Getting Started

Atlas is a licensed premium theme that gives your OJS 3.3 & 3.5 journal a polished, professional identity in minutes. Everything is configured from the OJS admin panel — you never need to touch code or files.

Installation Steps

Quick Setup Checklist

• Upload, enable, and select Atlas as the current theme
• Activate your license key
• Set your Primary and Accent colors
• Choose Light, Dark, or Auto mode
• Pick one of the 5 font sets
• Add Editor's Pick article IDs for the hero
• Position the homepage sections (metrics, editorial board, indexing…)
• Add your social media links and footer columns

License Activation

Atlas is a commercial theme and requires a valid license key to run. The key is tied to your domain (and, for single-journal licenses, to one journal).

License Types

Primary Color

The Primary Color is your main brand color. Atlas uses it for the bold, gradient surfaces and the main action buttons — it is what gives the site its identity at a glance.

Where the primary color appears

• The Editor's Pick hero author cover (a 3-stop gradient built from this color)
• Current issue and other issue cards (cover gradient)
• The Submit button in the top bar and the Call to Action buttons
• Small accents such as the journal-card wordmark tiles

Set it from the Primary Color picker in Appearance. Use a strong, saturated color that reads well in white text on top.

Accent Color

The Accent Color is the secondary highlight color. While the primary color carries the big surfaces, the accent is used for finer emphasis:

• Text links and hover states
• Section numbers, small highlights and the secondary CTA button
• Selected states (e.g. the active filter chip)

Keeping primary and accent as two distinct colors gives the site depth; setting them to the same value gives a strictly monochrome brand. Both are valid — it is your choice.

Theme Mode (Light / Dark)

Atlas ships with fully designed light and dark modes. You choose the default, and readers can switch at any time with the toggle in the header (their choice is remembered on their device).

Font Family

Choose one of five carefully paired font sets. Each set defines a heading/serif face and a body/sans face that work together for comfortable scholarly reading. Pick the one that fits your journal's character.

Container Width

Sets how wide the main content area can grow on large screens.

Theme Toggle & Command Palette

Two reader conveniences you can switch on or off:

Top Bar & Announcement

The slim bar above the main navigation always shows. On a journal it can carry a short announcement on the left (for example “Now accepting submissions for the upcoming volume”), with the language switcher and login/register on the right. The navigation row below stays fixed (sticky) as readers scroll.

Search — Across All Journals

The search box on the right of the menu opens the command palette. Type a query and press Enter to see results.

• On a journal, search runs within that journal.
• On the publisher (site) home, search runs across all hosted journals at once — and every result links straight to the right journal.

Social Icons in the Header

Any social links you configure (see Social Media Links) appear as a neat framed icon group. On a journal they sit at the far right of the navigation row; on the publisher home they move up into the top bar, styled to match the language switcher.

Masthead Identity

The masthead is the journal nameplate shown on inner pages. Choose what it displays:

If you have a well-designed journal logo, Logo only looks clean; if your logo is just a wordmark, Name only avoids duplication. Logo + Name is the safe default.

Homepage Sections & Order

The journal homepage is built from independent sections. Each one can be shown or hidden, and the Editorial Board and Indexing strips can be positioned before any section you like.

Editor's Pick Hero

The hero at the top of the homepage features articles you hand-pick. There are no manual slides to write — you simply list the article IDs, and Atlas builds an elegant slider with each article's title and authors over a branded author cover.

Current Issue & Article Cards

Show the current issue with its branded cover, optionally followed by the most recent articles as cards. Article cards can display a thumbnail (cover image, or an auto-generated branded placeholder), the section badge, authors and a short abstract.

Journal Metrics

A compact statistics band with up to several headline figures and a monthly-views sparkline chart.

Each metric has a numbered Name, Value and optional Delta (a small “+5%” style change indicator). For the sparkline, you can either type your own comma-separated numbers, or leave it empty and Atlas will chart your journal's real monthly views from OJS statistics.

Editorial Board Strip

Atlas can display a scrolling strip of editorial-board members pulled live from the Editorial Board Manager plugin. Choose where it appears — before any homepage section — or turn it off.

Indexing Strip

Show the indexes and databases your journal belongs to as a scrolling logo strip, pulled live from the Indexing Page Manager plugin.

Call to Action

A prominent banner near the bottom of the homepage to drive submissions or any goal you choose. It has an eyebrow line, a title, a short paragraph and up to two buttons (each with its own label and link).

Launch Mode (new journal)

Brand-new journals with no published articles yet can look empty. Launch Mode replaces the normal homepage with a polished “coming soon” landing — an introduction, aims & scope, a call for papers, and up to five “getting started” link cards.

Each “getting started” card has an editable title, description and link, so you can point authors to guidelines, policies, the editorial team, and more.

Publisher Landing Page

When several journals run under one OJS site, the site home is a publisher landing page: a centered publisher name, an optional logo, a short “about” introduction, and a grid of all your journals. Journal-only features (hero, metrics, launch mode…) do not appear here — the site level keeps its own, simpler set of options.

Logo Placement

If you upload a site logo (Site Settings → Appearance → Logo), choose how it appears on the publisher landing:

Journals Grid & Stats

Control how the journal cards are laid out and what they show.

Article Detail Page

The article reading page uses an editorial layout: a wide title area, author cards, the section/type tag at the top right, and a spacious, page-width abstract below. Two author-related details can be turned on or off from the theme settings.

Article Cards & Clickable Images

Throughout issue lists and search results, article cards present a cover (or branded placeholder), title, authors and quick links. Both the title and the cover image open the article, so readers can click whichever they reach for first.

Issue Page & Section Filters

An issue's table of contents shows its articles as a single, filterable list of cards — just like the homepage — rather than splitting them into separate blocks grouped under section headings. Each card carries its own section badge, and the issue's sections become filter tabs across the top.

Article Number

Some journals identify an article by an Article Number (elocation-id) instead of a page range — e.g. e0231470, P2.16, 051101. Atlas supports the Article Number generic plugin: when an article has an Article Number assigned, the theme shows it in place of the page range everywhere it would normally print pages.

Where it appears

• Article cards — in issue tables of contents and search results (“Art. no. …” instead of pages).
• Article detail page — the meta tag at the top (“Art. no. …” instead of pages).
• How to Cite — the Article Number replaces pages in every format the theme builds: APA “Article e0231470”, IEEE “Art. no. e0231470”, plus MLA, Chicago, Harvard, Vancouver, BibTeX and RIS.

License & Copyright

Atlas reads each article's license and copyright from the publication itself, not just the journal default. This means it stays correct when you set per-article or per-issue licenses (for example with the Advanced Licenses Manager).

• The Creative Commons badge reflects the article's own license (e.g. CC BY 4.0).
• The copyright holder and year come from the publication's metadata.
• If an article has no license set, the badge is simply omitted.

Most Viewed

Atlas adds a Most Viewed page that ranks articles by real download/view statistics over a time window. Link to it from your menu using the path mostviewed.

Footer

The footer has up to four content columns (each with a title and free content) plus a bottom bar with left and right areas for copyright, credits or links.

Social Media Links

Add the full URLs for any of these and an icon appears automatically (empty fields show nothing):

Icons render in the header (and on the publisher home, in the top bar) and in the footer.

Multilingual i18n

Atlas ships with full English and Türkçe translations and respects OJS's per-language settings. Text fields such as the announcement, CTA and launch content are entered per language, so each locale shows its own wording. Additional languages can be supplied as standard OJS locale files.

Multi-Journal Installations

Atlas is context-aware. Every option is stored per journal, so each journal can have its own colors, fonts, hero picks and sections. Enabling Atlas on one journal never affects another, and a multi-journal license also unlocks the publisher landing page at the site level.

• Per-journal colors, fonts and layout
• Site-level (publisher) settings are separate from journal settings
• Activating Atlas on one journal leaves others untouched

Tips & Best Practices