If you're using the latest version of thestandard Copenhagen theme, you can add and remove some common search functionality and visibility elements in your theme. You can also set thebranding and design elementsfor your theme.

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Summary: ◀▼

You can customize your help center's Copenhagen theme by toggling search features like instant and scoped search, and controlling visibility of home page, article, community, and request form elements. Adjust settings for recent activity, article details, community posts, and suggested articles without editing code, keeping your theme standard and supported with automatic updates.

If you're using the latest version of the standard Copenhagen theme, you can add and remove some common search functionality and visibility elements in your theme. You can also set the branding and design elements for your theme.

You can update any of the theme settings described here and still maintain a standard theme. Standard themes are supported by Zendesk and automatically updated with new theme features. However, if you edit theme code, your theme will become a custom theme and will not receive updates. See About the standard theme and custom themes in your help center.

This article contains the following sections:
  • Accessing the Settings panel in your standard theme
  • Setting search options in your standard theme
  • Setting visibility for home page and knowledge base elements in your standard theme
  • Setting visibility for community elements in your standard theme
  • Setting visibility for suggested articles in the request form

Accessing the Settings panel in your standard theme

The Settings panel sets the values of placeholders in thee template code. For example, the instant search option in the Settings panel sets the value of a placeholder named settings.instant_search in the code. If you replace the placeholder in the code with a literal value such as true or with another placeholder, you'll no longer be able to use the Settings panel to set the value in the code.

The Settings panel consists of several categories that each contain additional elements you can use to configure your theme. Changing settings in the Settings panel is not the same as editing theme code. You can change the options in this panel and still maintain a standard theme which is supported by Zendesk and updated with new theme features.

To open the Settings panel
  1. In Knowledge admin, click Customize design () in the sidebar.
  2. Click Customize on the theme you want to update.

  3. In the Settings panel on the left side of the page, click the setting names (for example, Colors, Fonts, etc.) to show or hide the settings within each category.

  4. Click Back at the top of the Settings panel to return to the Themes page.

Setting search options in your standard theme

In the Copenhagen standard theme, you can add and remove some common search functionality options for your theme in the Settings panel.

To update search options for your theme

  1. Open the Settings panel in your standard theme.
  2. Click Search settings, then select or deselect any of the following options:
    • Instant search enables users to see links to suggested articles while entering their search terms, then select matched articles directly from the Search box without going to the search results page first. Instant search uses partial word search and returns results based on article titles only.
    • Scoped search in help center enables users to search only the articles in the current category.
    • Scoped search in Community enables users to search only the posts in the current topic.

    The theme preview updates so that you can see changes as you add or remove elements.

  3. When you're finished, click Publish.

Setting visibility for home page and knowledge base elements in your standard theme

In the Copenhagen standard theme, you can set visibility for some home page and knowledge base elements for your theme in the settings panel.

To set visibility for home page and knowledge base elements in your theme

  1. Open the Settings panel in your standard theme.
  2. In the Settings panel, click Home page elements, then select or deselect Recent activity to add or remove the recent activity feed from your home page.

    Recent activity shows a list of the five most recent new articles, article comments, new community posts, and community comments on your help center home page.

  3. Click Article page elements, then select or deselect any of the following options:
    • Articles in section displays a list of all articles in the current section in a sidebar on the article.
    • Author displays the avatar and name of the author on each article.
    • Comments shows all comments at the bottom of the article in order of oldest to newest.
    • Follow displays a button on the article so that users can subscribe to the article to receive notifications when new comments are added. Notifications are not sent when the article content is updated.
    • Recently viewed displays a list of articles recently viewed by the user in a sidebar on the article.
    • Related articles displays a list of related articles, on a relevancy score, in a sidebar on the article, see How is the relate articles list populated.
    • Social sharing adds elements for sharing content on social media to the article.

    The theme preview updates so that you can see changes as you add or remove elements.

  4. Click Section page elements, then select or deselect Follow, if you want to enable users to follow sections.

    Follow displays a button on the section so that users can subscribe to the section to receive notifications when new articles are added to the section and when new comments are added to articles in the section.

  5. When you're finished, click Publish.

Setting visibility for community elements in your standard theme

In the Copenhagen standard theme, you can set visibility for some community elements for your theme in the settings panel.
Note: This feature requires Gather Professional. You will see the community post and community topic elements even if you do not have Zendesk Gather. If you do not have a community, then setting options in this section will have no effect.

To set visibility for community elements in your theme

  1. Open the Settings panel in your standard theme.
  2. In the Settings panel, click Community post elements, then select or deselect any of the following options:
    • Follow displays a button on the community post so that users can subscribe to the post to receive notifications when new comments are added.
    • Social sharing adds elements for sharing content on social media to the post.
    The theme preview updates so that you can see changes as you add or remove elements.
  3. Click Community topic elements, then select or deselect Follow, if you want to enable users to follow community topics.
    • Follow displays a button on the community topic so that users can subscribe to the topic to receive notifications when new posts are added to the topic and when new comments are added to posts in the topic.
  4. When you're finished, click Publish.

Setting visibility for suggested articles in the request form

In the Copenhagen standard theme, you can set visibility for showing users a list of suggested articles in the new request form. Specifically, as users enter a subject in the request form, a list of suggested articles in the knowledge base appears. They can click one of the articles instead of submitting the request. See Submitting a support request.

To set visibility for suggested articles in the request form

  1. Open the Settings panel in your standard theme.
  2. In the Settings panel, click Show suggested articles, then select or deselect the option to Show suggested articles.
  3. When you're finished, click Publish.
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