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Optional Toggles

NL Design provides two optional CSS-based toggles that adjust Nextcloud's interface beyond color theming.

Hide Login Slogan​

Setting: nldesign:hide_slogan

When enabled, hides the tagline text ("a safe home for all your data") shown below the Nextcloud logo on the login page.

Why use it:

  • Government organizations often have their own branding guidelines that don't include Nextcloud's default slogan
  • Creates a cleaner, more professional login page
  • Reduces visual clutter for public-facing instances

How it works: When enabled, NL Design loads an additional CSS file (css/hide-slogan.css) that sets display: none on the slogan element.

Show Menu Labels​

Setting: nldesign:show_menu_labels

When enabled, displays text labels next to the icons in Nextcloud's left sidebar navigation.

Why use it:

  • Improves accessibility — icon-only navigation can be confusing for users unfamiliar with Nextcloud
  • Meets Dutch government accessibility guidelines (WCAG AA) which recommend text alternatives for icons
  • Especially helpful for organizations onboarding many new users

How it works: When enabled, NL Design loads css/show-menu-labels.css which overrides Nextcloud's default icon-only sidebar layout to include text labels.

Enabling via Command Line​

Both toggles can be set via the Nextcloud occ command:

# Hide the login slogan
php occ config:app:set nldesign hide_slogan --value=1

# Show menu labels in the sidebar
php occ config:app:set nldesign show_menu_labels --value=1

# Disable (set back to 0)
php occ config:app:set nldesign hide_slogan --value=0

Theming per App​

Setting: nldesign:disabled_apps (JSON array of app ids, default [])

By default the NL Design theme applies to every Nextcloud app. The Theming per app section in the admin panel lists each enabled app with a checkbox (checked = themed). Unchecking an app and saving adds it to an exclusion list: that app's pages then render with stock Nextcloud styling.

Why use it:

  • Roll a municipal huisstijl out incrementally instead of all-or-nothing
  • Quarantine a complex third-party app (or one mid-migration) that breaks or looks wrong under the theme, without losing theming everywhere else

How it works: On every page render, NL Design resolves the app id from the request path (/apps/{appid}) and, if that app is excluded, skips all style injection for the request — design-system stylesheets, the token set, custom-overrides.css, and both toggles above.

Trade-off (by design): suppression is request-scoped, so on an excluded app's pages the global header and navigation also render unthemed — that app's pages are fully stock Nextcloud. The login page, settings pages, and share links are never affected by the exclusion list and always stay themed. The ids nldesign, settings, and theming can never be excluded.

# Exclude the Calendar app from theming
php occ config:app:set nldesign disabled_apps --value='["calendar"]'

# Back to theming every app
php occ config:app:set nldesign disabled_apps --value='[]'