For Developers

Welcome to the UCSB Web Theme Developers Guide. The following pages aim to be a helpful guide in explaining the site architecture and foundational aspects of the Web Theme's back end. It is important to review and have a good understanding of the Pantheon Cloud Hosting platform as well as the basics of content management systems, especially Drupal 9/10 before proceeding.

The UCSB Web Theme unifies the University's visual identity online and provides a stylized template that executes the vision. While the Web Theme allows and encourages custom application, it is important to keep within the guidelines at all time.

We also recommend following the Drupal guidelines closely when adding custom features to your Web Theme site. 

• If you need to make a simple style change, like increasing the padding around a blade, adding a Drupal-approved module can help with that.
• If you need to make a change to templates or anything code-related, adding a subtheme to the site will prevent any changes being overridden on your site.

Hosting on Pantheon

The Pantheon service is wide-ranging, just the like the tiered plans they offer. The campus' partnership with Pantheon allows for sites to begin under the Basic Plan. From there, sandbox sites (up to 10) are available, as well as the opportunity to scale up your site depending on the size, audience reach, and specific site needs.

All Pantheon WebOps Plans Include

Integrated Version Control

Say goodbye to cowboy coding without slowing anything down. Work directly on Pantheon to rapidly prototype or debug new functionality, while still maintaining version control over all code changes.

Automated Backups

Nightly automated backups of your site’s database, files, and code are stored and created by job workers also running in the site's region. Additionally, any database or file clones between site environments are run by regional job workers. This is available for basic plan sites or higher.

Managed Site Migrations

Pantheon migration experts provide white-glove, managed migrations, or offer step-by-step directions on how to manually move over site files to Pantheon.

Chat Support

Get live chat support from Drupal and Pantheon hosting experts. Access support through the site's Pantheon Dashboard.