With the release of ILIAS 5 a new method to generate skins was introduced. Procedures to customize a skin from former versions usually fail or impose big efforts.

At a glance, new skins are generated by editig less- files and setting some variables there. These less files are compiled to css by the less compiler and then places into the proper directory structures.

The pages in this chapter were written while configuting ILIAS 5.0.11 (optes-version) in May 2016

To generate a customized skin, first install the necessary tools to your server. These tools include nodejs and the mode packet manager. After that you can install the less compiler using

npm install -g less

or

apt-get install node-less

To have a working directory for your skin, copy the complete folder templates/default of your ilias installation to a new folder below Customizing/global/skin
Within that directory, edit the file "template.xml" to have an unique Style Name and id. This is needed to identify the new skin in ILIAS' administration.

copy the standard delos.css file to "your-id.css"

Take care: the main css-File must reflect the id in its name.