soapbox/docs/customization.md

3.8 KiB

Customizing Soapbox

First Install Soapbox

Soapbox supports customization of the user interface, to allow per instance branding and other features. Current customization features include:

  • Instance name
  • Site logo
  • Promo panel list items, e.g. blog site link
  • Favicon
  • About page
  • Terms of Service page
  • Privacy Policy page
  • Copyright Policy page
  • Soapbox extensions
  • Default settings

Instance Name

Instance name is edited during the Pleroma installation step or via admin configuration

Instance Description

Instance description is edited during the Pleroma installation step or via admin configuration

Captcha on Registration Page

Use of the Captcha feature on the registration page is configured during the Pleroma installation step or via admin configuration

Site Logo, Brand Color, and Promo Panel List Items

The site logo, brand color, and promo panel list items are customized by copying soapbox.example.json in the static/instance folder to soapbox.json. The site logo, in SVG format, is rendered to be able to allow the site theme colors to appear in the less than 100% opaque sections of the logo. The logo colors are rendered in a color that provides contrast for the site theme.

The navlinks section of the soapbox.json file references the links that are displayed at the bottom of the Registration/Login, About, Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Copyright Policy (DMCA) pages.

The brandColor in soapbox.json refers to the main color upon which the look of soapbox-fe is defined.

After editing your HTML files and folder names, re-create the webpack and restart the soapbox-fe service to effect the changes.

Following is an example of the contents of soapbox.example.json:

{
  "logo": ""/instance/images/soapbox-logo.svg",
  "brandColor": "#0482d8",
  "promoPanel": {
    "items": [{
      "icon": "area-chart",
      "text": "Our Site stats",
      "url": "https://fediverse.network/example.com"
    }, {
      "icon": "comment-o",
      "text": "Our Site blog",
      "url": "https://blog.example.com"
    }]
  },
  "extensions": {
    "patron": false
  },
  "defaultSettings": {
    "autoPlayGif": false,
    "theme": "light"
  },
  "copyright": "?2020. Copying is an act of love. Please copy and share.",
  "navlinks": {
    "homeFooter": [
      { "title": "About", "url": "/about" },
      { "title": "Terms of Service", "url": "/about/tos" },
      { "title": "Privacy Policy", "url": "/about/privacy" },
      { "title": "DMCA", "url": "/about/dmca" },
      { "title": "Source Code", "url": "/about#opensource" }
    ]
  }
}

Favicon

The favicon is customized by dropping a favicon.png file into the /static folder. Re-create the webpack and start the soapbox-fe service to effect the changes.

These pages are all available for editing in the static/instance/about.example folder, as template files, named as:

  • index.html
  • tos.html
  • privacy.html
  • dmca.html

The soapbox.json file navlinks section's default URL valuess are pointing to the above file location, when the about.example folder is renamed to about These four template files have placeholders in them, e.g. "Your_Instance", that should be edited to match your Soapbox instance configuration, and will be meaningless to your users until you edit them.

These pages will not become available resources on your instance until you rename the static/instance/about.example folder to static/instance/about, re-create the webpack and start the soapbox-fe service.

The Source Code link in the soapbox.json file, if used, references a bookmark in the index.html file in the about folder. The template index.html file has a default bookmark and URL defined in it that you can edit.