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Settings And Optimizations

TemplateX settings control theme tooling, optional runtime features, and small WordPress output cleanup from the WordPress admin.

Where Settings Live#

Open TemplateX > Settings in the WordPress admin.

The Settings screen has separate sections for development tooling, optional extensions, frontend optimizations, and tweaks. Settings that affect the published theme are written into theme source files so the compiled theme can still run without the TemplateX plugin.

When WooCommerce is active, TemplateX also shows a WooCommerce section for WooCommerce-specific behavior tweaks.

Extensions#

The Extensions section manages optional runtime features: forms, languages, SEO, image optimization, and WordPress mail delivery.

Use Optimize Images to bulk compress existing media-library images into one selected optimized format. Choose the quality preset, choose WebP or AVIF, then use Bulk Compress.

Set Uploaded Images to Auto-Convert when future uploads should get the selected optimized format automatically after WordPress generates their image sizes. Auto-conversion starts in the background immediately so uploading does not wait for every optimized sidecar to be written. Attachment details resolve a queued conversion for that image before showing the optimized badge.

TemplateX creates sidecar files next to original uploads and generated WordPress sizes. It removes the unselected optimized sidecar format for processed images, but it does not replace, compress, or delete the original uploads.

Frontend image output uses the selected sidecar format when that file exists and the browser supports it. In DevTools, optimized delivery appears as a .webp or .avif request with a matching image content type. The Media Library shows an Optimized column with WebP ready, AVIF ready, Queued, or Original only status badges. Converted badges use compact chips for the file count, compressed size, and saved percentage; attachment details should normally move from queued to the final badge in the same status check.

Frontend Optimizations#

The Optimizations section removes optional WordPress frontend output only when your theme does not need it.

TemplateX can remove:

  • emoji scripts, styles, and fallback filters
  • WordPress generator metadata
  • XML-RPC discovery links
  • WordPress shortlinks
  • REST API discovery links and headers
  • oEmbed discovery output and result filtering
  • RSS and comment feed discovery links
  • previous and next post links in the document head
  • the legacy X-Pingback response header
  • core block frontend styles, registered block styles, global styles, stored style-engine output, classic theme styles, and global style SVG filter output
  • resource hint and preload links
  • the image auto-sizes contain CSS that WordPress prints for lazy-loaded responsive images
  • Customizer Additional CSS output
  • WordPress font-face output
  • WordPress speculation rules
  • the frontend admin bar for logged-in users

These controls are opt-in. Keep an optimization off when an integration, SEO tool, feed reader, embedded-content workflow, or block-based post content depends on that WordPress output.

The image auto-sizes CSS option removes the wp-img-auto-sizes-contain inline style block. WordPress prints that rule for images whose sizes attribute starts with auto, using contain-intrinsic-size: 3000px 1500px as a fallback size reservation before the real lazy-loaded image is laid out. Leave it on when image dimensions, aspect ratios, or theme CSS are not fully controlled by the theme.

Editor Tweaks#

The Tweaks section can choose the body editor per WordPress post type, including custom post types.

For each post type, choose:

  • Gutenberg Editor to use the block editor. TemplateX enables the editor support flag and REST editing for that post type during the request, because WordPress requires both for Gutenberg.
  • Classic Editor to use the normal classic WordPress editor screen.
  • No Body Editor to keep the normal post edit screen but remove the main content field. The title, side panels, custom fields, and meta boxes can still be used.

Use the custom post type slug shown in the settings table when checking code or plugin registration. For example, a project post type can use Gutenberg while page uses no body editor.

The same section has Post Type Reordering. Turn it on for each post type that should be manually ordered in the WordPress admin.

When reordering is enabled for a post type, TemplateX adds WordPress menu_order support, defaults that post type's admin list to menu order, and adds an Order column with drag handles and up/down arrow buttons. The saved order is the normal WordPress menu_order value, so queries can use sort="order:asc" without depending on TemplateX-specific markup.

The same section has Disable Comments. Turning it on removes the Comments admin menu and toolbar shortcut, removes comment and trackback support from post types, closes comment and ping checks, hides existing frontend comment arrays, and removes comment REST and XML-RPC methods.

WooCommerce#

The WooCommerce section appears only when WooCommerce is active.

Turn on Product URLs From Categories when product URLs should use the WooCommerce product category path instead of the fixed /product/ base. A product assigned to a dames parent category and a hakken child category can resolve as:

text
/dames/hakken/notre-v/

TemplateX uses WooCommerce's canonical product category path for each product. This is normally the deepest assigned product category, including its parent categories.

TemplateX saves WooCommerce's native product permalink setting with the custom base /%product_cat%. WooCommerce then registers the product rewrite rules and fills the category placeholder in product links. The normal WooCommerce Permalinks screen treats that exact root-level category base as invalid and rewrites it to /product/%product_cat%, so use the TemplateX toggle when the site intentionally wants no fixed product base.

This setting is opt-in because removing the fixed product base makes URL collisions possible. Avoid using the same slug path for a page, product, and product category. Changing the setting flushes rewrite rules, but existing indexed product URLs still need redirects if external links already use them.

Theme Functions Source#

When you save frontend optimizations, TemplateX writes a managed snippet to:

text
resources/views/functions.php

The snippet is compiled into the published theme. It should not be moved to the theme-root functions.php.

Categories And Tags#

TemplateX keeps WordPress categories and tags enabled by default.

Posts keep the standard category and post_tag taxonomies unless you remove or change them yourself in theme code. Pages also keep the normal WordPress behavior, which means they do not receive categories or tags unless your site or another plugin registers those taxonomies for pages.