Look & Feel

The Look & Feel tab allows you to choose from a range of ways to customise the appearance of your site. You can personalise it by adding a logo if you have one, select an alternative theme, and choose from some pre-configured display options.

Theme

Themes, sometimes called skins, are alternative designs for your site. They modify the visual aspects of your site for example borders and fonts, and usually incorporate a colour scheme, a navigation menu layout, and a header and footer for each of your pages.

When using a theme for your site you have two options, you can use one of the preconfigured templates or you can create your own custom theme.

To use an existing dotCommunity theme click the select button next to the theme you would like to use. The theme for your site is changed immediately and all visitors to your site will now see it with the new design. Note: When returning to the main pages of your site if you still see the old theme please do a full page refresh by choosing "refresh" from the menu in your browser (or for example in microsoft internet explorer by pressing F5).

To use your own theme you will need to generate the correct files, make them available as a custom theme, and then select your new theme for use in your website in this menu. Help covering all aspects of this process is available in our documentation on Custom Themes.

Your Logo

Adding a logo to your website helps to personalise it and confirm for visitors that they are viewing the correct site. You can add a logo that will automatically be displayed as part of the header at the top of every page of your website. When uploading a logo the system will automatically resize it to fit correctly into the logo space.

To add or update your logo you will need to upload it to the service so it can be reused in your web pages. To do this click the Choose File button in the form under Choose new logo. You will then be offered the chance to browse your local hard drive for a file and select it for upload. When you're happy you've chosen the correct file, click the ok button and wait for the file to upload to the system.

Once your new logo has been uploaded it will be displayed immediately on all of your web pages.

Display Options

Here you will find a set of easily configurable options which affect aspects of the way the site is shown to visitors.

Display Community Name - configures whether each page of your site displays the name of the website or community you created. In most cases a website administrator would want to enable this to let visitors know they are viewing the correct site. However, if you have created your own theme or uploaded a logo that incorporates your website name then you may wish to disable this option.

Display Feedback Link - configures whether to display the leave feedback link at the bottom of your page. If you would like to learn more about the feedback link please read the feedback functionality section. In most cases website administrators should have this option enabled to allow visitors to get in touch with you. However, if you find you do not have resources to respond to the emails or you provide feedback functionality through another method then you may with to disable it.

Display Subscribe/Unsubscribe Link - configures whether visitors to your site will be shown a link to apply to be a member of your website. Allowing membership to your website is a powerful feature of dotCommunity which is covered in detail in the user management section. However it is not always appropriate for all types of websites and by disabling this option users will only be able to become members if you explicitely invite them.