes content look *much cleaner* and *more professional*.
* Corporate branding is applied by adding logos, backgrounds and stye sheet customisations.
* Display legal boilerplate and low-priority links in footers on every page.
* Provide comprehensive navigation options without the clutter using menu bars - reduce the number of on-screen links but still provide access to all functionalityand start creating "layouts" - you can create unlimited theme layouts (and use them as templates for other layouts) using the [Layout Manager]:

* Use the [Layout Tab] to quickly choose which panels (headers, sidebars, footers) to display around your wiki pages.
* Use the [Panel Editor] to quickly customise the content and basic design of your panels.
* Use the [Menus Tab] to configure menu options, design and customise the default View and Edit menus
* Use the [CSS Tab] to add custom style sheets for fine-grained control over the design
* Use the [JS Tab] to configure which JavaScript libraries are included and import your own
* Use the [Options Tab] to configure additional options such as search engine optimisation, caching and breadcrumbs
* Use the [Permissions Tab] to set layout-level permissions such as who can edit the layout or it's panels

Once you've created your layouts, easily apply them to your wiki using the [Layout Chooser], complete with a full preview of what your space will look like.

h2. Want to Know More?

If you'd like to know more, just click on the links below:

* [Feature Tour|Builder - Feature Tour] - what does Theme Builder do?
* [Frequently Asked Questions|Builder - FAQ] Answers to common questions
* [Online community|Home] {menuicon:new} - news, forums, tutorials and more
* [Price List|Shop] - current pricing for new licenses, maintenance renewals, license upgrades and site licenses
* [User Guides|Documentation] - user guide and technical documentation
* [Customer Support|Support] - online support

{center}If you have any questions or comments, please [contact us].{center}