About the Aurora Theme editor
The Theme editor in Aurora Designer enables you to customize the appearance of your community site to match the look and feel of your brand. With Theme, you can configure the page layout, set the size and style of your fonts, manage colors, manage icons, configure buttons and text links, manage avatars, and manage UI elements for your community site content (Blogs, Forums, Knowledge Bases, Ideas, Events, and Groups). After you have customized your community theme, click Publish to make them live on your site instantly. The Theme editor is separated into the following categories: Basics Fonts Colors Buttons and Text Links Avatars UI Elements Refer to the Build Khoros Communities course for training on site design.About Aurora Page Templates
Designer provides many page templates you can use and customize to fit the needs of your community. Many of these fall into similar categories and therefore have similar widgets and out-of-the-box designs. Some are a bit more complex and apply to the community globally. Below is an index and description of these categories and individual page templates. While there are many page templates and widgets to choose from, much of the functionality is repeated throughout Designer. For more information on this functionality, see the following articles: Using Page Templates Create and arrange sections in a Page Template Getting Started with Widgets Community Home template The Community Home page template applies only to the homepage of your community. On this template, you can add any widgets you want members to see on the very first page they land on in the community. Commonly added widgets are: Recent Content Places Top Contributors Top Content Header & Footer template The global Header & Footer template is unique in that it applies across your entire community. It contains the site header—composed of the navigation bar, the breadcrumb trail, and the banner—and the site footer. For more information, see Header & Footer Configuration. Container Dashboard templates Container dashboard templates define how higher-level place landing pages appear to members of the community. The following dashboard templates fall into this category: Category Dashboard Group Dashboard These templates enable you to provide a look into what’s available to members of that container to read, follow, and comment on. Commonly added widgets are: Recent Content Category Information or Group Information Members Top Contributors Top Content Content Type Dashboard templates Content type dashboard templates define how content type landing pages appear to members of the community. The following dashboard templates fall into this category: Forum Dashboard Blog Dashboard Knowledge Base Dashboard Ideas Dashboard Event Dashboard These templates enable you to provide a look at what’s going on in a board (forum, blog, knowledge base, events board, ideas board). Commonly added widgets are: Recent Discussions or Recent Content Forum Information, Blog Information, Knowledge Base Information, Event Board Information, or Ideas Board Information Top Content Top Contributors Content type-specific widgets are not available on a different content type’s dashboard template. For instance, you cannot add a Recent Discussions widget to a Knowledge Base Dashboard or an Ideas widget to a Blog Dashboard. Content post templates Content post templates define how a particular piece of content looks to members. The following templates fall into this category: Forum Discussion Blog Post Knowledge Base Article Idea Event These page templates come out of the box with widgets that cannot be deleted because they contain the body of a top-level discussion, post, article, or idea or because they contain a space for commenting on a discussion, post, article, or idea. However, you can add other widgets to these templates. Commonly added widgets are: Featured Content Related Content Recent Discussions Content type-specific widgets are not available on a different content type’s post template. For instance, you cannot add a Recent Discussions widget to a Knowledge Base Article template. Member Profile template The Member Profile page template applies only to the Member Profile, which is what members see when they click another member’s username in the community. On this template, you can add any widgets you want that give information about the member being highlighted. This template comes out of the box with a member information widget that cannot be deleted. This widget contains the member’s username, rank, email address, join date, number of contributions, and number of likes. You can add other widgets to this template. Commonly added widgets are: Contributions Top Contributions Groups Featured Content Search Results Page template The Search Results Page template applies only to the page that appears when someone runs a search in your community. This page template includes the following four widgets out of the box that cannot be deleted: Search bar widget (with filters) Content Results widget (shows content matching the search query) People widget (shows people whose usernames match the search query) Places widget (shows places with names matching the search query) Note: If the search term does not match with a particular widget type, that widget is not displayed in Designer or in the community. For example, if no places match your query, the Places widget is not visible in Designer or on the Search Results page in the community. Refer to the table below to understand the capabilities and limitations of each section or widget on this page template. Note: While you can add widgets to the bottom of the column containing the People widget and the Places widget, you cannot add a new widget between these two widgets. You can also add new sections to this page template. These can be moved and deleted, and you can add Text/HTML widgets to them. Related topics: About Community site structure About Categories About Groups About Blogs About Forums About Knowledge Bases About Ideas About Events About the Aurora member Profile page About Aurora Search Refer to the Build Khoros Communities course for training on site design.Aurora: Create and map a localized category
The Localized Communities feature enables you, as an admin, to create multiple “versions” of your community—each one in a different language. After you map your top-level categories to the languages you have enabled in your community, your customers are directed to the language category that best matches their browser settings. To enable Localized Communities in your community, you must first open a Support ticket. Create a localized category Important: We recommend that you set up your localized categories on a stage environment before setting them up on your production environment. Doing so enables you to reference the stage setup during the production setup for a quicker configuration process. Additionally, if your production community is already live with your customers, we recommend that you set up your localized categories during non-peak activity hours. Note: Creating a localized category is a similar process to creating a regular category in the community. However, after you have enabled Localized Categories with Khoros Support, additional configuration is required to map your categories appropriately once you create them. To create a localized category: Go to the Community Structure page. At the community level, click Add (plus icon). On the window, enter a Name and ID. The ID displays in the URL for the category. Note: The ID must be a single word made of only letters, numbers, dashes, and underscores with no spaces. It cannot be changed later. Optionally, enter a Description and add an Avatar for the category. Click Create. For your new localized category to work properly, you must next map it to a language. Map a localized category to a language After you have created your localized category, you need to map it to a language so the community can be translated to the correct language for the category. Click the Features > Localized Categories link in the Action Needed alert. Or, navigate to Settings > Features > Localized Categories. On the Language Mapping screen, in the Mapped to column of the language you want to map to your new category, select that category. After you map your top-level categories to the languages you have enabled in your community, your customers are directed to the language category that best matches their browser language. However, as a secondary measure, they can use the language selector to change languages. Related topics: About Localized Communities Configure localized category settingsAurora: Custom widget configuration
Your organization may have created some of their own custom widgets for use in your page templates. These custom widgets can address use cases or functionality not available in out-of-the-box widgets. Therefore, there aren’t configuration options specific to the content of the widget—the options instead help you design the widget's layout and some of its properties. To access and configure a custom widget: In Designer, open the page template to which you want to add the custom widget. Add a widget section by selecting Add (plus sign) in an open area of the page template. In the Add Widget panel that opens, locate and select the custom widget you want to add. It may be located under any of the categories (Content, People, or Places) depending on what it is related to. If a custom widget has not been tied to any categories, it is located under Other > Custom. Configure any or all of the following: Widget Title: Sets the title that appears at the top of the widget. If the Visible only to screen readers option is turned on, the title remains hidden to most visitors; however, the title information is still relayed to visitors using screen readers. Visible To: Select whether you want the widget visible to Both Non signed-in and Signed-in users, Only Signed-in users, or Only Non signed-in users. Remove widget wrapper: Select this option to remove the default wrapper and padding on the widget. If you are using a custom widget with text or HTML content, select Edit Widget Content to use the content editor to add text, videos, or images (see About the Content Editor for more information). You can now view the custom widget on any pages associated with the template where you added it. Related topics: Text/HTML widget configuration Developer Docs: Introduction to Handlebars ComponentsAurora: Text/HTML widget configuration
The Text/HTML widget enables you to create custom content blocks on most page templates. These widgets can be filled with formatted text or HTML. Not only can you use this widget for the currently selected page template, but each Text/HTML widget is saved in a library so that you can assign it to any other page template you edit. Add a Text/HTML widget Select Add widget (plus icon) where you want to add the widget. In the Add Widget panel, select Text/HTML. Select Add Widget. Add your custom text using the content editor or add HTML source code by clicking More... (... icon) and then the Source code (< > icon) in the editor's toolbar. Enter a Widget name that will be used to identify the widget from the Widget Library (Optional) Enter a Widget description to add more information for the widget in the Widget Library. Select Save. Configure the Text/HTML widget as described in the section below. Configure the Text/HTML widget You can configure the following options: Widget Title: The title that appears at the top of the widget. Visible only to screen readers: When this option is active, the title will remain hidden from most visitors; however, the title information is still relayed to visitors using screen readers. Remove widget background: When this option is active, the background of the widget is hidden so that the section background shows through. Visible To: Use the drop-down menu to indicate whether the widget should be displayed to All Users, Signed-in users, or Non-signed-in users. Edit Widget Content: Select this to return to the content editor for the widget. Related topics: Custom widget configuration Developer Docs: Introduction to Handlebars ComponentsAurora: Featured Idea Statuses widget configuration
The Featured Idea Statuses widget displays the idea statuses you choose to feature and is available on the Ideas Dashboard page template. If you reset the layout of a page with a populated Featured widget or delete a section containing a populated Featured widget, that Featured widget is deleted from all other page templates on which it appears. If you attempt to reset or delete, you will receive a warning that also indicates all other places where the widget is located. When members access the widget in the community, they can click the status name to view the All ideas page scoped to that status. Layout The Featured Idea Statuses widget includes the List and Card layouts. From the Edit Widget panel, select one of these options to change the layout. List The List layout gives you a simple view of the statuses featured in the widget along with the number of ideas (if chosen to be included) associated with each status. Card The Card layout showcases the idea’s status name in the center of the card with, if chosen to be included, the idea count of each status displayed above the status name. Configuration options List style The options in the List style section for List layouts are the following: Space: Uses whitespace to create space between items. Divide: Adds a horizontal line to divide items. Border: Creates a border that separates items into individual boxes. Widget title Enter a title to appear at the top of the widget. If the Visible only to screen readers toggle is on, the title is relayed only through screen readers. Edit Sample Featured Idea Statuses Click Edit Sample Content to open a window where you can select sample idea statuses to preview how the widget will look in the community. Click Add Status to add statuses you want to feature one by one. You can then reorder the content by grabbing it with your cursor and dragging it to the desired location. Note: The sample statuses you select here are not saved or published to the community. You must add the actual idea statuses you want to feature on the desired page in the community. There is no global source for adding places that would apply it to every instance of the widget. See Feature content, places, and idea statuses on a page. Click Preview to return to editing the widget. List item/Card elements List item elements and Card elements determine what information is included for each item in the widget. Turning off or on the toggles hides or shows the elements. In this case, you can turn on or off the indicator for the number of ideas with the Show idea count toggle. Number of items The Number of items slider enables you to indicate how many idea statuses can be displayed on the widget. More options Additional options are available at the bottom of the Edit Widget panel: Include "Show More" link adds a link to the bottom of the widget to enable visitors to display additional items once the Number of items has been reached. Related topics: Feature content, places, and idea statuses on a pageAurora: Featured Places widget configuration
The Featured Places widget displays a list of places (KBs, forums, blogs, ideas boards, and/or event boards) in the community that you choose to feature. You can configure it to focus on top-level boards only or to present sub-places within those communities as nested items. If you reset the layout of a page with a populated Featured widget or delete a section containing a populated Featured widget, that Featured widget is deleted from all other page templates on which it appears. If you attempt to reset or delete, you will receive a warning that also indicates all other places where the widget is located. Layout There are 2 layouts available for the Featured Places widget: List and Card. List style The List layout creates a vertical list of places, enabling members to identify and navigate to parts of your community quickly. Line items can include avatar images as well as descriptions, post totals, and more. There are 3 list styles available in the List layout: The Space list style divides items in the list using a blank space rather than a solid visual divider. The Divide list style adds a solid horizontal line between line items. The Border list style separates items in the list into separate sections. Card The Card layout showcases each place in a card and includes an expansion feature that opens an additional panel with any sub-places under each item. Cards can be configured by their Card Size and Card text alignment: The Card Size setting changes the overall size of the avatar and text so that it takes up more horizontal room in the card. You can choose between Medium and Large content sizes. The Card text alignment setting aligns text within each card. Aligning text to either the Left or Right places the text so that it hugs the side of the card; however, the avatar image (if selected) will center itself above the text. Configuration options Title You can enter a title for the widget to display at the top of the widget. If the Visible only to screen readers toggle is on, the title is relayed only through screen readers. Edit Sample Featured Places Click Edit Sample Content to open a window where you can select sample places to preview how the widget will look in the community. In the Places field, search for a place to add. You can then reorder a place by grabbing it with your cursor and dragging it to the desired location. Note: The sample places you select here will not be saved and published to the community. You must add the actual place you want to feature on the desired page in the community. There is no global source for adding places that would apply it to every instance of the widget. See Feature content, places, and idea statuses on a page. Click Preview to return to editing the widget. List item/Card elements List item elements and Card elements determine what information is included for each item in the widget. Turning off or on the toggles hides or shows the elements. List item/card element options include: Avatar (Card only): The place’s image. Description: The place’s description. Post count: The total number of posts in the place. Unread post count: The number of unread posts in the place. Most recent activity timestamp: The timestamp of the latest activity (in days) in the place. Lock Icon (Closed, hidden, and read only) (List only) Expand category children (Card only): An expandable section at the bottom of the card so you can view the category children. The Lead with drop-down menu in the List layout sets which element appears first in the widget for each item. The Max lines of description text slider available for both List and Card layouts sets the number of lines of description text to display for each item in the widget. Number of places The Number of places slider sets the number of places that appear in the widget before the Show More link appears. The List layout includes a slider for the Number of category children. If the value of this slider is greater than 0, child places are displayed as nested objects under the parent. More options Additional options are available in the More options section: The Include "Show More" Links toggle turns on the Show More feature if the number of places exceeds the value of the Number of places slider. Related topics: Feature content, places, and idea statuses on a pageAurora: Featured Content widget configuration
The Featured Content widget displays posts from blogs, knowledge bases, forums, and/or ideas boards within your community that you choose to feature. If you reset the layout of a page with a populated Featured widget or delete a section containing a populated Featured widget, that Featured widget is deleted from all other page templates on which it appears. If you attempt to reset or delete, you will receive a warning that also indicates all other places where the widget is located. Layout The Featured Content widget includes three layout styles: Detailed List, List, and Card. From the Edit Widget panel, select any of these three options to change the layout. Each layout has its own set of unique options, which are explained in List Item/Card Elements. Detailed List The Detailed List layout features a smaller thumbnail accompanied by the item's title, various elements, and a preview of its content. List The List layout gives you a simple, minimalistic view of the items featured in the widget. You can see the title as well as any elements toggled on in the List Item Elements area of the Edit Widget panel. Card The Card layout showcases the item's image, providing a visually appealing summary of your featured content. Configuration Options List Style There are 3 available options in the List style section for the Detailed List and List layouts: Space: Uses whitespace to create space between items. Divide: Adds a horizontal line to divide items. Border: Creates a border that separates items into individual boxes. Title Enter a title to appear at the top of the widget. If the Visible only to screen readers toggle is on, the title is relayed only through screen readers. Edit Sample Featured Content Click Edit Sample Content to open a window where you can select sample content to preview how the widget will look in the community. In the Content field, search for sample content to add to the preview. You can then reorder the content by grabbing it with your cursor and dragging it to the desired location. Note: The sample content you select here will not be saved and published to the community. You must add the actual content you want to feature on the desired page in the community. There is no global source for adding content that would apply it to every instance of the widget. See Feature content, places, and idea statuses on a page. Click Preview to return to editing the widget. Number of Items The Number of Items slider gives you control over the number of items displayed on the initial page load before the Show More option appears. List Item/Card Elements List item elements and Card elements determine what information is included for each item in the widget. Turning off or on the toggles hides or shows the elements. These elements include: Author: The author's name. Author Rank: The rank of the author. Body preview/teaser: Preview text for the content. Media Preview: A preview of any media included in the content. Like/Vote Count: A total number of likes or votes the content has received. Reply Count: The number of replies to the content. Tags: Any tag(s) associated with the content. Timestamp: The time and date the content was published. Place: The category or board of the content. View count: The total number of views the content has received. Solved Badge (Discussions only): A badge indicating whether the content has been marked solved. Time to Read (Blogs only): An indicator of the length of time the average person will take to read the content. Unread Messages Indicator: (Detailed List) The total number of unread posts or comments on the content (for example, "1 unread"). Centered Card Content: (Card) Center text on the card. The Lead with drop-down menu lets you display the item author's Avatar, discussion style Icon, or None, along with the item in the widget. More options Additional options are available at the bottom of the Edit Widget panel: Include "Show More" Link adds a link to the bottom of the widget to enable visitors to display additional items once the Number of items has been reached. Related topics: Feature content, places, and idea statuses on a pageAurora: Events widget configuration
The Events widget provides a list of events in the related Event board. It is available on the Events Dashboard page template. Layout The layout options available for the Events widget are Detailed List, List, and Card. From the Edit Widget panel, select any of these options to change the layout of the selected type. Each layout has its own set of options. Detailed List The Detailed List layout features a smaller thumbnail accompanied by each event's title and any chosen elements. List On the List layout, each event is displayed in a list with its title and any chosen elements. Card With the Card layout, each event is displayed on a tile with its title and any chosen elements. Configuration Options List style The available options in the List Style section for the Detailed List and List layouts include: Space: Uses whitespace to create space between items. Divide: Adds a horizontal line to divide items. Border: Creates a border that separates items into individual boxes. Text alignment When you select the Layout of Card, you can also choose whether to align the card content to the left or center. Widget title The Widget title sets the title that appears at the top of the widget. If the Visible only to screen readers toggle is turned on, it is relayed only to visitors using screen readers. Number of items Use the slider to indicate how many events (up to 20) can be displayed in the widget. Sort and Filter In the Sort and Filter section, you can manage sorts and filters and indicate whether members can use them. Click Add to add the following SORT (tabs) or FILTER (drop-down menus and tags) options to the widget: SORT Most Recent Newest Events Most Likes Most Viewed FILTER Past Toggle on or off the Show filter and sort controls toggle to show or hide from members the filter tabs or the sort drop-down menus in the widget: Lead upcoming and past events with From the Lead upcoming and past events drop-down menu, select one of the following: the author’s Avatar the Event Date on a calendar icon the default event content type Icon None List item/Card elements Elements are additional pieces of information that you can turn on to be displayed in the widget. The list of available elements changes depending on which layout you've selected: Attendance indicator: Indicates whether the current member has responded “Attending” to the event. Attendee count: The number of people who responded “Yes” to the event. Author: The creator of the event. Author rank: The rank of the creator of the event. Comment/reply count: The number of comments and replies on the event. Event date: The date and time of the event. Event type: Indicates whether the event is In-Person, Online, or both. Like count: The number of likes on the event. Preview image: A preview of any media in the event description. Preview text: A preview of the event description text. Tags: Tags associated with the event. Timestamp: Indicates how long ago the event was created. View count: The number of times the event has been viewed. Lines of preview text to display The Lines of preview text to display slider gives you control over how many lines of text from the description are displayed along with the event in the widget. After the set number of lines, an ellipsis (...) is used. More options Additional configuration options for the widget include: Hide if empty: If there are no events to show, the widget is hidden. Show pagination: Creates a Show More link if more events are available than the number designated on the Number of items slider.Aurora: Suggest an Idea widget configuration
The Suggest an Idea widget enables members to search the community for previously submitted ideas that are similar to their own idea. This prevents duplicate suggestions from being submitted to your Ideas board. This widget is available only on the Ideas Dashboard template. Text labels For this widget, you can customize the verbiage for these text labels.: Search field placeholder: The text placeholder in the search field prior to the member entering any of their own text (the default text is “Search for an idea”). Action button: The text on the button displayed below the search results that enables a member to suggest their idea after they’ve searched for similar ones (the default text is “Suggest an idea”). Intro: The text that is displayed after an idea has been entered in the search field (the default text is “Similar ideas found:”). Action intro: The text that is displayed below the results list after a search (the default text is “Still don't see your idea? Share it with us:”). Results list style The widget supports these list styles: Space: Uses whitespace to create space between search results. Divide: Adds a horizontal line to divide search results. Border: Creates a border that separates search results into individual boxes. Number of results to show The Number of results to show slider sets the maximum number of results to display after a member conducts a search. If Show results pagination is enabled, members can click a Show More link to see more results. Show sample results You can enable the Show sample results toggle to preview what the search results may look like in your community. This content is chosen randomly from available ideas. Note: If no ideas have been posted to your Ideas board, there is no sample content to preview. Search result item elements You can choose to show or hide the following elements on the Search Before Post widget: Author: The author's name. Author Rank: The rank of the author. Comment/reply count: The number of comments or replies on the idea. Idea status: The status of the idea (see About idea statuses). Tags: Any tag(s) associated with the idea. Preview text: Preview text for the idea (length defined with the Lines of preview text to display slider). Timestamp: The time and date the idea was published. Unread count: The total number of unread posts or comments on the idea (for example, "1 unread"). View Count: The total number of views the idea has received. Vote display From the Vote display drop-down menu, select one of the following widget display options: Vote on Ideas: With this option enabled, members can vote on ideas directly in the Ideas widget. Show Count Only: With this option enabled, members see only the count of votes on an idea. None Lead with From the Lead with drop-down menu, select an option that designates what to show along with the idea in the widget: the idea author's Avatar the content type Icon None Lines of preview text to display The Lines of preview text to display slider gives you control over how many lines of text from each idea are displayed in the widget. After the set number of lines, an ellipsis (...) is used. More options Additional configuration options for the widget appear in the More options section: Include "Show More" link: Creates a Show More link if more ideas are available than the number designated on the Number of results to show slider.
