RDS themes package up a unified set of HTML, CSS and JavaScript code to provide predefined styling, available blocks, and page layouts.

CU theme

Currently, there is one supported theme distributed with RDS: the CU theme.

Pre-built on top of RDS, the CU theme is Carleton's official theme developed and supported by the RDS creators. The theme extends off of the RDS base and contains all of the blocks and functionality needed for you to build out full-featured, responsive, mobile-first Carleton web projects.

Content should be the most important and preeminent focus for all websites. The Carleton theme is content-focused and accommodates the majority of all web site content needs and requirements. In addition to being flexible, the theme is performant and built for speed.

Available blocks and components

The Carleton themes ships with all RDS components and the following blocks:

• banner
• card grid
• content
• footer - brand
• footer - simple
• footer - sitemap
• global nav
• listing
• login
• masthead
• menu
• sidebar
• text image

Note: more blocks and functionality may be available within the Carleton CMS service. Yet another good reason to go that route for your Carleton websites.

Custom themes

If you want to limit the number of blocks in your package and/or create custom blocks, you will need to create a custom theme by pulling in RDS’s source files. Learn more about custom theming here.

TODO move this to getting started

CU theme navigation options

There are two ways to setup your site-wide navigation in the Carleton theme.

1. Vertical navigation: using a multi-column layout to provide a left-side column for vertical navigation using the b-menu block.
2. Top horizontal navigation: a horizontal navigation can be set up in the masthead block.