Theme Options: the advanced settings panel

Theme Options is the settings panel the Pro plugin adds. It is its own admin menu, not a section of the Customizer and not an extension of it.

This page is a map. It tells you which page holds what, and where each one is described in detail.

#How the panel is organized

Three levels, the same everywhere: a page in the left menu, tabs across the top of it, and groups of related settings inside a tab. Once you have that, every path in this documentation reads the same way: VerbaTheme OptionsGeneralSite means page, tab, and then you scroll to the group.

Two behaviors differ from the Customizer, and both surprise people once:

Nothing is live. You change values, then press save. There is no preview panel updating as you type.

Fields appear and disappear. Many settings are conditional and only show when the thing they depend on is switched on. A tab that looks empty almost always has a master toggle turned off above it, rather than a bug.

#The pages

General

Site-wide behavior and optimization, across two tabs. See General: site behavior and General: optimization.

Navigation

The header, search, the posts ticker, and the marketing bar. Covered in the header and footer section.

Footer

Where the footer comes from, the call to action above it, and its ticker. Also in the header and footer section.

Archive

Everything about archives and the listings on them. See Advanced archives.

Single Post

The article page from header to footer, plus related posts and read also. See the single post section.

Blog

How posts are presented site-wide, and the two global blocks: before you go, and the floating card.

Reviews

Only appears when the reviews integration is active, and is documented with that integration rather than here.

#How it relates to the Customizer

Theme Options does not override the Customizer, and it does not make the free settings obsolete. It is a separate store for what Pro adds.

The consequence saves hours of confusion: the same name in both panels means two different settings. Width in the Customizer and width in Theme Options apply to different layouts, and editing one leaves the other alone.

Where a setting genuinely belongs to the free theme, Theme Options says so and links you back to the Customizer. Breadcrumbs are the clearest case: the Pro panel holds only the source of the trail, while turning it on, the separator, and the home link stay in the Customizer. Each setting has exactly one owner, and the panel tells you which one it is.

Settings on one specific post or category beat the global values here. That is covered in Object-level settings.

#Questions

I saved a setting and nothing changed on the site

Check three things in order. A page cache still serving the old HTML. A local field on that specific post overriding the global value. And the master toggle for the group, which may be off, in which case the setting is stored but not used.

Do my Theme Options survive a theme update?

Yes. They are stored as WordPress options, in the database, not in theme files. Updating the theme or the plugin does not touch them.

What happens to Theme Options if I deactivate Pro?

The panel disappears along with the features it configures, and the stored values stay in the database. Reactivate the plugin and your settings are there again.

Last updated 9 Sep 2026