# Visual settings

Most of the design choices you make with Bubble are made as you design your pages[^1] and work with styles[^2]. In this section we will go over the general visual settings for your app.

## Setting a favicon

<details>

<summary>What is a favicon?</summary>

A favicon, short for "favorite icon", is a small image that represents your app.

It's the little icon you see in the browser tab next to the title of the page, and it also often appears in bookmarks, browser history, and on shortcuts if you save a website to your home screen on a mobile device.

</details>

To assign a favicon to your app, first navigate to *Settings - General* and scroll to the *General appearance* header.

Directly underneath you will find the *Favicon* settings, which allows you to upload an image to be used as the favicon. The favicon should be a square image, and keep in mind that:

* Favicons should be in PNG or JPG format. SVG is not supported by all browsers.
* It may be viewed as small as 16x16 pixels: small details such as text may be lost
* Some browsers have a dark mode: darker favicons may become hard to see against a dark background

## Changing the color of the progress bar and spinner

The progress bar is the loading bar at the top of the page when Bubble performs certain tasks such as writing to the database. The *spinner* is the spinning icon visible when data is loading, such as when Bubble is fetching data for a repeating group.

The color of both of these can be changed by navigating to *Settings - General* and scroll to the *General appearance* header. There you will find the two settings:

* Progress bar color
* Repeating group spinner

{% hint style="info" %}
To efficiently maintain colors and consistency across your app, we recommend using Color variables. This can even be applied to app-wide settings such as the progress bar and spinner. You can read more about color variables in the article below.

Article: [Color variables](https://manual.bubble.io/~/revisions/cityQ1wuAKUIdbGUZo4Q/help-guides/design/styling/color-variables)
{% endhint %}

## Hiding mention of Bubble in the Developer Tools console

<details>

<summary>What is the console?</summary>

The console is a part of the developer tools built into the major browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Safari.

It's like a dashboard where the browser displays messages such as errors and warnings, and where you can type in and run JavaScript code directly.&#x20;

</details>

By default, Bubble includes a small text section in the console that looks like the below:

<figure><img src="https://34394582-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2F-M5sbzwG7CljeZdkntrL%2Fuploads%2FghAoMt66JF4wPBoWTrjw%2Fconsole-message%402x.png?alt=media&#x26;token=bed2c765-4903-48ce-8afc-4654993ce85f" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

If you prefer to hide this text in the console, you can check the *Remove Bubble mention in console* checkbox. Note that this information is not visible to most of your users - only those that purposely load the console in the browser's developer tools.

## Exposing an ID attribute to elements

<details>

<summary>What is the ID attribute?</summary>

The ID attribute is a unique identifier assigned to an element on your page. It is used for specifically targeting and manipulating that element through custom CSS, JavaScript, plugins or other kinds of code . The ID attribute ensures that the element can be uniquely singled out from all other elements on the page.

</details>

Exposing the ID attribute for elements in Bubble is useful for a number of different reasons. For example, you can use it to apply custom style or binding Javascript code to specific elements. Some plugins also require that you identify an element using the ID attribute.

### Enabling and setting the ID attribute

Exposing an ID attribute on elements is disabled by default, but can be enabled by:

1. Navigating to *Settings - General*, scrolling to the General appearance header and checking the *Expose the option to add an ID attribute to* [*HTML elements*](#user-content-fn-3)[^3] checkbox
2. Then, navigate to the element to which you want to apply an ID, open up its property editor and scroll to the bottom of the *Appearance* tab. See the illustration below:

<figure><img src="https://34394582-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2F-M5sbzwG7CljeZdkntrL%2Fuploads%2F9gaOjg7vIdv9Af7URzPG%2FID-attribute%402x.png?alt=media&#x26;token=cd5f9063-8040-47a0-89bc-24ff8697fe07" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

### Formatting an ID

When formatting an ID, it's useful to stick to a few rules to ensure compatability with different technologies and browsers:

1. **Uniqueness**: The ID must be unique within a page. You can use dynamic content in the ID Attribute, such as including the index of a the cell of a repeating group.
2. **Start with a Letter**: It should start with a letter (uppercase or lowercase) followed by any combination of letters, digits, hyphens, underscores, colons, and periods.
3. **No Spaces**: It should not contain any spaces.
4. **Case Sensitivity**: IDs are case-sensitive. For instance, `elementID` and `elementid` would be considered different IDs.
5. **Avoid Special Characters**: Though some special characters like hyphens and underscores are allowed, it's generally a good practice to keep IDs alphanumeric to avoid any unexpected behavior in different browsers or technologies.

Lastly, whenever you reference an ID, keep in mind that the ID string matches exactly with the one assigned to the element. Since IDs are case-sensitive, even a slight variation in case or an extra space can cause the reference to fail. We recommend copy-pasting the ID to make sure it matches.

## Related topics

<details>

<summary>Page and element styling</summary>

Pages and element can have styling applied directly on the them, such as:

* Background color or image
* Border
* Shadow
* Font
* Transitions

Note that pages and elements can also use saved Styles – see the box below for more information.

Article: [Styling](https://manual.bubble.io/~/revisions/cityQ1wuAKUIdbGUZo4Q/help-guides/design/styling)\
Core reference: [Style properties](https://manual.bubble.io/~/revisions/cityQ1wuAKUIdbGUZo4Q/core-resources/elements/styling-properties)

</details>

<details>

<summary>Styles</summary>

Bubble lets you set up overarching Styles for elements within your app to streamline the design process and promote consistency. By modifying a single style, you can effortlessly restyle all related elements, making it easy to set up and manage a cohesive look and feel in your app.

Each Style is connected to a specific element type and includes the following information (that may vary depending on the element type):

* Background color or image
* Border
* Shadow
* Font
* Transitions

Apart from making the design process more efficient, Styles also improves your app's  performance by storing styling settings in one central place as opposed to saving it on each separate element.

Article: [Styles](https://manual.bubble.io/~/revisions/cityQ1wuAKUIdbGUZo4Q/help-guides/design/styling/styles)\
Core reference: [Styles](https://manual.bubble.io/~/revisions/cityQ1wuAKUIdbGUZo4Q/core-resources/styles)

</details>

<details>

<summary>Font and color variables</summary>

#### Font variables

Font variables allow you to centralize font settings and make changes to the font across multiple elements and Styles. Instead of having to manually adjust font families in each instance they are used, you can simply modify the font variable in one place and watch the change propagate throughout your app.

Article: [Font variables](https://manual.bubble.io/~/revisions/cityQ1wuAKUIdbGUZo4Q/help-guides/design/styling/font-variables)

#### Color variables

The Color Variables feature in the Styles tab enables you to establish a palette of colors that you can apply throughout your Bubble app. Each color variable contains:

* A [hex code](#user-content-fn-4)[^4] that determines the color value
* An alpha value that controls its transparency

Article: [Color variables](https://manual.bubble.io/~/revisions/cityQ1wuAKUIdbGUZo4Q/help-guides/design/styling/color-variables)

</details>

[^1]: At the core of everything related to design and user interface in Bubble is the *page***.**

    This is the canvas on which you place input elements, text, images, icons, videos and everything else that your users need to make use of your application.\
    \
    Article: [The page](https://manual.bubble.io/~/revisions/cityQ1wuAKUIdbGUZo4Q/help-guides/design/elements/the-page)

[^2]: Bubble lets you set up overarching Styles for elements within your app to streamline the design process&#x20;

    By modifying a single style, you can  restyle all related elements, making it easy to set up and manage a cohesive look and feel in your app.\
    \
    Article: [Styles](https://manual.bubble.io/~/revisions/cityQ1wuAKUIdbGUZo4Q/help-guides/design/styling/styles)

[^3]: HTML elements in this context is not to be confused by the Bubble HTML element type.\
    \
    In the context of ID attributes, HTML element refers to *any* element placed on the page, and the ID is a part of the HTML code that helps your browser render the page.

[^4]: A hex code is a six-digit number used in to represent a specific color. It condenses RGB values into a single code.\
    \
    The first two digits of the hex code represent the red component, the middle two represent the green component, and the last two represent the blue component.
