Nota

A clean, minimalist WordPress theme for personal academic publishing.

Nota turns WordPress into a simple scholarly writing platform with margin sidenotes, multi-format citations (APA, MLA, Chicago, BibTeX), PDF and EPUB export, dark mode, reading mode, and optional project pages with team management and HAL publications integration.

Origins

Nota was originally built as a custom theme for Politics of Language, a linguistics and anthropology research project.

The theme's design philosophy is inspired by the typographic traditions of academic publishing: serif body text, generous margins, marginal annotations (sidenotes), and a distraction-free reading experience.

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Features

Writing & Reading

• Sidenotes -- WordPress footnotes (WP 6.3+) are automatically converted to Tufte-style margin notes on desktop and tap-to-reveal popovers on mobile
• Reading mode -- A distraction-free view that hides navigation and focuses on the article
• Dark mode -- Toggle between light and dark themes; respects system preference and persists via localStorage

Academic Tools

• Multi-format citations -- Generate citations for any article in APA 7th, MLA 9th, Chicago 17th, and BibTeX (BibLaTeX @online) formats
• Selection citations -- Select any passage and cite it with a paragraph locator
• PDF and EPUB export -- Download any post as a valid PDF or EPUB file.
• References sidebar -- Display bibliographic references alongside articles (via ACF fields)

Project Pages

• Project showcase template -- A structured page for research projects with:
  • Key information (PI, period, funding, institution)
  • Team member profiles with links
  • Research themes/topics
  • HAL publications integration (live from the HAL open-access repository)
  • Manual publications management
• Native meta boxes -- Team, themes, links, and publications are managed via WordPress-native meta boxes (no ACF Pro required)

Design & UX

• Responsive -- Mobile-first design with hamburger menu, touch-friendly popovers
• Bilingual UI -- Built-in English/French UI translations with Polylang integration
• Header search -- Animated search overlay in the header
• CSS custom properties -- All colors and fonts use CSS variables for easy theming
• Print-friendly -- Optimized print styles with references moved after body text
• Accessible -- ARIA labels, semantic HTML5, focus management

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Installation

Manual Installation

1. Download or clone this repository
2. Copy the nota folder into wp-content/themes/
3. Go to Appearance > Themes in your WordPress admin
4. Activate Nota

From ZIP

1. Download the theme as a ZIP file
2. Go to Appearance > Themes > Add New > Upload Theme
3. Upload the ZIP and activate

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Configuration

WordPress Customizer

Go to Appearance > Customize > Nota Theme to configure:

General

Setting	Description	Default
Footer text	Additional text after the copyright line	(empty)
Copyright format	Use {year} and {site} as placeholders	© {year} {site}

Theme Colors

Setting	Description	Default
Accent color	Links, highlights, branding	#163316 (dark green)
Background color	Page background	#fcfbf9 (cream)
Text color	Body text	#0f140f (near-black)
Background pattern	Toggle the dotted background texture	On

Typography

Setting	Description	Default
Body font (serif)	Font for body text	Libre Caslon Text
Heading font (sans)	Font for headings and UI	Cabin

Available serif fonts: Libre Caslon Text, Georgia, Lora, Source Serif 4, Merriweather, EB Garamond

Available sans fonts: Cabin, Inter, Source Sans 3, Work Sans, Nunito Sans, System UI

Features

All features can be independently toggled on/off:

• Citation tools
• EPUB export
• Reading mode
• Sidenotes
• Header search
• Dark mode toggle
• Language switcher (requires Polylang)

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Project Page Template

The theme includes a Project Page template for showcasing research projects.

Setup

1. Create a new Page in WordPress
2. In the Page Attributes panel, select Project Page as the template
3. Fill in the project information fields (requires ACF plugin, free version)

ACF Fields

These fields appear when the Project Page template is selected:

• Tagline -- Short project description
• Principal Investigator -- Lead researcher name
• Period -- e.g., "2024--2029"
• Funding body -- Grant or funding organization
• Institution -- Host institution

Native Meta Boxes

These are managed without ACF Pro:

• Project Links -- URL + label pairs
• Team Members -- Name, role, institution, bio, and personal links
• Research Themes -- Title + description
• Manual Publications -- Citation text, year, type, DOI, URL

HAL Publications

To display publications from the HAL open-access repository:

1. Install ACF (free version)
2. On the Project Page, fill in either:
   • HAL Author ID (e.g., james-costa) -- fetches all publications by this author
   • HAL Collection Code -- fetches publications from a specific HAL collection
3. Publications are cached for 12 hours. Append ?flush_hal to the URL to refresh.

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Adding Languages

The theme uses a lightweight translation system for UI strings. To add a new language:

1. Open functions.php and find the nota_translations() function
2. Add a new top-level key matching the Polylang language slug:

function nota_translations() {
    return array(
        'fr' => array( /* existing French translations */ ),
        'de' => array(
            'Author'        => 'Autor',
            'Published on'  => 'Veröffentlicht am',
            'Read more'     => 'Weiterlesen →',
            // ... add all strings you want translated
        ),
    );
}

English is the source language (used as keys). Any untranslated string falls back to English automatically.

The UI language is determined by (in priority order):

1. ?ui_lang= URL parameter
2. Polylang's current language
3. nota_ui_lang cookie
4. English (default)

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Developer Notes

Function Reference

Function	Description
nota_t( $string )	Returns the translated UI string
nota_e( $string )	Echoes the translated UI string
nota_ui_lang()	Returns the current UI language slug
nota_feature( $key )	Checks if a feature is enabled (e.g., nota_feature('citations'))
nota_post_has_notes( $post_id )	Returns true if the post has footnotes/sidenotes
nota_hal_publications( $author, $collection )	Fetches publications from HAL API
nota_hal_entry_html( $doc, $type )	Renders a single HAL publication entry
nota_google_fonts_url()	Returns the Google Fonts URL based on Customizer settings

CSS Custom Properties

:root {
    --bg-color: #fcfbf9;
    --text-color: #0f140f;
    --accent: #163316;
    --line-color: #e0e0e0;
    --font-serif: 'Libre Caslon Text', Georgia, serif;
    --font-sans: 'Cabin', sans-serif;
}

These are overridden by the Customizer settings. You can also override them in a child theme.

Template Hierarchy

Template	Purpose
index.php	Blog/post grid
single.php	Single article with sidebar, citations, sidenotes
page.php	Static pages
page-project.php	Project showcase (team, themes, publications)
archive.php	Archives (categories, tags, dates, authors)
category.php	Category archive with smart subcategory layout
search.php	Search results
404.php	Error page

Hooks & Filters

• The sidenote conversion hooks into the_content at priority 15
• The EPUB export hooks into template_redirect
• Custom CSS is output via wp_head at priority 20
• All features respect the Customizer toggles

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Requirements

• WordPress 6.3+ (required for native footnotes/sidenotes)
• PHP 7.4+

Optional Plugins

• Advanced Custom Fields (free) -- Required for Project Page fields (tagline, PI, period, funding, institution, HAL config)
• Polylang (free) -- For multilingual content and the language switcher

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License

Nota is released under the GNU General Public License v3.

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Credits

• Originally built for Politics of Language
• Typography: Libre Caslon Text and Cabin via Google Fonts
• Sidenote design inspired by Edward Tufte's typographic principles
• HAL integration via the HAL open-access repository API