Setting a Static Homepage

Backlight's Pages and Blogs features require that the homepage itself be managed by Backlight. For most users, this means using the Backlight Designer in combination with Pages to control the home page.

Backlight 6.4.1 introduced a new option to override this behaviour for the homepage, giving you the option to provide your own HTML page to use instead. This can be useful for site users that have specific design and content requirements for their homepage, while also wishing to use the functionality of Pages or Blogs.

Enabling Static Homepage

To enable a static homepage, follow these steps:

1. Upload a static HTML file to the top of your website, for example home.html placed directly within the public_html or www directory.
2. Log into your Backlight Admin page.
3. Visit the Backlight settings at Admin > Settings
4. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on Show Advanced Settings.
5. Click on Edit Settings.
6. Scroll down to the Miscellaneous section
7. Change 'Use Static Homepage' to 'yes'.
8. If needed, update the value of the 'Homepage Filename' setting to match the name of the file uploaded in Step 1.
9. Click Save Settings.