Getting Started

AXIS is a licensed premium theme designed to give your OJS 3.3 journal a modern, professional identity in minutes. Follow these steps to install and activate the theme.

Installation Steps

Quick Setup Checklist

• Upload and enable the AXIS theme plugin
• Activate your license key
• Set your primary brand color
• Choose light, dark, or auto mode
• Pick a font family from 10 options
• Select homepage layout (grid, list, or magazine)
• Configure the homepage hero (cover + description, slider, or hidden)
• Add your social media links
• Upload a homepage image and journal thumbnail (cover)
• Customize the footer columns (site-level)
• Configure the archive layout

License Activation

AXIS is a commercial theme with a licensing system. The theme stylesheet only loads when a valid license key is detected for the current context. This is the first field you will see at the top of the theme settings.

Site-Level vs. Journal-Level Licensing

A single license key activates the theme for the context where it is entered:

• Site-level — activating at Administration → Site Settings → Appearance covers the site index page and cross-journal pages
• Journal-level — activating at Settings → Website → Appearance of each journal covers that journal's pages

If you run multiple journals, each one needs its own license (or enter the same license separately at each context).

Primary Color

The primary color defines the visual identity of your journal. It is applied globally across the entire theme — navigation, buttons, links, hero overlays, badges, pagination, and countless accent details.

Where Primary Color Applies

Changing this one value cascades through the entire theme:

• Navigation bar — active links, hover states, focus rings
• Buttons — primary action buttons (Submit, Read More, pagination)
• Links — all hyperlinks across the site
• Badges — PDF, DOI, section labels, article category tags
• Hero slider — navigation arrow hover color, "Read more" button
• Accents — stats bar highlights, archive year markers, indexing icons
• Cover hover — issue cover scale/shadow glow
• Dark mode — preserved in both light and dark modes for consistent branding

Suggested Colors for Different Journal Types

Hero Background Color Secondary

AXIS uses a second color specifically for the hero section background when no homepage image is uploaded. This color also acts as a secondary accent throughout the theme.

Container Width

Control the maximum width of your journal's content area. AXIS offers three presets to suit different content styles.

Header Style

Choose the complexity of your site header. AXIS ships with three header styles, each progressively richer in features.

Feature Matrix

Sticky Navigation Menu

When enabled, the navigation bar stays pinned to the top of the viewport as the reader scrolls. Disable for traditional scrolling behavior.

Dark Mode Default

AXIS supports full dark mode. Visitors can toggle with the dark mode button in the header, but you decide the default experience for new visitors.

Color Reference Table

Font Family

AXIS ships with 10 hand-picked typefaces from Google Fonts. Choose one and it propagates across headings, body text, navigation, and UI elements.

Available Fonts

Typography Scale

Independent of the font family, AXIS lets you pick how dense text should be — line-height and base font size follow your choice.

Homepage & Issue Page Layout

This single option controls how articles are displayed on both the journal homepage (Recent Articles section) and individual issue pages. Three distinct layouts:

Journal Statistics Bar

A horizontal bar directly under the hero showing key journal metrics. Calculated automatically from your journal data.

Metrics Displayed

• Published Articles — total published article count across all issues
• Authors — unique author count
• Reviewers — unique reviewer count (from user roles)
• Open Access — shown if the journal is open access
• Copyright — derived from copyright holder setting
• License — auto-detected Creative Commons icon (CC BY, CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-ND, etc.)

Editor's Pick NEW

Editor's Pick is a dedicated ribbon placed between the statistics bar and the article tabs on the journal homepage. It highlights articles hand-picked by the editorial board — independent of the main homepage layout (grid, list, or magazine). Four distinct visual styles are available, each optimized for different editorial strategies.

Visual Styles

Pick the style that best matches your journal's editorial voice. All styles use the same article data — switching between them is a one-click admin change.

1. Hero Spotlight — 1 big featured + 3 compact side cards

A large hero card with a full cover image takes the spotlight, flanked by three compact cards on the right. Ideal for an editorial-dergi style where one flagship article deserves the limelight.

• Maximum 4 articles (1 + 3)
• Hero area: ~380 px tall with full cover image
• Up to 3 lines of title, 2 lines of authors before truncation
• Best for: Editorial journals with one flagship article per issue

2. Horizontal Carousel — swipe through any number of cards

Four equal-height cards visible at once, with arrow buttons to scroll through more. CSS scroll-snap ensures smooth card alignment. Supports up to 12 featured articles — the most flexible style.

• Maximum 12 articles
• 4 cards visible at once on desktop, 2 on tablet, 1 + swipe on mobile
• Equal-height cards with 3-line title area (no jumping alignment)
• Best for: Journals with many featured articles (special issues, rotating spotlights)
• Default style — most flexible, lowest vertical footprint

3. Magazine Bento — 1 big + 4 small asymmetric grid

Inspired by magazine covers. One large featured card takes 2 rows on the left; four smaller cards fill a 2×2 grid on the right. Colorful gradient fallbacks when cover images are missing. Atmospheric and editorial.

• Maximum 5 articles (1 featured + 4 companion)
• Asymmetric grid, one big card spans 2 rows
• Falls back to colorful gradients if covers are missing
• Best for: Journals with strong visual identity, magazine-style presentation

4. Flip Cards — hover reveals abstract

Four cards in a grid. On hover or keyboard focus, each card rotates 180° to reveal the article abstract on the back. The most interactive style — invites exploration.

• Maximum 4 articles (4-column grid)
• Front shows cover + title; back shows label, title, authors, abstract, CTA
• Hover or keyboard focus triggers the 3D flip
• Best for: Modern, tech-savvy journals wanting interactive depth

Admin Configuration

Three new fields appear in the theme settings panel, directly below the Homepage & Issue Page Layout option:

Automatic Behavior

• Empty field + visible style — shows 4 most recent published articles
• Invalid or deleted ID — silently skipped; remaining IDs render normally
• Style = Hidden — ribbon never appears, even if IDs are entered
• No published articles in journal — ribbon is hidden automatically
• Article from a different journal — filtered out by context ID check

Finding Article IDs

The article ID is the number at the end of any article URL in your journal. For example:

https://yourjournal.com/index.php/journal/article/view/142

In this URL, the article ID is 142. You can also find IDs from:

• Workflow → Submissions — hover over an article link to see its URL
• Issue management — article URLs visible in the issue's article list
• Database access — submissions.submission_id column (advanced)

Homepage Hero

The large banner area at the top of the journal homepage. AXIS offers three hero modes — pick the one that suits your journal.

Mode 1 — Theme hero (Default)

The journal cover image (from Journal Settings) is shown on the left at a fixed 280 × 392 px proportion. On the right, the journal name and description appear over the homepage image background.

Mode 2 — Home Slider NEW

AXIS integrates with the free Slider Home generic plugin to display a cinematic image slider in place of the static hero. When a journal cover is also set, the cover appears on the left and the slider fills the rest of the row — both at exactly matching heights.

Mode 3 — Hidden

Selects no hero at all. Useful for journals that want to lead directly with stats or the article list. The navigation ends, the stats bar appears, then articles.

Cinematic Slider (Slider Home integration) NEW

The slider hero reimagines the free Slider Home plugin with a premium presentation: full-bleed imagery, Ken Burns slow zoom animation, gradient caption overlays, numeric counter, glass-morphism navigation, and pill pagination.

Feature Breakdown

What AXIS Adds on Top of Slider Home

• Full-bleed images — object-fit: cover so every slide fills the frame perfectly, no letter-boxing
• Ken Burns animation — 20-second slow zoom on each slide keeps the banner alive even during autoplay pauses
• Gradient overlay — dark bottom-up fade so text stays legible on any image
• Numeric counter — 02 / 05 pill in the top-right corner, updates with autoplay
• Cover-matching height — when a journal cover is present, slider is pinned to exactly 392px to match cover proportions
• 21:9 ultrawide — when no cover, slider switches to a cinematic ultrawide aspect ratio
• Modern navigation — glass-morphism circular arrows that scale on hover and turn primary color
• Pill pagination — active dot stretches into a pill, inactive stay as dots
• Slide link support — slides with sliderImageLink set render with a "Read more" button linking there

Recommended Slide Image Sizes

About Tab

Under the hero, AXIS shows a tabbed view that switches between Recent Articles, Most Viewed, Announcements, and optionally About Journal.

Article Counts

Two simple numeric options control how many articles appear in each list.

Archive Layout

The archive page (all published issues) supports four different layouts. Pick the one that matches your publication cadence and cover strategy.

Archive Display Options

Three toggles fine-tune what appears in the archive page. All default to enabled.

Article Images Display

Articles in OJS can have an associated cover image (uploaded per article). This toggle controls whether they appear in list/grid/magazine views.

Article Display Options

DOI Link Target

Where should DOI badges open when clicked?

Show Article Views (Downloads)

Display view/download counts on article pages and list items.

Author Biographies

Show author bio sections on the article detail page.

Custom Blocks

AXIS can display up to four custom HTML blocks in dedicated positions on your journal. Blocks are edited in the plugin's dedicated panel and can hold arbitrary HTML (banners, announcements, sponsor logos, etc.).

Display Options

Indexing & CTA Sections

Two distinct sections appear just above the footer when enabled.

Indexing Section

A horizontal strip of logos/names for databases where the journal is indexed (Scopus, Web of Science, DOAJ, etc.). AXIS ships with six popular databases pre-configured.

Configuration

Call-to-Action (CTA) Section

A compact call-out banner with a headline and primary button, typically used to drive submissions or highlight a special call for papers.

Social Media Links

Add URLs for each network. Icons appear in the Rich header style (top bar) and in the footer. Empty fields are automatically hidden.

Footer Configuration

The footer has 4 columns + bottom line, all editable from the site-level theme settings (under Administration). Each column accepts HTML.

Content Ideas

• Column 1 — About the journal, mission statement, ISSN
• Column 2 — Quick links (Current Issue, Archives, Submit, Policies)
• Column 3 — Contact information, editorial office
• Column 4 — Partner/publisher logos, indexing badges
• Bottom line — Copyright notice, ISSN, license

Multilingual Support

AXIS ships with built-in translations and supports any locale OJS provides. Out of the box:

If your journal enables multiple languages in Settings → Website → Setup → Languages, AXIS automatically shows a language switcher in the header. All theme UI strings (navigation labels, empty states, button text, tab titles) translate accordingly.

Multi-Journal Installations

If your OJS instance hosts multiple journals, AXIS separates site-level settings (global) from journal-level settings (per-journal). This lets each journal have its own colors, layout, and hero configuration while the site-wide footer and social media stay unified.

Site-Level Settings (Administration → Site Settings)

Journal-Level Settings (per journal, under Settings → Website → Appearance)

These override site defaults for that journal only. Includes: primary and secondary colors, font family, typography scale, homepage layout, hero mode, stats bar, article counts, archive layout, custom blocks, indexing, CTA, social media, etc.

Recommended Image Sizes

One-shot reference for every image you'll upload into AXIS.

Tips & Best Practices

Get the most out of your AXIS theme with these battle-tested recommendations.