Using the Site panel to Manage Your Site Theme

Last update: February 5, 2025

CREATED FOR:

  • Admin

Learn the powerful features of the Site panel to help you easily customize and manage your site theme.

Overview

The Site panel lets you manage the theme and template resources of your site. Like other panels such as the Content Tree, References, or Timeline panels, the Site panel is displayed as the leftmost panel in the sites console, displaying information about the selected item. Unlike other panels, the Site panel only applies to Site roots.

The Site panel is used to manage theme and template related information for your site including:

TIP
Review the Quick Site Creation Journey to familiarize yourself with the Quick Site Creation tool and the front-end pipeline to easily customize your site theme.

Downloading Theme Sources

When you create a site in AEM based on a site template, you can download your site theme using the Site panel.

With the Site panel showing in the sites console, select the root of your site to reveal theme information about the site.

Download theme sources

Select Download Theme Sources to download a local copy of the site theme as .zip file for customization purposes.

Downloading Template Resources

Site templates can contain information in addition to your site content structure and site theme. Site templates can contain wireframe designs or other site-related files for example.

If your site is based on a site template, with the Site panel showing in the sites console, select the root of your site to reveal theme information about the site, including additional site resources.

Download theme sources

Select the button or buttons below the heading Download additional template resources to download a local copy of the available files.

Viewing and Changing Theme Versions

If your site is based on a site template, it is possible that its theme has already been customized by your front-end developer. Using the Site panel, you can view which version of the site theme is currently deployed and switch to previous versions.

With the Site panel showing in the sites console, select the root of your site to reveal theme information about the site.

Site versions in the panel

The current version of the theme is displayed with its commit hash along with timestamp of its last update.

Select Select Version to view previous versions of the theme.

Select theme version

Select the version you want to change to and then select Apply to make the change.

If AEM detects that a newer version of the theme has been deployed via the front-end pipeline but not applied to your site, a notification icon will display.

Newer version of theme indicator

You can use the Select Version button to update to the new theme version.

Enabling the Front-End Pipeline

If your site was not created using a site template, it is not possible to use the front-end pipeline to customize and deploy its theme.

However you can enable the front-end pipeline for your site using the Site panel.

With the Site panel showing in the sites console, select the root of your site to reveal theme information about the site and then select Enable Front End Pipeline.

Enabling front-end pipeline

For more information, see the document Enabling the Front-End Pipeline.

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