Site Appearance
You can customize the design and functionality of a Liferay site in several different ways. The table below shows the Liferay tools you can use:
| Features | Style Books | Master Page Templates | Themes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Embed common fragments/widgets | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Define common layouts for pages | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Managed through the UI | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Customize styles, spacing, colors, etc. | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Add extra functionality | ✓ |
Master Page Templates
With Master Page Templates, you can define common elements for your pages using fragments, especially headers and footers. Use them to conform any number of pages on your site to the look and feel you design.
Style Books
Style Books are visual standards defined for a site, such as standard colors and spacing. With Style Books, you can design every page’s layout independently while maintaining a consistent experience between each of them.
Design Libraries
Release Feature (LPD-57283)
Design Libraries are instance-level containers for the design assets that several sites share. A style book created in a design library is available to every site connected to that library, so one team maintains it in one place instead of repeating it per site.
Widget/Fragment Appearance
Fragments and widgets are the building blocks of your site. There are many ways to customize them to suit your site’s appearance.
-
Fragment customizations can be used to tailor the look and feel of your site’s fragment pages.
-
Application Display Templates can customize the appearance and behavior of the widgets on your site.
Themes
Themes are a frontend developer’s tool for customizing the default look and feel of your site. They provide a foundation that your Style Books and Page Templates can extend. You can also embed widgets in a theme to ensure a particular arrangement.
Themes are not supported in Liferay SaaS.
Dark Mode is not one of these site appearance tools. It restyles the administration interface for the user who turns it on, and site pages keep their own theme.