Sharing: placements, styles, and copy link - Verba
Every decision about sharing lives in one place: VerbaTheme OptionsSingle PostGeneral, group Share. There are no separate switches in the footer, in the reading bar, or anywhere else. The group appears once Single Post Source on the same tab is set to Advanced; the free theme's native post page has no share buttons.
The top toggle, Enable sharing (on by default), turns all of it off at once, in every placement. Everything below depends on it.
#Where the row comes from
The theme's buttons, a Custom shortcode from another sharing plugin, or AddToAny. The last option is selectable only when that plugin is installed.
Choosing another plugin removes the network list and the button style from the settings, because the plugin owns them now. The reading bar placement then shows nothing, since a plugin's output has no list of names to put in the bar's menu. The theme only places the output where you asked.
The rest of this page describes the native option, which is the default.
#The networks
Which networks appear, in the order you set. Drag to reorder. All eight are on by default: X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Telegram, Reddit, WhatsApp, Email, and Copy link.
Email and Copy link are actions rather than networks. Email opens the reader's mail client; Copy link goes nowhere at all.
Four or five networks that match your audience work better than eight icons where half are never clicked. Every extra icon makes the others slightly less likely to be pressed.
#The five placements
Share placement takes several values at once: turn on one, several, or all five. Only the article footer is on by default.
- Sticky rail
A vertical column of icons beside the article that travels with the reader and stops when the article ends. It stands in the margin beside the text, so it never shows on phones. Sticky rail shows on (default: desktop and tablet) decides the rest; turn tablet off if your tablet layout leaves too little margin.
- Meta row
Icons in the line with the author and date, at the opposite end from the byline. The quietest option.
- Reading bar
A button in the bottom bar that opens a list of networks by name. Eight destinations won't fit in the bar as separate icons, so they collapse into a menu. This placement needs the reading bar switched on.
- Selected text
A panel that appears above text the reader has highlighted.
- Article footer
A full block at the end of the post, with a heading, a subtitle, and a copy field. It has its own settings and its own page: The share block in the post footer.

#The selection panel
It's switched on as an item in the placement list. A reader highlights part of the text, a bar with networks appears above the selection, and what gets shared is that fragment together with a link to the article.
It works only inside the article text, not in the header, the footer, or the comments. It disappears when the selection is cleared, on a click outside it, on Escape, and on scroll.
It doesn't depend on the global tooltip setting.
#Button style
How the buttons look everywhere they appear. Minimal is the icon alone, muted, and full strength under the cursor. Surface puts the icon on a neutral pad. Brand colors gives each network its own.
One choice covers every placement, because a button that changes character halfway down the page reads as two different functions.
How the style behaves by placement: in the rail, the meta row, and the footer it's a filled circle. In the reading bar menu and the selection panel there's no circle, since a list of names and a slim bar over the text would turn into a second toolbar, so the color goes onto the icon and the box stays unfilled.
In brand mode, Email takes the site's accent color, and two entries keep a neutral color: X, whose mark is monochrome by design, and Copy link, which is an action that goes nowhere.
#The copy button
Copying leaves nothing on screen, so the button reports the result: the icon becomes a check mark filled with the accent color, and a small "Copied" label appears above it, then returns on its own. In the reading bar menu the name itself changes to "Copied".
A failed copy, where the browser refused access to the clipboard, shows an error state rather than a silent check mark.
Clipboard access requires HTTPS. On an http:// site the button may not work, and that's the browser's rule rather than the theme's. See Setting up your domain and HTTPS.
In the footer block, copying exists twice: as a network in the row and as a separate field with the address. The theme removes the icon from the row when the field is on, so there are never two identical buttons side by side.
#Questions
Sharing is on and I see no buttons
Check Share placement. No placement selected means no buttons anywhere. If the whole Share group is missing, Single Post Source is still Native.
The icons in the reading bar look different from the footer
The reading bar menu draws the button style without the filled circle. See Button style above.
The sticky rail disappeared
It never shows on phones, and on tablets only while tablet is in Sticky rail shows on. The rail is also off until you add it: Share placement starts with only Article footer, so check that Sticky rail is in the list.
Where are the share counts?
The theme doesn't show or collect them. The networks stopped giving those numbers out publicly years ago, and any plugin claiming otherwise is estimating.
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