Advanced archives

The advanced archive is the same native archive as the free one, with the full set of settings and no external dependency. It stays theme markup rather than a page you assemble: nothing to build by hand, nothing that depends on a builder.

Turn it on at VerbaTheme OptionsArchiveGeneral, setting archive source to advanced. That same field is where the pattern and Elementor options live too.

The structure is fixed and everything inside it is adjustable. That trade, predictability for freedom, is why this is the recommended route.

#What you can adjust

By zone, since listing the fields would fill a page:

• The page header at the top, described below.
• A featured post above the list, with its own position relative to the grid.
• The listing: the full set of card types and the settings on each. It is the same schema used everywhere, so the details are not repeated here. See Customizing the look and Listing settings.
• Pagination, in every mode.
• The sidebar: side, width, gap, stickiness, and behavior on narrow screens.
• A zone under the listing, for a selection, a banner, or a subscribe form. See Content zones and insertions.

Against the free level, in one line: a few card types and basic parameters there, the whole set here.

#The page header

The top block of the page: title, description, breadcrumbs, and background image. It is a separate layer from the listing, which is why people look for it in the wrong place. See Archives in the free theme for the distinction.

The same mechanism runs on ordinary pages, so the settings look identical in both places. On a page they sit in that page panel. See Page fields.

What it offers: whether the header shows at all, breadcrumbs inside it, a custom title instead of the automatic one, a subtitle, a background image with adjustable opacity, a boxed or full-width layout, and content alignment.

About the title, plainly: by default it is assembled from the category, tag, or author name. The custom title field is only for when the automatic one is not right. It is not a field you have to fill in.

About the background: on a category archive it comes from the category itself, so one setting produces a different header on every archive with no duplication. See Category fields.

Opacity is not there for decoration. A title over a bright photograph without dimming is unreadable, and that is the setting that fixes it.

#When one archive needs to differ

Do not rework the global settings for the sake of one category. The category has its own fields. See Object-level settings.

Can I have different card types on different archives?

Not from the global archive settings, which apply to all of them. For genuinely different layouts per archive, a pattern or an Elementor template assigned to that archive is the route.

The sidebar is set but does not appear

The widget area is empty. A sidebar with no blocks in it is not rendered. Fill it at AppearanceWidgets.

Do these settings apply to search results too?

Search results have their own group in the same tab, since a results page usually wants different treatment from a category.

Last updated 22 Sep 2026