Using Custom Themes

In addition to customizing through the Plesk GUI the logo image, the URL attached to it, and the browser’s title bar text, you can change the visual appearance and branding of Plesk by using custom themes.

Plesk theme is a complete set of CSS styles and images that govern the visual appearance of the Plesk user interface. You cannot change the theme, but you can customize Plesk appearance by redefining some styles and images of the theme (without physical replacement), thus the changes can be easily reverted.

A theme with redefined set of styles and images is called custom theme.

For the purpose of creating custom themes, a so-called default theme package is provided. This package does not include all styles and images. For example, the CSS file is initially empty in the default theme package, and you can add styles definitions into it. Only the styles that affect decorative elements, such as colors, backgrounds, and fonts are available for modification. Of course, you can add styles that will redefine the layout; however, we strongly advise against doing so because it might make some areas or functions of Plesk inoperable.

Custom themes can be created and applied to Plesk by the server administrator and resellers, one theme per the server administrator or a reseller account. The changes to the Plesk appearance applied by the server administrator are visible to all Plesk users. The changes applied by a reseller are visible only to the reseller and their customers.

To prepare and apply a custom theme, you will need to do the following:

  1. Obtain the files that will be used as a basis for creation of your custom theme. You can do this by connecting to the server through SSH (on Linux) or a Remote Desktop connection (on Windows), and then running the command-line utility branding_theme (on Windows it is also available as branding_theme.exe). For details, see Obtaining a Theme Package from Plesk.

    Note

    If you access Plesk at the reseller level, and do not have the administrator’s access to the server over SSH or Remote Desktop, contact your hosting provider for assistance with obtaining the package.

  2. Download the archive, unpack it, and modify the contained files according to your needs: add the styles and replace the graphics files with your own ones. Be sure to preserve the directory structure. For details, see Modifying the Files.

  3. Pack the directory containing the modified theme into a ZIP archive. Upload the archive file to the server and use the command line utility branding_theme to apply the custom theme. Find more information in Installing Themes to Plesk.

Note

The custom theme will be applied after you log out of Plesk and then log in again.

If you want to restore the default Plesk styles and images, remove the custom theme. For details, see Removing Themes from Plesk.

The description of all commands and options of the branding_theme utility can be found in the CLI Guide for Linux or CLI Guide for Windows.