Eclipse 1.0.0: A New Modern Theme for Geeklog

A new theme is now available for the Geeklog community: Eclipse 1.0.0.

Eclipse is a modern, responsive and customizable theme designed to improve both the public-facing experience of a Geeklog website and the daily work of administrators, editors and moderators.

This first stable release supports Geeklog 2.1.1 through 2.2.2 and PHP 5.6 through PHP 8.1, making it suitable for existing Geeklog installations as well as more recent environments.

The project is available on GitHub and can be installed as a standard Geeklog theme.

A Modern Theme While Keeping Geeklog Compatibility

One of the main goals of Eclipse is to modernize Geeklog without replacing the CMS conventions that existing sites and plugins rely on.

The theme provides a mobile-first responsive layout, improved typography, clearer navigation and redesigned administrative interfaces while retaining compatibility with Geeklog's existing template system.

Eclipse also inherits some compatibility templates from the standard Denim theme. For this reason, Denim must remain installed alongside Eclipse.

The result is a theme that can progressively modernize an existing Geeklog website without requiring a complete redesign of the CMS or its plugins.

Responsive Public Pages

Eclipse has been designed for modern screen sizes, from smartphones to large desktop displays.

The public layout includes:

• responsive mobile-first page structures;
• optional left and right sidebars;
• improved content readability;
• responsive articles, forms and tables;
• four navigation styles;
• five predefined accessible color palettes;
• support for hierarchical navigation;
• native rendering of menus generated by the Geeklog Menu plugin.

The theme can therefore adapt to different types of Geeklog sites while keeping the same underlying templates and content.

A Redesigned Geeklog Administration Interface

Eclipse also pays particular attention to the Geeklog administration area.

Command and Control, configuration screens, content lists, forms and the story editor have been refined to provide a more consistent interface.

The administration area remains familiar to existing Geeklog users, but navigation, spacing and visual hierarchy have been improved.

This is particularly useful for administrators who spend a significant amount of time managing articles, comments, plugins, configuration options and other site content.

Theme Studio: Customize Eclipse Directly from Geeklog

One of the main additions in Eclipse is the built-in Theme Studio.

Theme Studio provides a central interface for managing the appearance and configuration of Eclipse without manually editing theme files.

Depending on the operation, administrators can manage:

• theme palettes;
• navigation styles;
• theme settings;
• footer links;
• live previews;
• saved configuration history;
• rollback to a previous configuration;
• local theme ZIP updates.

Settings and history are stored as protected JSON data in a dedicated {path_data}-eclipse/ directory outside the public theme directory.

This approach keeps site-specific configuration separate from the distributed theme files.

Safer Theme Updates

Existing Eclipse installations can also be updated directly from:

Command and Control → Theme Studio → Updates

Administrators can upload an official Eclipse release ZIP from their local computer.

Before applying an update, Eclipse performs integrity checks and creates a safety backup. After the update, the Geeklog template cache is automatically cleared.

PHP's ZipArchive extension is only required when using this Theme Studio update feature.

As with any CMS theme or plugin update, administrators should still create a complete backup of the website and database before installing a new release.

Editorial, SEO and Recovery Helpers

Eclipse also includes several features aimed at content editors.

These include editorial and SEO helpers, configurable social sharing options and local draft recovery.

The objective is not to replace dedicated Geeklog plugins, but to make common publishing tasks easier directly from the theme.

Draft recovery can also help protect work when an editing session is interrupted unexpectedly.

Eclipse 1.0.0 Compatibility

The stable Eclipse 1.0.0 release supports:

• Geeklog 2.1.1;
• Geeklog 2.2.2;
• PHP 5.6 through PHP 8.1.

PHP 5.6 is maintained as the parsing compatibility baseline. However, administrators should use a currently maintained PHP release whenever their hosting environment and Geeklog installation allow it.

The Denim theme must remain installed because Eclipse uses some of its templates for compatibility.

The server must also allow Eclipse to create its protected {path_data}-eclipse/ directory and provide writable temporary storage when ZIP updates are used.

How to Install Eclipse

For a new installation:

1. Download the versioned Eclipse ZIP from the GitHub Releases section. Do not use GitHub's automatically generated source archive.
2. Back up your Geeklog files and database.
3. Extract the package so that the theme is installed in public_html/layout/eclipse/.
4. Make sure public_html/layout/denim/ remains installed.
5. Select Eclipse as the active Geeklog theme.
6. Clear the Geeklog template cache once after installation.

After installation, it is recommended to test at least the home page, a complete article, login and password recovery pages, and the Command and Control administration area.

Help Test Eclipse

Although Eclipse 1.0.0 is the first stable release, feedback from different Geeklog installations remains very useful.

Community members are particularly invited to test the theme at approximately:

• 360 CSS pixels;
• 768 CSS pixels;
• 1024 CSS pixels;
• 1440 CSS pixels.

Useful test areas include public home and topic pages, articles, search, login, comments, multi-level navigation, administration lists, configuration screens and the story editor.

Theme Studio operations such as preview, save, ZIP update and rollback are also valuable areas to test.

Accessibility testing is welcome as well, particularly keyboard navigation, visible focus indicators, 200% browser zoom and reduced-motion preferences.

If you encounter a reproducible problem, please report it through the project's GitHub Issues section and include your Geeklog version, PHP version, browser, selected Eclipse palette and navigation style, the affected page and a screenshot when useful.

Please never include passwords, credentials, private server paths or session information in public issue reports.

Get Eclipse and Join the Testing

Eclipse 1.0.0 represents a new option for administrators who want to modernize the appearance and editing experience of a Geeklog website while retaining compatibility with existing Geeklog installations.

The project is released under the GNU General Public License v2 or later.

You can download Eclipse, review the source code, follow its development and report issues from the Eclipse repository on GitHub:

https://github.com/hostellerie/eclipse

Feedback, compatibility reports and contributions from the Geeklog community are welcome.