Features
Axis includes a range of notable features, page layouts and customizable settings.
- Responsive layout that adapts to all screen sizes and devices.
- Front page slideshow displaying your featured images and videos.
- Mosaic grid, list, slideshow and single-day snapshot content page layouts.
- Minimal navigation option for a persistent mobile menu button across all screens.
- Timeline displaying your most recently published images, videos, essays and collections.
- Tag and category templates for browsing archival content.
- Custom logo support for site title.
- Featured album and set slideshow template.
- Social media share buttons for Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr and Google+.
- Built-in color schemes.
- Natural swipe navigation for slideshows when viewed on touch-enabled devices like tablets and smartphones.
- Customizable colors, typefaces and more.
Updates and support
- All 2.0 theme updates are free.
- Fully supported by Koken.
Next: Usage
Usage
Axis is customizable through an integrated settings panel that requires no coding or HTML experience. Here we'll cover all the major settings should you choose to make alterations.
Style
Axis is white with black text by default, but you may select other built-in color schemes through the Style dropdown at the top of the Settings panel.
To fine-tune these colors more to your liking, scroll to the bottom of the panel until you reach Color. Editable color swatches are provided here for you to make edits.
Site title
Your site's title at the top may be replaced with a logo. To do so, look for the Site title section in the settings panel, then switch Type to "Image". Create your logo and upload the image file to your web server or elsewhere (people most commonly upload it to a directory on their server via FTP). When finished, enter the image's URL in the Image URL field. Make sure your URL is absolute (http://), not relative (/).
Underneath the URL field are settings to control the logo's width. "Mobile" assigns a maximum width to your image when displayed on a smartphone while "Regular" controls everything else (tablets, laptops, desktops, etc). Assigning a "Regular" width that's wider than your logo's width won't upscale the logo, but it will downscale logos that are larger. This makes it possible to display higher-resolution logos for Retina/HiDPI screens. To do that, create a logo that's 2x the size you actually need, then set "Regular" to half as wide (e.g., logo is 600px wide, regular width set to 300px). Your logo will look sharper and clearer on these screen types.
Navigation
Axis' primary navigation appears underneath the title at the top of every page. A footer navigation is also available, though empty by default. You may add links to both navigation groups through the left column in Site.
To edit the navigation's style, look for the Navigation section of the settings panel. At the top is Primary type, which provides two styles of navigation links: "Normal" and "Minimal".
"Normal" (default) displays a horizontal navigation below the site title on all desktops, laptops and tablets. The navigation is removed on smartphones and replaced with a mobile menu button at the top of the page.
"Minimal" removes the default horizontal navigation and persistantly displays the mobile menu instead.
Layouts
Pages displaying multiple items have configurable options for page layout. These options are offered through the Layout dropdown at the top of the Template panel view.
Which layouts are available depends on which template you're editing. Here's a list of each.
| Template | Layouts |
|---|---|
| Album | Grid, List, Slideshow |
| Albums | Grid, List |
| Albums Archive | Grid, List |
| Category | Grid, Latest, List |
| Contents | Grid, Latest, List, Slideshow |
| Contents Archive | Grid, Latest, List, Slideshow |
| Essays | Grid, Latest, List |
| Essays Archive | Grid, Latest, List |
| Favorites | Grid, Latest, List, Slideshow |
| Set | Grid, List |
| Sets | Grid, List |
| Tag | Grid, Latest, List |
| Timeline | Grid, Latest, List |
Grid - Displays content using a configurable mosaic grid. May adjust the number of columns, spacing, and more. Content also lazy loads as the page is scrolled.
Latest - Displays content as single-day snapshots. Latest published item is presented first with pagination to walk back in time.
List - Displays content across the page in a single, scrollable column. Additional control provided to set the maximum number of items per page.
Slideshow - Displays content as a slideshow.
Slideshow templates
The Home template displays a slideshow of your featured content (assigned in the Library). This is the default front page for your site. Axis includes an alternate Featured albums and sets slideshow template that's pretty much the same as Home except it displays featured albums/sets (also assigned in the Library) instead. The primary covers for each album/set appears in the slideshow. Click on a cover or title underneath and the album/set page will load. You can change the slideshow's click behavior and other properties by hovering the slideshow with your mouse and clicking its edit button at top right.
Lightbox
Pages displaying multiple photos and videos (album, contents, contents archive, favorites) link to Koken's fullscreen lightbox. This keeps the user on the same page instead of loading Axis' content template (where individual images/videos are displayed). This setting is turned on by default, but you may turn it off for individual templates through the Template panel view.
You also have the option of a black or white lightbox style, which is editable through the Theme panel view. In that same section is a slider to control maximum image size should you want to keep images in the lightbox from extending all the way to edge of the browser window and float in the middle instead.
Essays
The Essays page displays all your published essays by recency. All essays are published in their complete form in the "List" and "Latest" layouts, while "Grid" displays featured images and excerpts. If you'd like to use featured images and excerpts in the "List" and "Latest" layouts instead of full essays, click on Template at the top of the settings panel and select "Featured" for Essay type, as shown below.
Both types link to the single essay page which displays the full essay.
Summary
Those are all the major settings you'll find in Axis. If you have any questions about the theme feel free to contact Koken support.
When you do publish your site, consider sharing it with us! We might include it on this page for others to check out. Simply click on "Examples" in the sub-navigation above and look for the share link box.
