Help center templating cookbook

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Each help center theme consists of a collection of editable page templates and custom pages. You can use the help center templating language, Curlybars, to access help center data and manipulate the content in your pages.

This article provides a list of recipes with code snippets you can use. Keep in mind that, some of the functionality in these recipes might already be in your help center, depending on whether you are using a standard theme or a customized theme and the date you enabled your help center.

Trial users are given the Professional plan, which includes code editing options, but they will no longer be able to access that feature if they purchase Suite Team.

Note: This article is for instructional purposes only. Zendesk Customer Support does not support or guarantee custom code.

This article covers the following topics:

About the Curlybars templating language

Customize page templates for specific categories, sections, or articles

Customize the language names in the language selector

Hide one or more languages in the language selector

Let users sort article comments by date or votes

Add a formatting toolbar to the article comment editor

Enable users to vote on article comments

Add Instant Search (autocomplete) results to your help center

Add Federated Search to include external content in help center search

Add generative search results to your custom theme

Add sorting for subscription types in the My Activities Following page

Add sorting options “created at” and “updated at” for requests in My Activities

Add Follow/Unfollow for users in a shared organization

Add ability for users to CC other users on support requests

Add a link on follow-up requests to the parent request

Enable CSAT for solved tickets on the Customer Portal

Add voting buttons to articles

Add content tags to articles and posts

Add badges to your custom help center theme

Enable users to view user profiles to your help center

Enable subsections in your help center theme

Add sidebar filters and results for multiple help centers to the search results page

Adding the spam filter to help center

Adding approvals to your help center

Adding the service catalog to your help center

About the Curlybars templating language

Your help center is built on a theming framework that includes its own templating language for advanced customizations. Each help center theme consists of a collection of editable templates and optional custom pages.

Editable page templates define the layout of each page. For example, there's a template for knowledge base articles, a template for the list of requests, and so on. A template is simply a text file to be rendered into an HTML page when a user wants to see it. Each template consists of a mix of HTML markup and expressions identifiable by double curly brackets such as {{post.title}}.

Custom pages are built into the code base of your help center theme and have a specific URL that you can link from anywhere in your help center. You can use custom pages to create and code pages from scratch that meet your individual requirements. For example, you can use custom pages to create special landing pages for your help center or even create new pages to embed content from sources outside of Zendesk.

The templating language is named Curlybars and implements a large subset of the Handlebars language. But unlike Handlebars which renders on the client-side, Curlybars renders on the server-side.

You can use the help center templating language to access help center data and manipulate the content in your pages. In the following example, help center renders a list of names and avatars of all the people who left comments on the page:

{{#each comments}}





{{author.name}}


{{/each}}

Previously you could use components to customize help center, but you could not customize the components themselves, except for manipulating them with Javascript. With Curlybars you can get access to the HTML that was previously hidden inside component and edit it.

For more information, see:

Help center templating language reference

Using the help center templating language

Customizing content with Curlybars

Customize page templates for specific categories, sections, or articles

You can customize the Category, Section, and Article templates for specific categories, sections, and articles respectively.

Applicable templates

Category

Section

Article

Recipe

Specify the category, section, or article id in a is block:

{{#is id 200646205}}
...
{{/is}}

Example

Inserting the following block in the Section template customizes the template for sections 200646205 and 203133596:

{{#is section.id 200646205}}
This is important security information! Pay attention!
{{/is}}
{{#is section.id 203133596}}
Videos available at Learning to fly
{{/is}}

Reference

is helper

Customize the language names in the language selector

You can customize the language names in the language selector on every page of help center. This is useful if you want to use one language variant, such as "English (U.S.)", for all the language's variants, such as "English".

Applicable template

Header

Applicable expression

{{#if alternative_locales}}...{{/if}}

Recipe

Replace the {{current_locale.name}} expression with the following conditional expression:

{{#is current_locale.name 'English (US)'}}
English
{{else}}
{{current_locale.name}}
{{/is}}

Also replace the alternative locale {{name}} expression with the following conditional expression:

{{#is name 'English (US)'}}
English
{{else}}
{{name}}
{{/is}}

Example

{{#if alternative_locales}}


{{#is current_locale.name 'English (US)'}}
English
{{else}}
{{current_locale.name}}
{{/is}}


{{#each alternative_locales}}

{{#is name 'English (US)'}}
English
{{else}}
{{name}}
{{/is}}

{{/each}}


{{/if}}

Reference

is helper

Hide one or more languages in the language selector

Hiding a language in the language selector can be useful if the content in that language isn't ready for release.

Applicable template

Header

Applicable expression

{{#each alternative_locales}}...{{/each}}

Recipe

Replace the {{name}} expression with the following conditional expression:

{{#is name 'Français'}}
{{! do nothing }}
{{else}}

{{name}}

{{/is}}

Example

{{#each alternative_locales}}
{{#is name 'Français'}}
{{! do nothing }}
{{else}}

{{name}}

{{/is}}
{{/each}}

Reference

is helper

Let users sort article comments by date or votes

By default, article comments are sorted by date from the most recent to the least. You can add Date and Votes links that users can click to sort the comments by date or by the number of votes.

Note: The Date and Votes sorting links are available by default in standard themes and themes that were customized after the release of the new Community on November 30th, 2015.

Applicable template

Article

Applicable HTML element

...

Recipe

Insert the following div tag after the comment section's heading tag, {{t 'comments'}} , preferably after the {{#if comments}} expression, if any, to ensure the sorters don't appear if nobody left comments yet:


Sort by:
{{#each comment_sorters}}
{{name}}
{{/each}}


Example


{{t 'comments'}}
{{#if comments}}


Sort by:
{{#each comment_sorters}}
{{name}}
{{/each}}



{{#each comments}}
...

Reference

comment_sorters property

Add a formatting toolbar to the article comment editor

You can add a formatting toolbar to the editor for article comments. Users can add bold and italics, unordered or ordered lists, images, and links.

Note: The formatting toolbar is available by default in standard themes and themes that were customized after the release of the new Community on November 30th, 2015.

Applicable template

Article

Applicable object

{{#form 'comment'}}...{{/form}}

Recipe

Find and replace the {{textarea 'body'}} expression in the form object with {{wysiwyg 'body'}}

Example

{{#form 'comment' class='comment-form'}}

{{user_avatar class='user-avatar'}}



{{wysiwyg 'body'}}

{{input type='submit'}}


{{/form}}

Reference

wysiwyg helper

Enable users to vote on article comments

By default, users can vote on articles. You can also let them vote on article comments.

Note: The voting links are available by default in standard themes and themes that were customized after the release of the new Community on November 30th, 2015.

Applicable template

Article

Applicable expression

{{#each comments}}...{{/each}}

Recipe

Insert the following div tag after the tag:


{{vote 'up' class="article-vote-up" selected_class="vote-voted"}}
{{vote 'sum' class="article-vote-sum"}}
{{vote 'down' class="article-vote-down" selected_class="vote-voted"}}


The vote helpers above borrow the CSS classes for articles votes to style the comment vote links. You can define your own classes to style the comment votes.

Example

{{#each comments}}



{{vote 'up' class="article-vote-up" selected_class="vote-voted"}}
{{vote 'sum' class="article-vote-sum"}}
{{vote 'down' class="article-vote-down" selected_class="vote-voted"}}





...

Reference

vote helper

Add generative search results to your custom theme

Generative search provides AI-generated answers to search queries within your help center. Generative search provides users who are performing searches in the help center with answers to their questions, without requiring them to click through multiple search results.

Note: Generative search is available by default in standard themes released after March 26, 2025. If your help center was created before March 26, 2025 and uses a customized theme, you must update your custom theme to add generative search. Generative search is available for all templating API versions. You can disable generative search, if needed, by deactivating it in your search settings.

Note: Based on your theme implementation and other factors, you may be eligible to use the automatic theme updater for generative search. To learn more, see Automatically updating your help center theme for generative search (Beta).

After generative search is activated, it works by evaluating the questions users enter in the help center search. The top matching articles and posts are evaluated by generative AI, which then generates an answer. On Enterprise plans with federated search configured, the generative AI also evaluates external content and can be included in the answer. The generated answer is posted by default at the top of the search results. See Using generative search to provide AI-powered answers to search queries.

Applicable template

Search results page (search_results.hbs)

Recipe

Add the {{generative_answers}} helper to the theme's search_results.hbs template where you want the generative answers to appear.

Example


{{generative_answers}}


Reference

search_results.hbs

generative_answers helper

To update your custom theme (Knowledge admins)

In Knowledge admin, click Customize design ( ) in the sidebar.
The Themes page opens.

Click Customize on the theme you want to edit.

Click Edit code.

Under Templates, click search_results.hbs.

Add the {{generative_answers}} helper code to the theme's search_results.hbs template where you want the generative answers to appear.

Click Save.

After activating, if you find that the Quick answer box UI doesn't match the fonts and colors of your custom theme, this could be due to one of the following:

You have the required settings in the theme settings interface. However, the settings values are not set to match your theme, because your theme's look and feel is hardcoded in your CSS file. To update the color and font settings, see Branding your help center.

You do not have some or all of the settings in the theme settings interface. If this is the case, you'll need to add the settings and set their values to match the rest of your theme. To do this, you can update your manifest.json file with the following identifiers from Github, replacing the value of each identifier with the font or color code that matches your theme:

Color settings identifiers:

text_color

link_color

hover_link_color

visited_link_color

Fonts settings identifiers

heading_font

text_font

Add Instant Search (autocomplete search) results to your custom help center theme

You can display links to suggested articles as the user types in the Search box by adding Instant Search to your custom theme.

Note: Instant Search is available by default in standard themes and themes that were customized after the release Instant Search on July 5th, 2016. You can disable Instant Search, if needed, by removing it from your theme.

When Instant Search is enabled, a maximum of six suggested articles appear as the user types their search term in the Search box. Articles are matched for Instant Search based on the article title only. The user can select matched articles directly from the Search box without going to the search results page first.

Applicable templates

Whichever template contains your Search expression (most often it's the Header or Home page template)

Applicable expression

{{search}}

Recipe

Add instant=true to the Search expression.

{{search instant=true}}

Example


{{help_center.name}}
{{search instant=true}}


Add Federated Search to include external content in help center search

There are two parts to enabling Federated Search in your help center Search Results template:

Adding sidebar filters

Looping through the results

Adding sidebar filters

You need to update the search results template by updating the properties used in the sidebar filters.

Update the following code in .

{{#if source_filters}}



{{t 'filter_source'}}

{{#each source_filters}}

{{#if selected}}

{{else}}

{{/if}}
{{name}}
({{count}})


{{/each}}
<buttonclass="see-all-filters"aria-hidden="true"aria-label="{{t'show_more_sources'}}">{{t'show_more_sources'}}

{{/if}}
{{#if type_filters}}



{{t 'filter_type'}}

{{#each type_filters}}

{{#if selected}}

{{else}}

{{/if}}
{{name}}
({{count}})


{{/each}}


{{/if}}
{{#if subfilters}}



{{#is current_filter.identifier 'knowledge_base'}}
{{t 'filter_by_category'}}
{{/is}}
{{#is current_filter.identifier 'community'}}
{{t 'filter_by_topic'}}
{{/is}}

{{#each subfilters}}

{{#if selected}}

{{else}}

{{/if}}
{{name}}
({{count}})


{{/each}}
{{#is current_filter.identifier 'knowledge_base'}}
{{t 'show_more_categories'}}
{{/is}}
{{#is current_filter.identifier 'community'}}
{{t 'show_more_topics'}}
{{/is}}


{{/if}}


Looping through the results

This snippet is an example of how you can use the {{results}} helper to loop through the Federated Search results:

{{#if results}}

{{#each results}}


<a href="{{url}}" class="results-list-item-link"{{#if is_external}}
target=”_blank” {{/if}}>
{{title}}
{{#if is_external}}
<path d="M 19.980469 2.9902344 A 1.0001 1.0001 0 0 0 19.869141 3 L 15 3 A 1.0001 1.0001 0 1 0 15 5 L 17.585938 5 L 8.2929688 14.292969 A 1.0001 1.0001 0 1 0 9.7070312 15.707031 L 19 6.4140625 L 19 9 A 1.0001 1.0001 0 1 0 21 9 L 21 4.1269531 A 1.0001 1.0001 0 0 0 19.980469 2.9902344 z M 5 3 C 3.9069372 3 3 3.9069372 3 5 L 3 19 C 3 20.093063 3.9069372 21 5 21 L 19 21 C 20.093063 21 21 20.093063 21 19 L 21 13 A 1.0001 1.0001 0 1 0 19 13 L 19 19 L 5 19 L 5 5 L 11 5 A 1.0001 1.0001 0 1 0 11 3 L 5 3 z"/>
{{/if}}





{{#if vote_sum}}
{{vote_sum}}
{{/if}}
{{#if comment_count}}

{{comment_count}}

{{/if}}




{{#each path_steps}}
{{name}}
{{/each}}


{{author.name}}
{{date created_at}}

{{text}}


{{/each}}

{{else}}

{{t 'no_results_unified'}}
{{#link 'help_center'}}
{{t 'browse_help_center'}}
{{/link}}

{{/if}}

Add sorting for subscription types in the My Activities Following page

You can make it easier for users to view their subscriptions by enabling them to sort subscriptions by type in the My Activities > Following page.

Applicable templates

Following page

Recipe

Under the tag, insert the following code:




{{current_filter.label}}


{{#each filters}}

{{name}}

{{/each}}




Add sorting options “created at” and “updated at” for requests in My Activities

You can add the sorting options “created at” and “updated at” for end-users on the request page in My Activities.

Note: The “created at” and “updated at” sorting options are available by default in standard themes and themes that were customized after August 2016.

Applicable template

Request list page

Recipe

Replace {{t 'created'}} with:
{{#link 'requests' sort_by='created_at'}}{{t 'created'}}{{/link}}

Replace {{t 'last_activity'}} with:
{{#link 'requests' sort_by='updated_at'}}{{t 'last_activity'}}{{/link}}

Reference

requests link helper

Add Follow/Unfollow for users in a shared organization

You can enable users to receive email notifications for requests in their shared organization. The {{subscribe}} helper inserts a "follow" button that users can click if they want to receive email notifications when requests are created or updated in their shared organization. Users also have the option to unfollow if they no longer want to receive updates.

Note: The Follow button for shared organizations is available by default in standard themes and themes that were customized after January 23th, 2016.

Applicable template

Request list page

Applicable object

{{#form 'requests_filter'}}...{{/form}}

Recipe

Add the {{subscribe}} helper to the form object.

Example

{{#form 'requests_filter' class='request-table-toolbar'}}
{{input 'query' id='quick-search' type='search' class='requests-search'}}

{{label 'organization' for='request-organization-select' class='request-filter'}}
{{select 'organization' id='request-organization-select' class='request-filter'}}
{{subscribe}}
{{label 'status' for='request-status-select' class='request-filter'}}
{{select 'status' id='request-status-select' class='request-filter'}}

{{/form}}

Reference

subscribe helper

Add ability for signed-in users to CC other users on support requests

You can add the ability for signed-in users to add CCs to new and existing support requests in your help center. When a CC is added to a support request, the copied user will receive email notifications for ticket updates.

Note: The CC option is available for support requests by default in standard themes and themes that were customized after December 14th, 2015.

After you add the code to your custom theme, you must enable the feature (see Setting CC permissions).

Applicable template

Request page

Applicable object

{{#form 'comment' class='comment-form'}}...{{/form}}

Recipe

Insert the following snippet inside the comment form.
{{#if help_center.request_ccs_enabled}}

{{token_field 'ccs'
class="ccs-input"}}

{{/if}}

Add a link on follow-up requests to the parent request

You can display a link in a follow-up request to the parent request, if there is one.

Note: The link to the parent request in the follow-up request is available by default in standard themes and themes that were customized after August 2016.

Applicable template

Request page

Recipe

Add the following snippet to the Request page template where you want to display the link to the parent ticket, if one is present:

{{#if request.followup_source_id}}

{{t 'followup'}}
{{link 'request' id=request.followup_source_id}}


{{/if}}

Reference

new request page

Enable CSAT for solved tickets on the Customer Portal

You can use CSAT to collect feedback from end users via the Customer Portal.
Note: When CSAT is on, the CSAT option in the Customer Portal is available by default in standard themes and in custom themes based on the Templating API v3.2.0 (released on February 8, 2024) or higher.

Applicable template

Request page

Recipe

Add a {{#with satisfaction_response}}...{{/with}} block to the request_page.hbs template.

Example

See the Copenhagen theme request page.hbs on GitHub.

Add the following template code:
{{#with satisfaction_response}}
{{#with rating}}

{{t 'rating'}}


{{#is scale_type 'numeric'}}
{{t 'numerical_rating' value=value max_value=max_value}}
{{else}}
{{scale_value}}
{{/is}}


{{#link 'survey_response' id=../id}}
{{#if ../editable}}
{{t 'edit_feedback'}}
{{else}}
{{t 'view_feedback'}}
{{/if}}
{{/link}}


{{else}}
{{#if editable}}

{{t 'rating'}}

{{#link 'survey_response' id=id}}
{{t 'add_feedback'}}
{{/link}}


{{/if}}
{{/with}}
{{/with}}

Reference

satisfaction_response

Add voting buttons to articles

The vote buttons on articles are part of the standard Copenhagen theme. But if you don't see the option to vote on your articles, you might have removed the buttons from your theme.

The code to add voting buttons can vary from theme to theme, but this is the code from the standard Copenhagen theme, in case you need it.

Applicable template

Article

Recipe

Add the following code to the Article Page template:

{{#with article}}

{{t 'was_this_article_helpful'}}

{{vote 'up' role='radio' class='button article-vote article-vote-up'}}
{{vote 'down' role='radio' class='button article-vote article-vote-down'}}


{{vote 'label' class='article-vote-label'}}


{{/with}}

Add content tags to articles and posts

The standard Copenhagen theme displays content tags on article, community post, and search pages by default. If you're using a custom or marketplace theme, you may need to update your theme to display content tags on these pages. To get started, you can use the following template files from the Copenhagen theme as a guide:

article_page.hbs

community_post_page.hbs

new_community_post_page.hbs

search_results.hbs

Once you're comfortable, you can add content tags to other pages. For example, the following snippet adds a list of content tags to the community topic page template.

{{#each posts}}
...

{{#if (compare content_tags.length ">" 0)}}

{{#each content_tags}}

{{#link "search_result" content_tag_id=id}}
{{name}}
{{/link}}

{{/each}}

{{/if}}

...

{{/each}}

Add badges to your custom help center theme

Note: Badges are available by default from September 1st, 2020.
You can create a custom theme if you do not want to use the standard Copenhagen theme. However, badges require that you use the Theme Templating API v2. If you're still using v1, use the upgrade instructions to do this. You can also find inspiration for doing this in the Zendesk example theme on GitHub.

This topic covers:

Adding the new user profile actions helper

Showing Title badges on the post listings page

Showing Title badges on a post and comments page

Showing Title and Achivements badges on a user profile page

Adding the new user profile actions helper

You must add the Award badge option if you want to award badges for agents. However, before you can do this, you must add the new actions helper.

To add the actions helper declaration

Open the theme online code editor, go to an agent's user profile page.
Page filename: user_profile_page.hbs

Find the edit helper declaration.
{{edit}}

Replace the edit helper declaration with the new actions helper declaration instead.
{{actions}}

Now agents will be able to award badges. The new button will be styled with CSS according to your preferences. For more inspiration see the Zendesk example theme.

Showing Title badges on the post listings page

You can add Title badges as labels that sit next to the name of the author in the post listing page. This looks similar to post status labels because, for the sake of simplicity, the styling class is being reused.

To show Title badges on a post listings page

Open the theme online code editor, and go to
Page filename: community_topic_page.hbs

Find the author name declaration. In the Copenhagen theme the line looks like this:
{{author.name}}

Add this snippet to the line after it:
{{#each author.badges}}

{{#is category_slug "titles"}}
{{name}}
{{/is}}

{{/each}}

For advanced users - do not (re)use thestatus-label CSS class for this scenario, instead create a new specialized CSS class that you can modify independently of the status label's style.

Here is an example of a Title badge for a Community Member

Showing Title badges on a post and comments page

To show Title badges on a post listings page

Open the theme online code editor, and go to
Page filename: community_post_page.hbs

Find the author name declaration. In the Copenhagen theme the line looks like this:
{{author.name}}

Add this snippet to the line after it:
{{#each author.badges}}

{{#is category_slug "titles"}}
{{name}}
{{/is}}

{{/each}}

Showing Title and Achievements badges on a user profile page

On a user profile page you will likely want to add more than just Title badges, for example, you can also add the user's achievements. The following example assumes that there is a graphical icon for each Achievement badge. Based on the Copenhagen theme, your Achievement badges may look like this:

To show Title and Achievement badges on a user's profile page

Open the theme online code editor, and go to
Page filename: user_profile_page.hbs

Find the lines in the file where the user's name is rendered. For example:

{{#if user.url}}
{{user.name}}
{{else}}
{{user.name}}
{{/if}}


Replace that snippet with the following:

{{#if user.url}}
{{user.name}}
{{else}}
{{user.name}}
{{/if}}
{{#each user.badges}} {{#is category_slug "titles"}}
{{name}}
{{/is}} {{/each}}


{{#each user.badges}} {{#is category_slug "achievements"}}


{{name}}

{{/is}} {{/each}}


In this example all of the CSS styling is inlined to keep the example simple. For best practices, use these examples for inspiration, but spend time ensuring that the styling fits your theme

Enable users to view user profiles to your help center

This section describes how to update the necessary templates so that users in your help center can click the author name or avatar and view the user's profile.

Note: User profiles are available by default in standard themes and themes that were customized after June 20th, 2016.

The solutions discussed in this section involve using the link helper in the help center templating language. See link helper in the templating documentation to update the following templates:

Articles

Community posts

Search results page

Articles

Make the following updates to the Article page template.
Updating the article's author name
Replace the following if block:

{{#if article.author.url}}

{{article.author.name}}

{{else}}
{{article.author.name}}
{{/if}}

with the following link helper:

{{#link "user_profile" id=article.author.id class="user-profile"}}
{{article.author.name}}
{{/link}}
Updating comment author names
Replace the following if block:

{{#if author.url}}
{{author.name}}
{{else}}
{{author.name}}
{{/if}}

with the following link helper:

{{#link "user_profile" id=author.id class="user-profile"}}
{{author.name}}
{{/link}}
Updating the avatar of the article and comment authors
Replace the following image tag:



with the following link helper:

{{#link "user_profile" id=article.author.id class="user-profile"}}

{{/link}}

Community posts

Make the following updates to the Community Post page template.
Updating the names of post authors
Replace the following if block:

{{#if post.author.url}}

{{post.author.name}}

{{else}}
{{post.author.name}}
{{/if}}

with the following link helper:

{{#link "user_profile" id=post.author.id class="user-profile"}}
{{post.author.name}}
{{/link}}
Updating the names of comment authors
Replace the following if block:

{{#if author.url}}
{{author.name}}
{{else}}
{{author.name}}
{{/if}}

with the following link helper:

{{#link "user_profile" id=author.id class="user-profile"}}
{{author.name}}
{{/link}}
Updating the avatars of post authors
Replace the following image tag:



with the following link helper:

{{#link "user_profile" id=post.author.id class="user-profile"}}

{{/link}}
Updating the avatars of the comment authors
Replace the following image tag:



with the following link helper:

{{#link "user_profile" id=author.id class="user-profile"}}

{{/link}}

Search results

Make the following updates to the Search results template.
Updating the author names of articles in the results
Replace the following if block in the {{#each article_results}} block:

{{#if author.url}}
{{author.name}}
{{else}}
{{author.name}}
{{/if}}

with the following link helper:

{{#link "user_profile" id=author.id class="user-profile"}}
{{author.name}}
{{/link}}
Updating the author names of posts in the results
Replace the following if block in the {{#each post_results}} block:

{{#if author.url}}
{{author.name}}
{{else}}
{{author.name}}
{{/if}}

with the following link helper:

{{#link "user_profile" id=author.id class="user-profile"}}
{{author.name}}
{{/link}}
Updating the search results in older themes
If you have an older theme, the search results might use the {{meta}} helper instead. In that case you can use the code described in this section to link author names to profile pages in your help center.

You may need to update your CSS styling for the search results page to look uniform.
Updating the author names of articles in the results
Replace the following div tags:

{{meta}}
{{text}}

With the following:

<ol
class="breadcrumbs">
{{#each path_steps}}
{{name}}
{{/each}}


{{text}}



{{#link "user_profile" id=author.id class="user-profile"}}
{{author.name}}
{{/link}}

{{date created_at}}


For end result:

{{#each article_results}}

{{title}}
{{#if vote_sum}}
{{vote_sum}}
{{/if}}

{{#each path_steps}}
{{name}}
{{/each}}


{{text}}



{{#link "user_profile" id=author.id class="user-profile"}}
{{author.name}}
{{/link}}

{{date created_at}}


{{/each}}
Updating the author names of posts in the results
Add:


{{#each path_steps}}
{{name}}
{{/each}}


For end result:

{{#each post_results}}

{{title}}

{{#each path_steps}}
{{name}}
{{/each}}


{{text}}



{{#link "user_profile" id=author.id class="user-profile"}}
{{author.name}}
{{/link}}

{{date created_at}}

{{t 'comments_count' count=comment_count}}



{{/each}}

Enable subsections in your help center theme

You can add subsections to your help center knowledge base to create more levels in your content hierarchy. If you are using a theme that was customized before March 29, 2019, you must add code to your help center custom theme to enable subsections. The following code comes with later versions of the Copenhagen theme.

Note: Subsections are available for Guide Enterprise by default in standard themes and themes that were customized after March 29, 2019.

Applicable template

Section

Applicable object

section.sections

Recipe

Insert the following snippet into the Zendesk section page template, section_page.hbs, after the header tag ( ... ) and before the pagination tag ({{pagination}}) :
{{#if section.sections}}

{{#each section.sections}}


{{name}}

<path fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-width="2" d="M5 14.5l6.1-6.1c.2-.2.2-.5 0-.7L5 1.5"/>



{{/each}}
{{t 'see_all_sections'}}

{{/if}}

{{#if section.articles}}

{{#each section.articles}}

{{#if promoted}}{{/if}}
{{title}}

{{/each}}

{{else}}

{{t 'empty'}}

{{/if}}

Add sidebar filters and results for multiple help centers to the search results page

The help center search enables users to search across help centers, if you have multiple help centers, and presents the search results from help centers and from knowledge base and community, in a single unified feed with filters on the search results page.

If you are using a theme that was customized before March 29, 2019, you must add code to your help center custom theme to support unified search results and search across multiple help centers. If you have multiple help centers, you'll need to update your theme for each help center.

Note: Unified search results and search across multiple help centers is supported by default in standard themes and themes that were customized after September 25, 2019.

The fastest way to get the changes needed into your theme is to import the latest version of the Copenhagen theme that supports unified search results. To do so, see Adding a help center theme to Guide.

If you prefer to update your existing, custom theme, this section provides an overview of all of the changes you need to make. The solutions discussed in this section involve using the help_center_filters, filters, and subfilters helpers in the Curlybars templating language to update the following files:

Search results

CSS

JavaScript

Updating the search results template to add sidebar filters

You need to update the search results template to add sidebar filters and to loop through the results.

Adding sidebar filters

This snippet is an example of how you can implement search facets in the search results page sidebar using the new filter helpers.

Insert the following code in in the search results template:


{{#if help_center.community_enabled}}

{{t 'filter_by_type'}}

{{#each filters}}

{{name}} ({{count}})

{{/each}}


{{/if}}
{{#if subfilters}}

{{#is current_filter.identifier 'knowledge_base'}}
{{t 'filter_by_category'}}
{{/is}}
{{#is current_filter.identifier 'community'}}
{{t 'filter_by_topic'}}
{{/is}}

{{#each subfilters}}

{{name}} ({{count}})

{{/each}}


{{/if}}


Looping through the results
This snippet is an example of how you can use the {{results}} helper to loop through the unified search results.

Replace both the {{article_results}} and {{post_results}} helpers and their associated search-results-subheading H3s

in the search results template with the following:

{{#if results}}

{{#each results}}


{{title}}



{{#if vote_sum}}
{{vote_sum}}
{{/if}}
{{#if comment_count}}

{{comment_count}}

{{/if}}




{{#each path_steps}}
{{name}}
{{/each}}


{{author.name}}
{{date created_at}}

{{text}}


{{/each}}

{{else}}

{{t 'no_results_unified'}}
{{#link 'help_center'}}
{{t 'browse_help_center'}}
{{/link}}

{{/if}}

Updating CSS styling for the sidebar filters in the search results page

You can add CSS styling for the sidebar filters. The following example is based on the Copenhagen theme.

Make sure the following CSS rules are included in your style.css file:

/***** Search results *****/
.search-results {
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
flex-wrap: wrap;
justify-content: space-between;
}

@media (min-width: 1024px) {
.search-results {
flex-direction: row;
}
}

.search-results-column {
flex: 1;
}

@media (min-width: 1024px) {
.search-results-column {
flex: 0 0 75%;
}
}

.search-results-sidebar {
border-top: 1px solid #ddd;
flex: 1 0 auto;
margin-bottom: 20px;
padding: 0;
}

@media (min-width: 1024px) {
.search-results-sidebar {
border: 0;
flex: 0 0 20%;
height: auto;
}
}

.search-results-sidebar .sidenav-item[aria-selected="true"] {
background-color: $brand_color;
color: $brand_text_color;
text-decoration: none;
}

.search-results-subheading {
font-size: 18px;
font-weight: 600;
}

.search-results-list {
margin-bottom: 25px;
}

.search-results-list > li {
padding: 20px 0;
}

.search-results-list > li:first-child {
border-top: 1px solid #ddd;
}

.search-results-list > li h2 {
margin-bottom: 0;
}

.search-result-title {
font-size: 16px;
}

.search-result-description {
margin-top: 15px;
word-break: break-word;
}

.search-result-votes, .search-result-meta-count {
color: lighten($text_color, 20%);
display: inline-block;
font-size: 13px;
font-weight: 300;
padding: 4px 5px;
position: relative;
}

.search-result-votes::before, .search-result-meta-count::before {
color: $brand_color;
}

[dir="ltr"] .search-result-votes, [dir="ltr"] .search-result-meta-count {
margin-left: 5px;
}

[dir="ltr"] .search-result-votes::before, [dir="ltr"] .search-result-meta-count::before {
margin-right: 3px;
}

[dir="rtl"] .search-result-votes, [dir="rtl"] .search-result-meta-count {
margin-right: 5px;
}

[dir="rtl"] .search-result-votes::before, [dir="rtl"] .search-result-meta-count::before {
margin-left: 3px;
}

.search-result-votes::before {
content: "\1F44D";
}

.search-result-meta-count::before {
content: "\1F4AC";
}

.search-result .meta-group {
align-items: center;
}

.search-result-breadcrumbs {
margin: 0;
}

.search-result-breadcrumbs li:last-child::after {
content: "·";
display: inline-block;
margin: 0 5px;
}

/* Non-latin search results highlight */
/* Add a yellow background for Chinese */
html[lang|="zh"] .search-result-description em {
font-style: normal;
background: yellow;
}

/* Use bold to highlight for the rest of supported non-latin languages */
html[lang|="ar"] .search-result-description em,
html[lang|="bg"] .search-result-description em,
html[lang|="el"] .search-result-description em,
html[lang|="he"] .search-result-description em,
html[lang|="hi"] .search-result-description em,
html[lang|="ko"] .search-result-description em,
html[lang|="ja"] .search-result-description em,
html[lang|="ru"] .search-result-description em,
html[lang|="th"] .search-result-description em {
font-style: bold;
}

Updating JavaScript for the collapsible sidebar in the search results page

You can add JavaScript for the collapsible sidebar in the search results page. The following example is based on the Copenhagen theme.

Replace the following block in the script.js file in the custom theme:

// Toggles expanded aria to collapsible elements
Array.prototype.forEach.call(document.querySelectorAll('.collapsible-nav, .collapsible-sidebar'), function(el) {
el.addEventListener('click', function(e) {
e.stopPropagation();
var isExpanded = this.getAttribute('aria-expanded') === 'true';
this.setAttribute('aria-expanded', !isExpanded);
});
});

with the following code snippet:

// Toggles expanded aria to collapsible elements
var collapsible = document.querySelectorAll('.collapsible-nav, .collapsible-sidebar');

Array.prototype.forEach.call(collapsible, function(el) {
var toggle = el.querySelector('.collapsible-nav-toggle, .collapsible-sidebar-toggle');

el.addEventListener('click', function(e) {
toggleNavigation(toggle, this);
});

el.addEventListener('keyup', function(e) {
if (e.keyCode === 27) { // Escape key
closeNavigation(toggle, this);
}
});
});

Adding the spam filter to help center

If you're using a custom help center theme created before April 1, 2014, you need to add some extra styling to your stylesheet to support the spam filter.

The following new HTML elements have been added:

Article page

section element with class "pending-comments-list"

span element with class "pending-moderation-comment-badge"

Question page

section element with class "pending-answers-list"

span element with class "pending-moderation-answer-badge"

Add the following to your custom theme stylesheet:
.pending-moderation-comment-badge, .pending-moderation-answer-badge {
border-style: solid;
border-width: 1px;
border-color: #c7aa2b;
color: #c7aa2b;
padding: 3px5px;
margin-top: 10px;
font-size: 12px;
}

Adding approvals to your help center

The standard Copenhagen theme displays approvals by default when the approval request feature is turned on. If you're using a custom or marketplace theme, you must update your theme to display approval requests to end users.
Note:

Approvals is available by default in standard themes and themes that were customized after July 28, 2025. If your help center uses a custom help center theme that was customized before July 28, 2025, you need to update your custom theme to support approvals.

The service catalog requires templating API v4. If you're using v3 or lower, upgrade to v4 before updating your custom theme or manually customize the lower templating API version to support approvals.

Applicable templates

approval_request_page.hbs

approval_request_list_page.hbs

The following assets:

approval_requests_bundle.js

approval_requests_translations_bundle.js

Recipe

Click the Download raw file icon on each template and asset file to download.

Add the template files (.hbs) to the templates folder in your unzipped live theme.

Copy all assets to the assets folder in your unzipped live theme.

Add the following code snippet to the document_head.hbs template, then delete any other script starting with .

{
"imports": {
"new-request-form": "{{asset 'new-request-form-bundle.js'}}",
"flash-notifications": "{{asset 'flash-notifications-bundle.js'}}",
"service-catalog": "{{asset 'service-catalog-bundle.js'}}",
"approval-requests": "{{asset 'approval-requests-bundle.js'}}",
"approval-requests-translations": "{{asset 'approval-requests-translations-bundle.js'}}",
"new-request-form-translations": "{{asset 'new-request-form-translations-bundle.js'}}",
"service-catalog-translations": "{{asset 'service-catalog-translations-bundle.js'}}",
"shared": "{{asset 'shared-bundle.js'}}",
"ticket-fields": "{{asset 'ticket-fields-bundle.js'}}",
"wysiwyg": "{{asset 'wysiwyg-bundle.js'}}"
}
}


If necessary, you can customize the page templates.

Zip the theme and upload it to your help center.

Adding the service catalog to your help center

The standard Copenhagen theme displays service catalog by default when the service catalog request feature is turned on. If you're using a custom or marketplace theme, you must update your theme to display the service catalog to end users.

You can copy the service catalog implementation from the Copenhagen theme following the steps described below. Alternatively, if you want to completely customize the UI, you can fork the Copenhagen theme and change the implementation in the src/modules/service-catalog folder.
Note:

Service catalog is available by default in standard themes and themes that were customized after July 31, 2025. If your help center uses a custom help center theme that was customized before July 31, 2025, you need to update your custom theme to support service catalog.

The service catalog requires templating API v4. If you're using v3 or lower, upgrade to v4 before updating your custom theme or manually customize the lower templating API version to support the service catalog.

Applicable templates

service_page.hbs

service_list_page.hbs

assets

Recipe

Click the Download raw file icon on each template and asset file to download.

Add the template files (.hbs) to the templates folder in your unzipped live theme.

Copy all assets to the assets folder in your unzipped live theme.

Add the following code snippet to the document_head.hbs template, then delete any other script starting with .

// Load ES module polyfill only for browsers that don't support ES modules
if (!(HTMLScriptElement.supports && HTMLScriptElement.supports('importmap'))) {
document.write(' <\/script>');
}


{
"imports": {
"new-request-form": "{{asset 'new-request-form-bundle.js'}}",
"flash-notifications": "{{asset 'flash-notifications-bundle.js'}}",
"service-catalog": "{{asset 'service-catalog-bundle.js'}}",
"approval-requests": "{{asset 'approval-requests-bundle.js'}}",
"approval-requests-translations": "{{asset 'approval-requests-translations-bundle.js'}}",
"new-request-form-translations": "{{asset 'new-request-form-translations-bundle.js'}}",
"service-catalog-translations": "{{asset 'service-catalog-translations-bundle.js'}}",
"shared": "{{asset 'shared-bundle.js'}}",
"ticket-fields": "{{asset 'ticket-fields-bundle.js'}}",
"wysiwyg": "{{asset 'wysiwyg-bundle.js'}}"
}
}


import { renderFlashNotifications } from "flash-notifications";

const settings = {{json settings}};
const baseLocale = {{json help_center.base_locale}};

renderFlashNotifications(settings, baseLocale);


Use the link helper to add a link to the service catalog page in the header.js template.

Copy the following styles into your style.css file:
.service-catalog-description {
display: flow-root;
}
.service-catalog-description a {
color: $link_color;
text-decoration: underline;
}
.service-catalog-description a:visited {
color: $visited_link_color;
}
.service-catalog-description a:hover, .service-catalog-description a:active, .service-catalog-description a:focus {
color: $hover_link_color;
}
.service-catalog-description img {
height: auto;
max-width: 100%;
}
.service-catalog-description p > img.image-style-align-left {
float: left;
margin: 8px 20px 6px 0;
}
.service-catalog-description p > img.image-style-align-right {
float: right;
margin: 8px 0px 6px 20px;
}
.service-catalog-description p > img.image-style-block-align-right {
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: 0;
}
.service-catalog-description p > img.image-style-block-align-left {
margin-left: 0;
margin-right: auto;
}
.service-catalog-description figure.image {
display: table;
margin: 0 auto;
}
.service-catalog-description figure.image > img {
display: block;
width: 100%;
}
.service-catalog-description figure.image.image-style-align-left {
float: left;
margin: 8px 20px 6px 0;
}
.service-catalog-description figure.image.image-style-align-right {
float: right;
margin: 8px 0px 6px 20px;
}
.service-catalog-description figure.image.image-style-block-align-right {
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: 0;
}
.service-catalog-description figure.image.image-style-block-align-left {
margin-left: 0;
margin-right: auto;
}
.service-catalog-description figcaption {
padding: 10px 0;
font-size: 12px;
text-align: center;
background-color: darken($background_color, 5%);
}
.service-catalog-description ul,
.service-catalog-description ol {
padding-left: 20px;
list-style-position: outside;
margin: 20px 0 20px 20px;
}
[dir=rtl] .service-catalog-description ul,
[dir=rtl] .service-catalog-description ol {
padding-right: 20px;
padding-left: 0;
margin-left: 0;
margin-right: 20px;
}
.service-catalog-description ul > ul,
.service-catalog-description ol > ol,
.service-catalog-description ol > ul,
.service-catalog-description ul > ol,
.service-catalog-description li > ul,
.service-catalog-description li > ol {
margin: 0;
}
.service-catalog-description ul {
list-style-type: disc;
}
.service-catalog-description :not(pre) > code {
background: darken($background_color, 3%);
border: 1px solid #ddd;
border-radius: 3px;
padding: 0 5px;
margin: 0 2px;
}
.service-catalog-description pre {
background: darken($background_color, 3%);
border: 1px solid #ddd;
border-radius: 3px;
padding: 10px 15px;
overflow: auto;
white-space: pre;
}
.service-catalog-description blockquote {
border-left: 1px solid #ddd;
color: lighten($text_color, 20%);
font-style: italic;
padding: 0 15px;
}

If necessary, you can customize the page templates.

Zip the theme and upload it to your help center.

Adding a service catalog or approvals on Templating API versions lower than 4

The Templating API version 4 includes a JSON helper that is required for the service catalog and approvals functionality. However, if you need to continue using a lower templating version, you can serialize the data differently.

To use the service catalog or approvals with lower Templating API versions

Remove the JSON helper from boolean and numbers.

Serialize strings with the json_stringify helper.

For complex objects, serialize each property individually.

The following example demonstrates how to adapt the service_page.hbs template. You'll need to modify the other required templates in a similar way as well.

Replace the following original code:

import { renderServiceCatalogItem } from "service-catalog";

const settings = {{json settings}};
const container = document.getElementById("service-catalog-item");

// Extract the ID from the URL
const id = window.location.pathname.split("/").pop()

const props = {
baseLocale: {{json help_center.base_locale}},
hasAtMentions: {{json help_center.at_mentions_enabled}},
userRole: {{json user.role}},
userId: {{json user.id}},
brandId: {{json brand.id}},
organizations: {{json user.organizations}},
serviceCatalogItemId: id,
helpCenterPath: {{json (page_path 'help_center')}},
}

renderServiceCatalogItem(container, settings, props);


With the following:

import { renderServiceCatalogItem } from "service-catalog";

const settings = {
background_color: {{json_stringify settings.background_color}},
text_color: {{json_stringify settings.text_color}},
brand_color: {{json_stringify settings.brand_color}},
brand_text_color: {{json_stringify settings.brand_text_color}},
link_color: {{json_stringify settings.link_color}},
hover_link_color: {{json_stringify settings.hover_link_color}},
visited_link_color: {{json_stringify settings.visited_link_color}},
};
const container = document.getElementById("service-catalog-item");

// Extract the ID from the URL
const id = window.location.pathname.split("/").pop()

const props = {
baseLocale: {{json_stringify help_center.base_locale}},
hasAtMentions: {{help_center.at_mentions_enabled}},
userRole: {{json_stringify user.role}},
userId: {{user.id}},
brandId: {{brand.id}},
organizations: [
{{#each user.organizations}}
{id: {{id}}},
{{/each}}
],
serviceCatalogItemId: id,
helpCenterPath: {{json_stringify (page_path 'help_center')}},
}

renderServiceCatalogItem(container, settings, props);
