Empty template with just the navbar

[alvinometric]

What version of starlight are you using?

latest

What is your idea?

There is currently no way to create a completely empty StarlightPage that just contains the navbar and nothing else

I suggest a template: "empty" that is similar to "splash" but doesn't include a title or a footer

I'm happy to submit a PR again.

This was requested before by #3300 and #1112 and other people who probably gave up

Why is this feature necessary?

Right now the only way to achieve this is to add these CSS rules:

 :global(#_top) {
    display: none;
  }
  :global(footer) {
    display: none;
  }

Which is... not good

Do you have examples of this feature in other projects?

No response

Participation

• I am willing to submit a pull request for this feature.

[HiDeoo]

Thanks for starting this discussion 🙌

I guess there are a few points to consider and clarify to properly identify the proper solution, decide which customizations should be left to CSS, what should be a new template, etc.

First, I guess an important question from #3300 was about the issue itself, and what exactly is the issue, e.g. is it the margins, and what are the use cases exactly for such a template. Would you be able to clarify that?

One important point is also what empty would mean. I assume we're talking about a template like the existing splash one with no sidebars? Why would empty mean a header, but no footer? If we consider Starlight's features in general, I think I would personally still expect a footer on such a template, e.g. if I enable credits, pagination, last update dates, or use an override to add some link to the footer, I would still expect it to be there, even on an "empty" page.

Regarding #1112, it seems like the request is also about a page that has a full-width layout. Is this covered by the empty template or left as a CSS customization? If it is, I wonder if empty may not be the best name for it, as it may imply that it has no content at all, while it may still have a full-width layout with a header and footer.

Really curious to hear your thoughts on all of this.

[alvinometric]

Hello!

In the simplest way possible, I just want to be able to do this.

And right now it's not possible, the only way is via this:

 :global(#_top) {
    display: none;
  }
  :global(footer) {
    display: none;
  }

Because even in the splash template, Starlight will add the #_top section with a big h1 inside and a footer. I want to disable both

I agree with you @HiDeoo that "empty" is probably not the right name, because, well if the navbar's there then it's not empty.

I don't really mind the name too much, as long as it's possible.

[HiDeoo]

Unless I'm missing something, I'm not sure this really answer Chris's question from #3300 that I also shared in this discussion regarding the footer.

The end goal and attempted technical solution is pretty clear, but I'm still not sure why there is an issue with the footer and why it should be removed. Is it margin related, is it something else?

For example, I quickly mocked up an empty template:

I think it's quite close to the screenshot you shared and as it's not showing an edit URL or a last updated date and don't have credits enabled, the footer does not have any content but it's still technically there.

Another reason for this question is to potentially avoid an xy problem, e.g. if the issue ends up being margin related, maybe we could find another solution that would still keep the footer for people who want it, but also workaround the issue you are facing rather than removing it entirely.

So far, without much context, I'm personally leaning towards the idea that most people (including me) would expect the footer to be there and if I were to enable footer credits for example, they would still be visible on such template.

I'll also note that there are other additional ways to entirely hide the footer:

• Component overrides which allow overriding on specific pages and rendering no footer at all on these pages.
• Custom CSS styles without relying on global()

[alvinometric]

How are you hiding the #_top and the h1 in your mock-up?

"Hello" should not be coming from the title property, sorry I should have specified that.

[HiDeoo]

The mockup I shared was done by creating a new template in the Starlight codebase and the h1 is not hidden, it's simply not rendered in this new template as there was no confusion and I understood that correctly from the initial request.

I will also note that the footer-specific question from #3300, from this comment, or this other one explaining why it's an important question has not been answered yet in any of the follow-ups.

---

Unrelated, but if not something you known, you can directly reply to a specific comment in a discussion using the "Write a reply" input below a message. This can help keeping the conversation organized vs adding new comments at the end of the discussion without much context.