Theme Settings

Each theme that is released for Publii can potentially have many unique options along with basic settings that apply to all themes. To reach the theme settings section, click on the Theme option in the left-sidebar.

Basic Settings

The first block of options in this section, Basic Settings, covers the general options that apply to all Publii themes.

The basic settings available in Publii's themes are:

• Posts per homepage - Sets the number of posts that should appear on each page of the homepage's post listing; if set to 0, no posts are displayed in that listing. If set to -1, all posts are displayed on one page.
• Posts per tag page - Like the above option, but sets the number of posts displayed on tag listing pages.
• Posts per author page - Same as above, but this time for the author page.
• Excerpt length - Sets the length in words of automatically generated excerpts, which your theme may display in post previews on the homepage, tag pages and other listings.
• Website logo - Any image added here can be used as your site's logo, depending on your theme; to upload an image, either drag & drop the file into the box, or click on the Choose file button to open the file explorer.

Custom Settings

Under the Basic Settings is another block; Custom Settings. This section is reserved for theme-specific settings that can provide a host of theme customization options and quality-of-life improvements. For example, your chosen theme may include color pickers to change theme styles quickly, or font and layout settings. Exactly which options are made available in each theme is up to the theme developer, so the tabs and controls you see may differ from the examples below. We'll cover the scope of the common sections here, starting with the Layout tab:

Layout

This section defines the site's basic visual structure. The range of available settings may vary significantly depending on the theme used. Typically, this section includes:

1. Page Width Settings: These settings determine the maximum width of your theme, affecting how content is displayed across different devices.
2. Homepage/Tag Page/Author Page Layout Options: Here, you may be able to configure the number of columns for post previews on specific pages, such as the homepage, tag pages, or author pages.
3. Theme-Specific Options: Depending on the theme, you may have additional settings related to the homepage or post pages, like column width adjustments, slideshow animation speed, and other visual elements.
4. Homepage Display: Some themes include their own controls for the homepage content, such as a hero section or a selected post.

To use a page as your website's homepage, go to Site settings → Advanced options → SEO → Homepage, enable Set page as homepage and select a page. This requires a theme that supports pages. This site-level setting is separate from any homepage layout options provided by your theme.

Post list

The "Post list" section provides various options for customizing the appearance and content of the post list on the homepage, tag, and author pages. Within this section, you can enable or disable elements such as avatars and post dates, depending on your theme.

Colors

The colors section allows users to define the color scheme for their site without diving into the CSS code. The number of possible areas that can be customized will depend on the theme, but generally, you should expect to find a Primary Color option, which sets the main color for the key elements in the theme. Beyond this, you may find color options for secondary elements, on-hover text link colors, heading text, or links.

Selecting a color for each option is easy; each field includes a color value and a preview of the selected color, so you don't need to be familiar with hex notation for colors to make a decision! Clicking on a color field opens a color picker. The hue slider selects the color, while the larger area lets you adjust its saturation and brightness. The transparency slider controls the color's opacity where the field supports it; useful for backgrounds or if there are text elements over the colored area.

Fonts

This section includes options for managing fonts. Since Publii is a content-focused app it pays particular attention to how text content is displayed on your site; theme layouts rely on vertical rhythm to provide an orderly, readable design. Many Publii themes support fluid typography, which automatically resizes fonts according to the window or screen size. A theme may combine this with a modular scale to keep text sizes in proportion across devices and avoid abrupt changes when resizing a window.

Publii themes can include a wide selection of locally-loaded variable fonts, allowing you to pick a font and apply it to your website. The available fonts depend on your theme and its version. As well as font selection options, you may find settings for defining a minimum and maximum font size to prevent your text from resizing to extreme levels on very small or very large screen sizes.

Font Options

Here are some of the font-related options you may find in Publii themes. The available ranges and adjustment steps depend on the theme, and not every font supports the full range of weights:

• Body Font and Headings Font: Choose fonts for the main text and headings on your website.
• Menu Font: Choose the font for the website's menu. Options may include the OS default font, the font used for body text, and the font used for headings.
• Logo Font: Select the font for the website's text logo, where supported by your theme.
• Minimum Font Size: Set the minimum size used by the theme's fluid typography.
• Maximum Font Size: Define the maximum size used by the theme's fluid typography.
• Line Height: Configure the spacing between lines of text. Some themes provide separate controls for body text and headings.
• Normal Font Weight: Set the weight for normal text.
• Bold Font Weight: Choose the weight for bold text.
• H1-H6 Font Weight: Determine the weight for H1-H6 headings.
• H1-H6 Text Transform: Select the text transformation for headings, with options such as none, capitalize, lowercase, and uppercase.

Menu/Navbar

This section is dedicated to configuring the visual elements of the menu. These options may include:

1. Navbar Height: Adjusting the height of the navigation bar to suit your site's design.
2. Dropdown Menu: Customizing the dropdown menu width, including auto or custom options.
3. Mobile Menu Design: Choosing between a sidebar or overlay style for the mobile menu.
4. Expandable submenus: Deciding whether submenus in the mobile menu should be initially open or closed.

Search

This section focuses on enabling or disabling your site's search interface and, where needed, creating a page for search results. The search itself is provided by a search plugin, such as Static Search or Google Custom Search. Install and configure your chosen plugin, then enable the theme's search controls as required. Whether a separate search page is needed depends on the plugin; refer to the corresponding plugin documentation.

Share Buttons

In this section, you will find controls to configure the display of social media share buttons on your posts. The availability of specific buttons depends on the theme developer; examples include Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Pinterest, and LinkedIn. For a wider range of platforms and display options, explore the Social Sharing plugin.

Follow Buttons

Follow Buttons refer to buttons a user can click to follow or open links to your social media accounts; if supported by the theme, these may be added in the navbar or on sidebars on post pages. For additional platforms and customization options, consider using the Follow Buttons plugin.

Footer

Here you can set the copyright text that appears in the footer of your theme; depending on the theme there may also be additional controls, such as options to enable or disable social media follow buttons.

Gallery

Publii lets you insert galleries into your content. In this section, your theme may provide layout controls such as gallery item spacing. Lightbox behavior and features such as zoom, fullscreen controls and animations are usually configured through a gallery plugin. Check your theme's requirements and the settings of your installed plugin for the available options.

Additional

This section is purely for elements that do not fit into any of the other categories; in this section you may find controls such as whether lazy loading is enabled or date formatting options.

Post Options

The Post Options section allows for management of which elements are enabled in all posts; things such as the social media buttons, author bio, date, and tags can be enabled and disabled here if supported by your theme. The settings apply to posts that use the global configuration. Individual posts have their own options accessible via the Edit Post screen, so if you globally enable comments, for example, and you have one new post where you don't want comments, you can control that within the post edit screen.

One particularly important option in this section is Display Comments. In themes that provide this option, enable it to display the comments section and configure a compatible commenting plugin to supply the comments. Enabling the theme option alone does not add a commenting service.

Page, Author and Tag Options

The Page options, Author options and Tag options tabs work in a similar way, setting defaults for their respective types of content. The available controls depend on your theme. Where supported, you can override these defaults when editing an individual page, author or tag.

Translations

The Translations tab links to guidance on translating the text supplied by your theme, such as button labels and navigation text. It does not contain a translation editor. See our theme translation guide for details.

Saving and resetting theme settings

Click Save settings to keep your changes, or use Save and preview to save them and see the result locally. Synchronize your website when you're ready to publish the changes.

You may also reset the theme settings back to their default values by clicking the Reset theme settings button at the bottom of the screen and confirming the reset. This replaces your current theme settings for the website with the theme's defaults.

So whenever you test-drive a new theme, make sure to check the Custom Settings section and check out what additional options there are to play with!