Stoat documentation

Stoat wp theme is a free WordPress theme.

• Demo: live demo site
• License: GPL-2.0-or-later
• Requires: WordPress 6.5+, PHP 7.4+
• Key features: Tiny js, self-hosted fonts, everything at minimum

Download & Install

1. Download theme here: stoat.zip
2. Install WordPress.
3. WordPress Dashboard → Appearance → Themes → Add New → Upload Theme, choose stoat.zip → Install → Activate.

Theme options + settings

Stoat wp theme uses native WordPress customizer, you can customize your site in Dashboard → Appearance → Customize.

Header - logo + menu

• Logo: Customize → Site Identity → Logo. Toggle the text title/tagline with Display site title / Display tagline in the same section.
• Menu: Dashboard → Appearance → Menus → assign a menu to Primary Menu. Should use 2-level depth for best paractice; collapses to a hamburger / off-canvas panel automatically on mobile.

Footer - menu + copyright

• Menu: assign a menu to Footer Menu (flat, 1 level).
• Copyright: Customize → Footer:
• Show © + year - prefixes © <year>.
• Copyright text - your line (HTML allowed).
• Keep theme credit - appends “Built with Stoat”.

Front page

Standard WordPress - Dashboard → Settings → Reading → Your homepage displays:

• Your latest posts - blog index.
• A static page - pick a Homepage and a Posts page.

Typography (fonts)

Self-hosted via the WordPress Font Library - no external requests.

1. Dashboard → Appearance → Fonts → install font families.
2. Customize → Typography → pick Heading font and Body font.

• Allowed: any family installed under Dashboard → Appearance → Fonts.
• Not allowed: Google Fonts / remote URLs (Stoat wp theme serves .woff2 from your own site only).
• System default = native font stack (fastest), and the only option below WordPress 7.0.

Style (colors)

Customize → Style - five color pickers: text, accent, background, selection, selected text. Empty = theme default.

Blog featured images

Stoat wp theme displays a post thumbnail differently from core:

1. Featured image, if set.
2. Otherwise, the first image in the post content ≥ 300px wide.
3. Otherwise, no thumbnail.

If you want to disable featured image, go to Customize → Blog/archive

Page settings

Edit a Page → Page options box → check Hide page title? to drop the title on the front end.

Example - a full-bleed cover page: page-with-cover is just a Page with the title hidden, using the Gutenberg Cover block as content.

Search

There is no search icon in the header - search is a plain Page.

1. Create a Page (e.g. “Search”).
2. Add the Search block, publish.

Example: Demo search page.

Note: Customize → Misc → Disable pages in search results is on by default, so search returns posts only.

FAQ

Can I use the classic editor?

Yes — Stoat wp theme is very classic-editor friendly.

How to remove the credit?

Customize → Footer → Keep theme credit — turn it off. GPL doesn’t require keeping it.

How to set up an image logo?

Customize → Site Identity → Logo → upload your image. Hide the text title/tagline in the same section with Display site title / Display tagline.

How to set dark mode?

There’s no dark-mode toggle button yet. You can make a permanently-dark site at Customize → Style: set Background color to a dark value and Text color to a light one.

How to use Google Fonts or another font service?

Not through the theme settings — Stoat wp theme only serves self-hosted fonts. It doesn’t forbid external fonts, though: use any plugin that loads them, then point the theme’s tokens at the family with :root { --heading-font: ...; --body-font: ...; } in Customize → Additional CSS.

How to get 99/100 page speed?

Page speed = theme + plugins + hosting. Stoat wp theme handles the theme part (tiny JS, one small stylesheet, self-hosted fonts). Each plugin adds a little weight (extra JS, Google Analytics code, etc.). A clean site on decent hosting usually scores 99/100 out of the box. A cache plugin like LiteSpeed Cache helps further — Stoat wp theme works fine with it.