[Install]

Install the plugin

One PHP file in a .zip, installed like any other plugin. It applies the design system on top of whatever theme is already active, so your templates, your menus and your header stay exactly as they are. This is the route to take unless you have a reason not to.

Requires a block theme on WordPress 6.7 to 7.0. Classic themes and page builders are not supported: a pattern takes its colours, spacing and type from the theme's theme.json, which is the file a classic theme does not have.

What you get

A plugin, one file

You get a plugin: upload it under Plugins, activate it, and it lays this design system over whatever theme is already active.

This applies the design system over your whole site: every colour and every font your theme sets, on every page, not only the patterns you paste.

  • pattern-paste-design-system-pattern-paste.php
  • readme.txt

2 files, 39.4KB unpacked, listed by building the package this page installs. Your own download carries the same files with your colours and type in them.

Before you start

You need the .zip. On the theme tool, under the question "Where is this design system going?", choose the answer marked Recommended and press its download button. Do not unzip it.

The steps

  1. In your site’s admin, open the left-hand menu and go to Plugins, then "Add New Plugin".

  2. Press "Upload Plugin" at the top of the page.

  3. Press "Choose File", pick the .zip you downloaded, and press "Install Now".

  4. When WordPress says the plugin was installed successfully, press "Activate Plugin".

  5. Open the site in another tab. Same templates, new colours and type.

Where it appears afterwards

  • Appearance → Editor → Styles shows the palette, with the 8 colour roles among the colours the panel offers.
  • In the block editor, select any Group block and open the Styles tab. The 8 sections are listed there, ADDED to whatever your theme already offers rather than replacing them.
  • Plugins → Installed Plugins is where it lives, and where you turn it off.

What to know

  • WordPress 6.7 or newer, which is where the mechanism the sections arrive through exists.
  • To remove it, deactivate the plugin. It is not a look you switch off in the Styles panel.
  • Anything you set in Appearance → Editor → Styles still wins over it.
  • It cannot offer itself as a switchable look in Browse styles. WordPress has no route for that from a plugin; the child theme below does have one.
  • It follows you if you change theme. Nothing to rebuild, nothing to reinstall: it is not a child of anything.
  • It loads the webfonts your design system names, so the type on the page is the real family and not a fallback.

Which other route

If you need the design system to be a look you can switch off in the Styles panel, or you want its templates too:

Back to the theme tool