difference of the same folder in `.vuepress` and `.vuepress/theme`

[iamryanchia]

In the docs Directory Structure and Writing a theme, I find there are same folders like components, styles, ... in .vuepress and .vuepress/theme. So what is their difference? I want to define variables, i find it only takes effect when i define in .vuepress/styles/palette.styl.

[chris-dura]

@iamRyanChia --

This is just a guess, because there might be a much more technical reason under-the-covers of VuePress...

But, my impression is that .vuepress/theme is mostly for theme Authors that are writing custom themes (or extending them, etc.) So, if you're a User that is just interested in changing some variables to adjust someone else's theme that is installed (ie, the default theme), you probably won't have a .vuepress/theme directory at all -- you would do everything in .vupress, and just adjust .vuepress/styles/palette.styl.

If I had to -- maybe I would naively characterize it like this?

• .vuepress/theme/ is for theme Authors (even if it's a one-off "local" theme)
• .vuepress/styles/ etc. is for theme Users
• If you're kind of both (eg, extending a custom theme and overriding it for a particular site)... then you might have to work in both?