Header & footer partials

Status: 85% — mechanism done and verified; footer content being finished.

What they are

Page header and footer live in plain HTML partial files:

headers/header_default.html
footers/footer_default.html

They are loaded by the {HEADER} / {FOOTER} theme shortcodes, which core merges into the layout at the {---HEADER---} / {---FOOTER---} markers of theme.html during e_theme::loadLayout() — before the layout is parsed and before the Menu Manager scans it.

This pattern is not an e107 standard (core only provides the markers and the shortcode expansion; the partial-file convention is Aragorn's) and it is what finally made {MENUAREA} work in the footer — a problem reported upstream in 2019 (#3987) and closed in 2026.

The complete pattern — core vs. theme responsibilities, implementation, and the five hard-earned rules (__DIR__ paths, defset() timing, one shortcode per line, no HTML comments in partials, menu-area id ranges) — is documented as a standalone guide: Header & footer partials with working menu areas.

Current state

• Header (header_default.html) — Tabler horizontal navbar with the site brand, {NAVIGATION} menu and the signin area (see Signin for its own status).

• Footer (footer_default.html) — two-tier Tabler footer: {MENUAREA=101} (verified live in the Menu Manager, including the Add dropdown), resources columns, {NAVIGATION=alt} / {NAVIGATION=alt4}, {SITELOGO}, {CONTACT_INFO}, bare {XURL_ICONS} (networks managed in e107 prefs, Tabler brand-button markup from the theme's social template override), bottom bar with {NAVIGATION=footer} and copyright.

• Per-layout switching is live: the auth and memberdesk layouts suppress the header partial entirely (auth is a centered page without a navbar; memberdesk replaces the horizontal header with its vertical sidebar), auth also suppresses the footer, and memberdesk loads the reduced footers/footer_small.html. Further variants (header_home.html, ...) remain prepared as commented switch cases.

Remaining work (the missing 15%)

• Footer content finalization — decide which columns stay hardcoded and which move to menu areas; final spacing pass.

• Header polish follows the Signin and navigation work.