Omega 4

Who is it for?

Omega 4.x is a base theme framework aimed at themers who want to gain full control over the theme through code, rather than a user interface. If you depend on the user interface you can continue using Omega 3.x.

What are the features?

  • Omega 4.x contains a rewrite (cleanup) of all of core?s CSS and many optimizations to the markup generated by core. This backports many of the standards described in the Drupal 8 CSS Standards which make the CSS more performant and much more easily overridden and future-proof.
  • The Omega theme provides layouts as a method of managing page templates along with layout specific stylesheets and regions. This allows you to write highly customized layouts that can be contextually switched. You can disable this feature to use the plain page.tpl.php or even use Omega 4.x together with Panels and Panels Everywhere to gain even more control over your pages if required.
  • Assets and compatibility are handled by two Omega extensions which contain settings for many popular libraries and tools to manage Drupals Javascript and CSS assets.
  • The Omega development extension provides tools for disabling caching, a region demo mode, a browser width indicator, optional integration for LiveReload and more.
  • The template.php file can get unwieldy with many (pre)process and theme functions. Omega allows you to manage these in separate directories, with an .inc file for each.
  • Omega provides extensive Drush integration out of the box allowing you to quickly generate subthemes with drush omega-wizard, start Compass and Livereload with drush omega-guard and properly manage your theme settings with drush omega-export and drush omega-revert.
  • Two bare bones starterkits are provided that contain documentation, best practice file structures for organising your Sass files as well as a Gem- and Guardfile to ease the setup of your project environment using Ruby.

Omega 4.x should NOT be used with Omega Tools and Delta

Omega 3

Omega 3 is a highly configurable HTML5/960 grid base theme. Each zone (group of regions) can be configured for content first layouts (push/pull classes), hidden at any time and each region can be disabled, resized, and placed easily any way you see fit.
Omega 3 is best suited to those who like to build their themes through the user interface. The theme?s layout can be modified through the theme settings and then contextually changed (different layouts/settings for various portions of a site) through integration with Delta and the Context module.
Thanks to Jake Strawn (himerus) for all the work put into the 3.x branch of Omega.
Omega 3 should be used together with Omega Tools version 7.x-3.x
Omega 3 is currently being minimally maintained (security fixes only). We are currently seeking a maintainer for the 3.x branch. If you?re interested, create an issue in the issue queue.

Documentation & Support

Watch the Omega 4.x demo presented on Oct. 16th, 2013

Documentation for both versions of Omega can be found in the Omega Documentation Handbook. For support, join us on IRC in the #drupal-omega channel.

Contributors

Maintainers

Sebastian Siemssen (fubhy) - @thefubhyMatt Smith (splatio) - @splatio_

Corporate Contributors

epiqoCTI DigitalThemeGeeks

Individual Contributors

Joel Moore (banghouse) - DocumentationChris Teitzel (Cellar Door) - SupportNico Grienauer (grienauer) - Artwork

How can you help?

The Omega theme, as all contributed Drupal projects is based on free time provided by the maintainers. Sometimes, this can be tough. Consider helping in the issue queue or with documentation.
You can find us on IRC on Freenode in the #drupal-omega channel.