2.0.126 is fifteen versions on from 2.0.111, and almost all of it is one feature: custom layouts. Until now you styled a channel with presets, colours, widgets, and four built-in page templates. If that wasn't enough, you can now switch a channel into Custom layouts mode and write the public pages yourself — your own HTML, your own structure — with a safe templating system, reusable partials, a live preview, and a rollback button for when an edit goes wrong.
Two appearance modes
The Theme page now opens with an Appearance mode switch:
- Default appearance — everything you already know: presets, the colour/font/header/footer editor, widgets, and the Default / Wide / Landing / Minimal templates. Unchanged, and still where almost everyone should stay.
- Custom layouts — your public pages render from HTML templates you write instead. One click to switch, takes effect immediately, and the toggle always shows which one visitors are seeing. Flip back any time — your custom layouts are kept, just not used while you're in Default mode.
The palette still flows through in Custom mode: drop {{{theme.cssBlock}}} in your template's <head> and the colours and fonts you set in Default mode come through as CSS variables.
A flat layout library + reusable partials
- Layouts are just templates. Create as many as you want; each is a named Handlebars HTML document. A layout isn't tied to a page type — the same flat list is offered for the channel home, asset pages, and individual articles and pages. What data a layout receives depends on where it's used; tokens that don't apply on a surface simply render empty.
- Partials. Pull a shared fragment into any layout with
{{> partialId}}— a site header, footer, left menu, a card. Edit it once, every layout that includes it updates. Partials can include other partials. - A real token catalog. Channel, theme, site, article, article list, and asset data are all available as
{{tokens}}, with the editor's sidebar listing every one and where it resolves.
Binding a layout to a page
- Channel home and asset pages pick their layout from the Theme page.
- Each article and page can override with its own layout from the Layout dropdown in its editor, falling back to the channel default. The dropdown shows your custom layouts when Custom mode is on.
- Pinned static home pages render with their own layout, so "this page is the channel home" also means "this page's layout drives the home."
Safe to experiment
- Sandboxed preview. Every layout editor has a Preview that renders your template against realistic sample data in an isolated frame — see it before it goes live, and a work-in-progress template can't touch your admin session.
- Fail-soft. If a saved layout has an error, the public page does not break — it falls back to the built-in view and the Theme page shows you exactly what's failing.
- One-click rollback. Every save snapshots the previous state of the whole library, so a bad edit is one button away from being undone.
<script>is allowed. Custom layouts are raw HTML, so analytics and embeds work — treat the editor like production code.
New documentation
Three new guides in the help section, plus the customization overview rewritten around the new mode switch:
- Custom layouts — the overview: modes, binding, partials, recovery.
- Layout tokens — every token and where each one resolves.
- Layout recipes — copy-paste starting points for an article page, a list home, an asset page, and shared partials.
- Customizing your channel — the full stack, updated.
Also in this release
- Account emails fixed. "Resend confirmation," changing your email, and external-login confirmation were silently not sending — the account pages were using an unconfigured mailer. All three now send through the same delivery path as the rest of the app.
Custom layouts is off by default — existing channels are untouched until you switch a channel into Custom mode. If you try it and something's not right, or you want a hand building your first layout, drop us a note.