Appearance and themes

Themes control how the public website looks.

Your pages, media, navigation and SEO information are stored separately from the theme. This means you can change the design of the website without rewriting the content.

Themes are managed from the Appearance section in Superlite.

Opening Appearance

Open Appearance from the main Superlite navigation.

The Appearance section shows the themes currently installed on the website.

Each theme can include information such as its name, version, supported layouts and a preview image.

The currently active theme is clearly identified.

What a theme controls

A theme controls how Superlite turns your content into public HTML.

This can include:

• Page layout
• Typography
• Colours
• Navigation design
• Header
• Footer
• Image presentation
• Content spacing
• Buttons
• Tables
• Quotes
• Responsive behaviour

A theme can also include its own CSS and optional JavaScript.

Superlite itself does not automatically add design resources to the public website. The active theme determines what the frontend needs.

Content and themes are separate

Changing theme does not change your page content.

The title, text, images, SEO settings and other content remain stored in Superlite.

The new theme receives the same content and decides how it should be displayed.

This separation is important because it allows you to redesign a website without rebuilding every page manually.

Viewing installed themes

The Appearance section displays the themes available on the current Superlite installation.

A theme can normally show:

• Theme name
• Version
• Compatibility information
• Preview image
• Current status

The active theme is the one currently used to generate the public website.

Other installed themes remain available until you choose to activate them or remove them.

Theme previews

A theme can include a preview image.

The preview gives you an idea of the design before activating the theme.

Where a preview is available, you can view it from the Appearance section.

The preview is intended as a visual example. The exact appearance of your website depends on your own content, images, navigation and theme settings.

A theme without a preview image can still work normally.

Activating a theme

Choose the theme you want to use and select the activation option.

Activating a theme changes which theme Superlite uses when generating public pages.

Your original content is not changed.

Because the design of every page can be affected, Superlite may need to rebuild the website after the new theme is activated.

Rebuilding after a theme change

A normal content edit usually requires only a small part of the website to be rebuilt.

Changing theme is different because the theme can affect every public page.

After activating a new theme, use the option to activate the theme and rebuild the site when offered.

Superlite then generates the public pages again using the new theme.

The stored page content remains unchanged.

Theme layouts

A theme can provide different layouts for different types of content.

For example, a theme may have a standard page layout and additional layouts for particular uses.

If more than one compatible layout is available, Superlite can allow you to select a layout when editing the page.

The layout determines how the theme presents that content.

Changing the layout does not change the original content blocks.

Theme settings

Themes can provide their own settings.

These settings appear in the administration interface when supported by the theme.

A theme might allow you to choose:

• Logo
• Accent colour
• Header options
• Footer options
• Other design settings

The available settings depend entirely on the active theme.

One theme may provide only a few settings, while another may provide more options.

Changing the logo

If the active theme supports a logo setting, you can select an image from the Superlite media library.

The theme decides where the logo appears and how it is displayed.

Changing the logo setting does not modify the original image in the media library.

You can select another image at any time.

Theme colours

A theme can provide settings for colours such as an accent colour.

If this option is available, choose the colour through the theme settings.

The theme determines where that colour is used.

Not every colour on the website needs to be configurable. A theme developer decides which design options should be exposed through Superlite.

Navigation and themes

Superlite stores navigation separately from the theme.

The theme requests the menus it needs and decides where and how they should appear.

For example, a theme may use one menu for the main navigation and another for the footer.

If you change theme, the existing menus remain stored in Superlite.

The new theme can use them if it supports the same menu locations.

Media and themes

Images are also stored separately from themes.

The active theme controls how images appear on the public website, but it does not own the original media files.

A new theme can therefore use the same images that were uploaded for the previous theme.

The theme can choose suitable image sizes and responsive image behaviour where supported.

SEO and themes

SEO information belongs to the content and Superlite core rather than to the theme.

The active theme receives the SEO data required when generating the public HTML.

This can include:

• SEO title
• Meta description
• Canonical URL
• Robots instructions
• Open Graph information
• Structured data

A correctly built theme should place this information in the appropriate parts of the generated HTML.

Changing theme does not remove the SEO information stored for your pages.

Theme compatibility

Themes can specify which versions of Superlite they support.

If a theme requires a newer Superlite version than the one currently installed, you may need to update Superlite before activating the theme.

Compatibility information helps prevent themes from using features that are not available in an older CMS version.

Always check compatibility information when installing or updating a theme.

Theme versions

Themes have their own version numbers.

The theme version is separate from the Superlite version.

For example, you may update a theme without updating the CMS itself.

A newer theme version can include design changes, fixes or support for additional Superlite functionality.

The installed version is shown where this information is available in the Appearance section.

Updating a theme

An installed theme can be replaced by a newer version.

The update should replace the files belonging to the theme while leaving your pages, media and other site content unchanged.

After updating a theme, rebuild the website if the theme files that affect public pages have changed.

This ensures that the static HTML uses the new version of the theme.

Theme settings after an update

Theme updates can sometimes add or change available settings.

After installing a new version, review the theme settings before rebuilding the site.

Existing compatible settings should remain available, but new options may need to be configured.

If a setting is removed by the theme developer, it may no longer affect the public website.

Missing theme features

Not every theme needs to support every optional presentation feature.

For example, one theme may provide several page layouts while another provides only one.

A theme may also use navigation, images or other content differently.

If a Superlite feature exists but does not appear on the public website, check whether the active theme supports and renders that feature.

Theme problems

If the public website looks incorrect after activating or updating a theme, first rebuild the entire site.

If the problem remains, check the theme version and its Superlite compatibility requirements.

You can also activate another installed theme to determine whether the issue is specific to the current theme.

Because content is stored separately from themes, switching themes does not require you to recreate your pages.