A WordPress block theme for Knowledge Commons, the open-access scholarly network. Built on top of the Full Site Editing (FSE) architecture introduced in WordPress 5.9+.
- WordPress 6.4 or higher
- PHP 8.0 or higher
- BuddyPress (optional, but the theme includes extensive template overrides for it)
hcommons-mpe-theme/
├── assets/
│ ├── css/
│ │ ├── theme.css # Main stylesheet
│ │ └── buddypress.css # BuddyPress-specific styles
│ ├── images/
│ └── js/
│ └── theme.js
├── buddypress/ # BuddyPress template overrides
│ ├── activity/
│ ├── blogs/
│ ├── forums/
│ ├── groups/
│ └── members/
├── parts/ # Block template parts
│ ├── header.html
│ └── footer.html
├── patterns/ # Block patterns
│ ├── hero.php
│ ├── features.php
│ ├── partners.php
│ ├── community.php
│ ├── blog-section.php
│ └── cta.php
├── templates/ # Block templates
│ ├── front-page.html
│ ├── index.html
│ ├── single.html
│ ├── page.html
│ ├── archive.html
│ └── 404.html
├── functions.php
├── style.css
└── theme.json
The theme uses a constrained colour palette and typography system defined in theme.json. This keeps the block editor options focused and consistent with the Knowledge Commons brand and the WCAG color contrast guidelines.
- Teal (
#1a5f4e) - Primary brand colour, used for headings and body text - Green (
#2e7d32) - Accent colour for links and buttons - Gold (
#B34233) - Secondary accent - Cream (
#faf8f5) - Background colour
The theme uses Atkinson Hyperlegible, a typeface designed for readability and accessibility. It's loaded via Google Fonts.
The theme ships with several patterns for the front page:
- Hero - Main landing section with headline and CTAs
- Features - Grid of feature cards
- Partners - Logo grid for partner institutions
- Community - Statistics and community highlights
- Blog section - Latest posts (pulls from the "about" site in multisite)
- CTA - Call to action banner
These are registered under the "Knowledge Commons" pattern category in the block editor.
The theme includes a full set of BuddyPress template overrides in the buddypress/ directory. These cover:
- Activity streams
- Member profiles and directories
- Group pages (headers, members, invitations, admin)
- Messages and notifications
- Forums and blogs directories
The BuddyPress styles are loaded conditionally only when BuddyPress is active.
The theme is designed for the Knowledge Commons multisite network. A few things to note:
- The blog section pattern fetches posts from a separate "about" site, with environment detection for local/staging/production URLs
- The
hcommons_get_about_blog_id()function handles the lookup - Uses
switch_to_blog()safely at render time rather than during theme setup
The CSS is plain CSS - no preprocessor. The theme avoids build tooling to keep things simple. Just edit the files directly.
For local development, the theme expects a Lando-based environment at *.lndo.site domains. The environment detection in functions.php will adjust URLs accordingly.
[hcommons_header_account]- Renders the logged-in user's avatar, notifications bell, and account dropdown (or login/register links when logged out)[hcommons_about_blog_posts count="3"]- Renders recent posts from the about site
MIT License.