Microsites Theming

Warning:

This is a draft document for a newly implemented feature in the edX platform, which still has a couple outstanding issues.

Please see PR #2061 for the latest comments and status

---

Overview

This feature enables separate, deployable "micro-themes" (e.g. branding elements, Mako template overrides, etc.) for subdomains (e.g. foo.edx.org, bar.edx.org) in order to provide branding "multi-tenancy".

Django configuration settings used specifically for microsites

• MICROSITE_NAMES - list of microsites
• MICROSITE_CONFIGURATION - A dict of dicts. The existence of this dict in effect enables the microsites feature. Each key in the microsite configuration dict specifies the config for a microsite. There should be a configuration for each of the items in the MICROSITE_NAMES list. Keys within each microsite's config are as follows:
• domain_prefix
• university
• platform_name
• logo_image_url - path to the branded logo image to use. This is relative to the MICROSOFT_ROOT_DIR (see below).
• email_from_address - From address for emails. Overrides DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL. Used by account creation, paid cert order, direct enrollment via instructor dashboard, etc.
• payment_support_email - Payment support email address. Overrides PAYMENT_SUPPORT_EMAIL. Used for email sent when a payment processing error occurs.
• ENABLE_MKTG_SITE
• SITE_NAME - hostname and port portion of the URI for the microsite web address
• course_org_filter
• course_about_show_social_links - boolean toggle for displaying the social links in the course about page's sidebar. Defaults to True if not set.
• css_overrides_file - path to stylesheet for css overrides. This is relative to the MICROSOFT_ROOT_DIR (see below).
• show_partners
• homepage_overlay_html - Optional html that is shown within div.outer-wrapper > div.title > hgroup on the microsite's home page in place of the "<h1>The Future of Online Education</h1><h2>For anyone, anywhere, anytime</h2>" tag line.
• show_homepage_promo_video - boolean toggle for displaying a video on the microsite's home page. Defaults to True if not set.
• homepage_promo_video_youtube_id - Override for the video modal that is displayed on the microsite's home page. Defaults to "XNaiOGxWeto"
• course_index_overlay_logo_file - Optional override for the logo file on the course index page. Defaults to "images/edx_bw.png"
• course_index_overlay_text - Text to override the "Explore free courses from leading universities." tag line that is shown on the course index page.
• favicon_path - Optional path to override the value of FAVICON_PATH
• MICROSITE_ROOT_DIR - a directory that contains subdirectories of assets for each microsite including css, images, template overrides. The assets of each microsite are located under a subdirectory with the same name as the microsite key in the MICROSITE_CONFIGURATION dict (described above).

Other Django configuration settings that are important to microsites configuration

• FEATURES('ENABLE_MKTG_SITE') - This is used to determine whether or not certain links (e.g. course listing page, FAQ, etc.) should be handled by the lms django app or by an external app. See Alternate site for marketing links
• MAKO_TEMPLATES['main'] - list of directories to look in for the compiled template files. The microsite root directory gets appended to this list.
• SUBDOMAIN_BRANDING - Boolean toggle for signaling that the microsites configuration dict has contents???
• VIRTUAL_UNIVERSITIES - list of university landing pages to display on the lms home page. These will be displayed whether or not they have courses created for that org. Clicking on the link for a given university will bring the user to the course catalog for the university.
• FEATURES('USE_MICROSITES') - Internal Boolean toggle for enabling the microsites feature. This is not configured directly in a settings.py file, but instead is overridden in the code itself.

Template Changes