Shared site design: navigation, headers, and footers

Documentation / Design and styling

Shared site design surrounds page content. Navigation, toplines, prefooters, and footers are not independent body sections copied into every page. A page template is another layer: it provides page structure, not the entire site shell.

Native shared content

Use the design settings for the region you intend to change. Native footer settings reference dedicated footer and prefooter pages. Topline settings similarly reference a shared topline page. Edit that shared content deliberately, since several page routes can display it.

The main navigation comes from the configured root structure and page metadata. Do not recreate it as a static list inside a page body merely to change its appearance.

Optional custom shells

Where supported on the active deployment, Settings > Design > Shell exposes advanced shared source. A shell can replace selected regions: topline, navigation, page header, prefooter, and footer. Omitted regions remain native. A shell does not replace JuBody, access checks, consent interfaces, or the editor.

The shell process separates saving a draft, previewing, publishing a revision, and activating that reviewed revision. Publishing alone does not switch the live site.

Page settings can choose Inherit site shell and a Page header source. Automatic prefers an active page-local custom header before an available shared header. Explicit shared-header requirements constrain later shell changes.

Check more than one page

Review a native body, any custom body, a translated page, and the mobile menu before a site-wide change. Check that shared headers use each page's canonical title and that navigation still reflects the intended tree.

See Templates and reusable content for page templates and shared chrome content.