Guide · Site settings
Appearance & settings
Customise the public site with drafts, previews, history and rollback.
For: adminsPage 51 of 71
Overview
Change the public site without code: general details, branding (logos, favicon, share image), header, navigation menus, footer, typography and colours (with live contrast ratios), the homepage sections, blog listings and the Hire me page.
Changes go into a private draft that you preview on the real pages, then publish explicitly. History lets you roll back, and settings can be exported and imported.
General settings also turn comments, reader sign-up, the contact form, the public user guide and maintenance mode on or off.
Where to find it
This page of the admin: /admin/appearance. Only admins (and read-only demo accounts) can open it.
Settings on this page
What each setting does and its default. Defaults only: the manual never shows the values saved on a site.
General
Every Appearance change is saved as a private draft, previewed on the real pages and published explicitly; Revision history keeps every version for rollback.
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Site name | — | — |
| Publication name | Used in news sitemaps and structured data. | — |
| Tagline | Shown on the generated share card. | — |
| Description | The default meta description and footer text (50–200 characters). | — |
| Editorial time zone | Time zone for dates across the site. | the site's time zone |
| Date format | 29 Oct 2026, Oct 29, 2026, 29 October 2026 or 2026-10-29. | 29 Oct 2026 |
| Public contact email | Shown on the contact page and, if enabled, in the footer. | — |
| Location | Shown next to the contact email. | — |
| GitHub / LinkedIn / X / YouTube / Mastodon | Social profile links (https only) used by the header, footer and author pages. | — |
| Comments | Signed-in readers can comment and reply under posts. Each post can also lock or close its discussion. | on |
| New reader comments need approval | Readers' comments appear after a moderator approves them. Authors' and admins' comments never wait. | on |
| Readers can edit their comments for | 0 means no time limit. Comments can always be deleted by their author. | 1440 min |
| Reader sign-up | New accounts by email or Google/GitHub. Existing users can always sign in. | on |
| Contact form | Shown on /contact; messages arrive in Admin → Messages. | on |
| Public user manual | Publishes this guide at /user-manual for everyone (documentation and defaults only, no site data). | off |
| Enable maintenance mode | Readers see a maintenance page instead of the site; staff can still sign in. | off |
| Message for readers | Shown on the maintenance page (up to 300 characters). | — |
| Ask crawlers to retry after | Sent to search engines as Retry-After (5–1440 minutes). | 30 min |
Branding
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Show the site name next to the logo | — | on |
| Logo (light theme) | From the media library. | — |
| Logo (dark theme, optional) | Used when the dark theme is on; empty uses the light logo. | — |
| Logo on phones (optional) | A compact mark for narrow screens. | — |
| Favicon | — | — |
| Apple touch icon | The icon used when someone adds the site to an iPhone home screen. | — |
| Share image | Default image for links shared on social networks. | — |
Header
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Preset | 4 starting layouts. | standard |
| Width | Page width or full width. | page width |
| Height | Compact, regular or tall. | regular |
| Navigation position | After logo, centred or right. | — |
| Logo size | Small, medium or large. | — |
| Keep the header visible while scrolling | — | on |
| Background | Page, tinted, accent or an image (with mobile crop and overlay). | — |
| Search | Show the search button. | — |
| Light/dark switch | Also controls the theme selector in the footer and mobile menu. | — |
| Account avatar and menu | When hidden, readers can still sign in at /login; consider a menu link to it. | — |
| Social profile icons | On wide screens only; profiles come from General. | — |
| Call-to-action button | A highlighted button in the header. | — |
| Button text | Up to 24 characters. | — |
| Button link | A site path like /hire-me or an https link. | — |
| Show the announcement | A bar above the header. | — |
| Text | The announcement text (up to 200 characters). | — |
| Link (optional) | Where the announcement leads. | — |
| Style | Neutral, accent or warning. | — |
| Readers can dismiss it | Remembered in their browser until the text changes. | — |
Navigation
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Menus | Up to 8 menus; choose which one is the header menu (1–8 top-level items). | — |
| Menu items | Link to pages, topics, sections, authors or https URLs; one level of sub-items; reorder with arrow buttons or drag-and-drop; indent/outdent; open in a new tab. | — |
| Previews | Desktop and phone previews of the header menu. | — |
Footer
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Preset | Columns, simple or centred. | — |
| Alignment | Left or centre. | — |
| Spacing | Compact, regular or spacious. | — |
| Background | Tinted, page, inverted or an image. | — |
| Heading / Links from / Menu | Up to 4 columns, each with a heading and links from a menu or the topic list. | — |
| Logo and site name | — | — |
| Description | Empty uses the site description from General. | — |
| Social profile links | — | — |
| RSS feed link | — | — |
| Contact email and location | From General → Contact. | — |
| Copyright line | {year} becomes the current year and {site} the site name. Policy links and Privacy choices are always present. | — |
Typography & colours
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Preset | Default, Editorial, Midnight or High contrast. | — |
| Body font / Heading font | Inter, IBM Plex Sans, Source Sans 3 or Source Serif 4. | — |
| Code font | JetBrains Mono or IBM Plex Mono. | — |
| Heading weight | Semibold, bold or extra bold. | — |
| Text size | Default, larger or largest. Scales all text; form inputs never go below 16 px. | — |
| Article line height | 1.5–1.9. | — |
| Light and dark palettes | Page, cards, text, secondary, meta, borders, accent and links, with live contrast ratios. | — |
| Page width | 64–88 rem. | — |
| Article reading width | 36–50 rem; about 70 characters per line at 43 rem. | — |
| Spacing between sections | Compact, comfortable or spacious. | — |
| Corner radius | None, small, medium or large. | — |
| Buttons and inputs | Rounded, pill or square. | — |
| Default theme for new visitors | Follow device, light or dark. Readers can still switch if the switch is shown. | follow device |
Homepage
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Sections | Introduction, latest articles, hand-picked articles, topics, projects, editorial standards, author bio, call to action and a plain-text block: add, remove, reorder, hide or duplicate. | — |
| Section content | Headings, text, links, images, layout, spacing and background; searchable pickers for articles and topics. | — |
| Author | Which author the author-bio section shows. | — |
Blog & articles
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Layout | Grid or list. | — |
| Cards per row (wide screens) | 2 or 3. | — |
| Articles per page | 6–24. | — |
| Excerpt lines (0 hides it) | 0–4. | — |
| Cover image shape | 16:9, 3:2, 4:3, square or no cover. | — |
| Topic / Article type (News, Tutorial…) / Date / Reading time | What each listing card shows. | — |
| Reading width | Narrow, default or wide. | — |
| Body text size (desktop) | 16–19 px. | — |
| Breadcrumbs / Author in the byline / “Updated” date | What an article page shows. | — |
| Author card after the article | — | — |
| Show a table of contents | — | — |
| Only for articles with at least | 2–8 headings. | — |
| On wide screens | Table of contents in the right margin or above the article. | — |
| Related reading | Related articles under each post. | — |
| How many | 1–6 related articles. | — |
| Share links | Plain links to each network's share page: no third-party scripts. | — |
Media
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Image corners | Square, small or medium. | — |
| Captions | Centred or left. | — |
| Gallery columns | 2, 3 or 4. | — |
| Cloudflare R2 storage | Status: uploads need storage configured (Storage & email). | — |
SEO & integrations
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Homepage title | Up to 70 characters. | — |
| Title separator | |, ·, — or -. | — |
| Search result preview | How the homepage may look in Google. | — |
| Google Search Console verification | Status; tokens are set in Advanced settings. | — |
| Bing Webmaster Tools verification | Status; tokens are set in Advanced settings. | — |
| Google Analytics 4 | Status; loads in production only, with Consent Mode. | — |
| Google AdSense | Status and number of ad slots. | — |
| ads.txt | Whether /ads.txt is served. | — |
| Consent default | Denied everywhere until consent, or only in the EEA, UK and Switzerland. | — |
| IndexNow | Status; turned on in Integrations. | — |
| Cloudflare Turnstile | Status; without it email sign-in and forms are unavailable. | — |
| Status; without it password resets are not sent. | — | |
| Social sign-in | Which providers are enabled. | — |
| Gemini image generation | Status; configured in Integrations. | — |
Hire me
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Show the Hire me page | Off: /hire-me is not found and every call to action is hidden. Add the page to a menu in Navigation. | — |
| Availability | Available, limited, or not taking new work (keeps the page but hides booking buttons and the article call to action). | — |
| Availability note | A short line under the availability. | — |
| Headline | — | — |
| Introduction | — | — |
| Reply time (shown under the form) | — | — |
| Currency | — | — |
| Intro call booking link | Your Cal.com (or other https) booking page. Used by “Book an intro call” and by offers without their own link. | — |
| Open Cal.com links in a pop-up on the page | Cal.com's scheduler loads only when a visitor clicks Book. | — |
| Self-hosted Cal.com address (optional) | Only if you run Cal.com yourself. Bookings reach Admin → Bookings through a webhook (Advanced settings → Cal.com bookings). | — |
| Offer paid calls | Shown only while the page is on, you are taking work, both rates are set and the Razorpay keys are saved. | — |
| Title / Summary | For the paid call and each offer. | — |
| Price per minute in India (INR) | e.g. 50 → a 30-minute call costs ₹1,500. | — |
| Price per minute elsewhere (USD) | e.g. 1.5 → a 30-minute call costs $45. | — |
| Shortest call / Longest call | 5–480 minutes. | — |
| Lengths offered in steps of | 5–120 minutes. | — |
| Booking link after payment (optional) | Empty: the intro call link. | — |
| Offer this | Show an offer (consulting, freelance, speaking, mentoring). | — |
| Price from (0 = on request) / Per | The offer's starting price and unit. | — |
| Booking link for this offer (optional) | — | — |
| Show it | The call to action under articles, with its Text. | — |
Advanced (custom CSS)
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Apply custom CSS | Restricted CSS applied to the public site. | off |
| CSS | Validated, up to 10,000 characters. | — |