Customizing your help center theme


Web-savvy Knowledge admins can work directly with the page code to build a customized theme for your help center. Customized themes can include:


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Location: Knowledge admin > Customize design ( ) > Customize > Edit code
Web-savvy Knowledge admins can work directly with the page code to build a customized theme for
your help center. Customized themes can include:

Editable templates that define the layout of each page (for example, article page,
category page, or community topic page)
Custom pages that you create from scratch and place anywhere in your help center
Global header and footer for the help center

You can also use a full-featured templating language called Curlybars to access help center
data and manipulate the content in page templates and custom pages. You can also use the
JavaScript and CSS files included with your theme to make site-wide changes to the appearance
and behavior of the theme. If you are thinking about using your own HTML code to edit your
help center theme, read Editing the source code of help center articles.
When you modify a theme's code (for example, its templates, JavaScript, or CSS), the theme
preview displays the </> icon, indicating that the theme's code has
been modified and will no longer receive new features and updates.


Tip: If you need help with your help center branding and customization, you can
visit the Zendesk Marketplace to purchase new themes created
by Zendesk and third party developers.


Note: 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.
This article covers the following topics:


Customizing the page templates with HTML
and Curlybars
Customizing the CSS or
JavaScript
Using variables in CSS and HTML


Related articles:


Branding your help center
Guide theming limits
Help center templating cookbook
Creating custom pages in your help center
Adding multiple article, section, and category templates to your
theme




Customizing page templates and custom pages with HTML and Curlybars

The HTML for the help center is contained in editable templates that define the layout of
page types, custom pages, and a global header and footer. You can also use a full-featured
templating language called Curlybars to create or manipulate content for these elements.


Note: On Enterprise plans, you can create custom pages, as well as additional page templates
for articles, sections, and categories if you need multiple versions of those
templates.

You can customize the template of any of the following page types or elements, or create
your own custom pages.


Custom pages (custom_page.hbs): custom pages that you create from scratch
and link from anywhere in your help center

Article page (article_page.hbs): the individual article pages in the
knowledge base

Category page
(category_page.hbs): landing pages

Community post list page (community_post_list_page.hbs)

Community post page (community_post_page.hbs)

Community topic list page (community_topic_list_page.hbs)

Community topic page (community_topic_page.hbs)

Contributions page (contributions_page.hbs): the lists of posts, community
comments, and article comments by an end-user

Document head (document_head.hbs): the document's head
tag

Error page (error_page.hbs): the message displayed when a user lands on a
non-existent page

Footer (footer.hbs): the bars appearing at the bottom of all help center
pages

Header (header.hbs): the bars appearing at the top of all help center
pages

Home page (home_page.hbs): the top-level landing page for your help
center

New community post page (new_community_post_page.hbs)

New request page (new_request_page.hbs): the request or ticket submission
form

Request page (request_page.hbs): the individual request or ticket
pages

Requests page (requests_page.hbs): the lists of requests or tickets
assigned to a user or that a user is CC'd on

Search results (search_results.hbs): the search results display
format

Section page (section_page.hbs): landing pages

Following page (subscriptions_page.hbs): the list of categories, sections,
and articles a user is following

User profile page (user_profile_page.hbs)



Note: When you use the Theme Editor to edit the page templates, CSS, or JavaScript for a
standard theme, or when you develop your own theme, it is saved as a custom theme.
Custom themes are not supported by Zendesk and are not automatically updated
when new features are released (see About standard themes and custom themes in help
center).

To edit the page templates

In Knowledge admin, click Customize design
( ) in the sidebar.
Click Customize on the theme you want to edit.
Click Edit code.

In the Templates section, click the template or custom page you want to
modify. The page opens in the code editor.

Use the code view to edit the template or page. You can add, remove, or reorder any
the following:


Template expressions to display and manipulate content in your pages For
example, the breadcrumbs template helper {{breadcrumbs}} displays a
breadcrumb navigation element on a page. For a detailed guide on template
expressions, see Help center templates.


Dynamic content placeholders (see Localizing help center content)

Embeddable widgets created by third parties
HTML markup


Click Save in the top right corner to save your changes. If you edited a
template, the changes are applied to every page in your theme that is based on the
template you modified.

To preview your changes, click Preview. See Previewing your theme in the help center.

Note: When previewing a theme, all features may not work. The preview
functionality is intended to show look-and-feel changes, but it is not intended for
end-to-end testing of interactive theme functionality. We recommend you use a Sandbox
for end-to-end testing.


Make other code changes as needed, then click Save. When you're finished
editing the page template or custom page, you can close it.




Tip: Read this Zendesk blog post for more knowledge
base article template ideas.




Customizing the CSS or JavaScript

You can add JavaScript code or customize the site's CSS. For a taste of the things you can
do in the help center with a little bit of coding, check out the following resources:

Help center CSS cookbook
Help center JavaScript cookbook



Note: When you use the Theme Editor to edit the page templates, CSS, or JavaScript for a
standard theme, or when you develop your own theme, it is saved as a custom theme.
Custom themes are not supported by Zendesk and are not automatically updated
when new features are released. See About standard themes and custom themes in the help
center.

To customize the CSS or JavaScript

In Knowledge admin, click Customize design
( ) in the sidebar.
Click Customize on the theme you want to edit.
Click Edit code.

Click script.js to modify the JavaScript or style.css to modify the
CSS. The file opens in the code editor.

Add or modify the JavaScript or CSS in the code view.
Click Save in the top right to save your changes. The changes are applied to
your theme.

To preview your changes, click Preview, see Previewing your theme in the help center.

Make other code changes as needed, then click Save. When you're finished, you
can close the file.





Using variables in CSS and HTML

The properties you choose in the Settings panel or set in your manifest file for colors,
fonts, and theme images are stored in variables. You can use these variables in the theme's
style.css file. You can also reference the variables using Curlybars expressions in
HTML page templates.
The variables are useful if you want to specify the same value in several places and update
it quickly. Updating the property updates it everywhere the variable is used. The default
Copenhagen theme includes some variables for colors and fonts. You can change the names and
labels, delete variables, or add your own (see the Settings manifest reference).
In the standard Copenhagen theme, you have the following variables by default:



brand_color is the brand color for major navigational elements

brand_text_color is the brand color for hover and active states

text_color is the text color for body and heading elements

link_color is the text color for link elements

background_color is the background color of your help center

heading_font is the font for headings

text_font is the font for body text

logo is the company logo

favicon is the icon displayed in the address bar of your browser

homepage_background_image is the hero image on the home page

community_background_image is the hero image on the community topics
page

community_image is the image for the community section on the home
page


To use variables in CSS and HTML, see:
Examples using variables in CSS
Examples using variables in Curlybars in HTML




Examples using variables in CSS

The properties you set for colors, fonts, and theme images are stored in variables that
you can use in your theme's style.css file.
For example, you can use some of the default variables in CSS with the following
syntax:


$brand_color


$brand_tex_color


$heading_font


$text_font


In the CSS file, you assign a variable to a CSS property the same way you would assign a
normal value. For example:
.button {
label-color: $text_font;
}
You can also use single curly brackets to embed the helper in a CSS expression, as
follows::

max-width: #{$search_width}px




Examples using variables in Curlybars in HTML

The properties you set for colors, fonts, and theme images are stored in variables that
you can reference with Curlybars expressions in HTML page templates.
The variables become properties of the settings object in Curlybars. As
with any Curlybars object, you can use double curly brackets and dot notation to insert a
property in a page template.
For example:



{{settings.color_1}} is the HEX value of a color. For example:
#FF00FF


{{{settings.font_1}} is the font stack. For example, system is
defined as: '-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial,
sans-serif"


{{settings.homepage_background_image}} is the path to the file
stored in this field. For example:
p8.zdassets.com/theme_assets/...


{{settings.range_input}} is the value of the range input.


The settings object can be used as input to any helper. For example:

{{is settings.enabled}} ... {{/is}}




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