Changelog

All notable changes to the Balm theme are recorded here. Versions follow semantic versioning. The version installed in a store is shown in the theme library, next to the theme name.

1.0.0 (2026-09-27)

Initial release.

Preset

• Balm: clean and neutral. A white scheme and a near black scheme, Inter for headings (600) and body text, sentence case headings and buttons, softly rounded corners (12 px buttons, 20 px cards) and a white frosted glass.
• The preset carries two color schemes, a font pairing, corner radii, a glass recipe and typography recipes. Every text measures a contrast of at least 4.5:1.

Theme settings

• Color schemes with seven roles: background, optional background gradient, text, button, button label, secondary background and accent.
• Heading and body fonts from the Shopify font library, and three shared typography recipes: headings (case, style, weight), button labels (case, weight, letter spacing, style), labels and small text (case).
• Corner style: four maximum radii, for buttons, cards, form fields and media.
• Glass effect: one frosted recipe (tint, fill opacity, blur, border opacity) shared by every glass surface, with a Frosted or Near opaque choice on phones.
• Section backgrounds on most sections: solid color, two color gradient, image with an overlay, or radial halo, connectable to shop metafields, with a fallback color.
• Breadcrumbs, favicon, social sharing image, search scope, and a noindex option for search results pages.

Header, footer and popups

• Header with a solid, glass or transparent surface, a floating detached card, an image logo or a text wordmark, a separate logo for the transparent state, three level menus, a mobile menu as a sheet or a full height drawer, predictive search, Shopify customer accounts and a cart counter.
• Mega menus built from blocks: link columns, images, products with their tagline, promos and banners.
• Announcement bar with rotating messages, arrows, a close button, three scroll behaviors, a Solid or Glass style and a full width or floating layout.
• Footer built from blocks: brand, link columns, newsletter with a customer tag, Instagram and Follow on Shop, text, and country or currency and language selectors. An optional top decorative band, and a copyright bar with its own color scheme.
• Newsletter popup with an open delay, a reappear delay in days, three card styles (Tinted glass, Glass, Solid) and a settable overlay.

Home page and content sections

• Hero with an image or a Shopify hosted video, separate desktop and mobile media cropped on their focal point, autoplay per device, a sound button, loop, stop or cover at the end, three controls styles, loading states that use the theme loader, and content placement per device.
• Products showcase: full screen product spotlights with a scroll pinned wipe on desktop, a snap mode, a dedicated mobile layout or a stacked mode, highlights with claims, a featured set cartouche and watermarks. The animation library loads only when the section approaches the screen.
• Slideshow, featured set, marquee with a pause button, image with text, rich text, multicolumn, collection list, featured collection, testimonials, logo list, video (a click to play cover for YouTube and Vimeo), countdown, newsletter, FAQ, contact, store locator, socials, lifestyle strip, divider, custom Liquid and apps sections.
• About page sections: brand story hero, comparison panels, an interactive "Does this sound like you?" checklist and a gallery banner.
• General theme blocks for the content sections and the product page: heading, text, button, image, spacer and Liquid.
• Page templates for About, Contact, FAQ, Store locator and Products.

Product page

• One product template built from blocks: title, vendor, price, SKU, rating, text, variant picker (buttons, dropdown menu, color and image swatches, signature pill, packs menu), quantity with quantity rules, volume pricing, purchase options, gift card recipient, buy buttons with dynamic checkout and Shop Pay Installments, stock status, back in stock, pickup availability, payment icons, product upsell, complementary products, description, collapsible rows, popup, specifications, icon list, image, badge, spinning badge, share, product navigation, sticky add to cart and Liquid. App blocks drop into the same column.
• Five buy button styles (Solid, Outline, Soft, Signature pill, Glass), and a packs menu that welds to the signature pill.
• Section background per product through metafields, with a fallback color and the color scheme as safety net, plus a product vignette and a bottom curve.
• Media gallery in six desktop and four mobile layouts, with thumbnails, packshot captions, zoom, video, 3D models and AR.
• Balm spotlight, a second version of the product section with a stacked gallery, a radial halo background and a spinning badge.
• Combined listings: a value that belongs to a sibling product switches the page to that product without a reload.
• Product recommendations and a sticky add to cart bar below the section.
• Works without JavaScript: variant selection and add to cart fall back to standard form submissions.

Product cards and quick add

• Product cards with a second image on hover, the vendor, the rating, color swatches with a +N count, three card styles, the element order and the alignment, depending on the section.
• Quick add in one setting (Off, Single-variant products, All products) on the collection, search, featured collection, recently viewed, lookbook and compare products sections. Single-variant products add in one click, the others open an option picker in a modal, the cart drawer opens and the page never reloads. A value of a combined listing hands over to the sibling product page.

Quick view

• A Quick view setting (Off, Button on hover, Icon) on the collection, featured collection, search, recently viewed and lookbook sections opens a product in a modal without leaving the page: gallery with thumbnails, price with badges and unit price, rating, the product page's variant picker with swatches, quantity rules, purchase options, add to cart (the cart drawer opens), pickup availability, a short description and a link to the product page.
• Theme settings, Quick view sets what the modal shows, the description source and length, the color scheme and the card material (Solid, Tinted glass, Glass), and can preload a product when the pointer rests on its card. Without JavaScript the trigger opens the product page.

Product badges

• Sale, Sold out, New and Custom badges on the product cards, with their position (top left, top right), shape (button corners or pill) and colors in Theme settings.
• Sale reads Sale, the percentage off or the amount saved. New follows the product creation date, for a number of days you set. Custom reads a product metafield named on each product grid section.
• The product page Badge block has an Automatic kind that draws the same badges.

Pre-order

• A variant that keeps selling at 0 stock shows Pre-order on the add to cart button, the sticky bar and the quick add button, with an optional custom label.

Page loader

• A loading indicator styled once for the whole store: spinner, dots, bar, logo or custom image, with a size per device and the scheme text or a custom color.
• A page loader shown on the first visit only or on every page: logo only, logo with a progress bar, logo with a spinner, or progress bar only, on a solid or glass background with its own color scheme. Fade, Slide up, Split, Zoom or Circle reveal exits, optional page transitions, and minimum and maximum display times. The progress bar follows the page as it loads, the loader sits above every other layer, and a preview mode shows it in the theme editor.

Age verifier

• A modal that asks visitors to confirm their age, with the minimum age, texts and button labels, a message or a redirect on decline, a memory in days, an optional background image, a color scheme and three card materials. It waits for the page loader, never shows at checkout, and shows in the theme editor only with Preview checked.

Back to top

• A round button in a bottom corner, shown after a set scroll distance, on desktop and mobile separately. It lifts above the sticky add to cart bar and steps aside from the hero video controls; the scroll is smooth, or instant when the visitor prefers reduced motion.

Collection navigation

• A menu of collection links shown as a row of pills above or below the collection banner, the current collection highlighted, scrolling sideways on mobile.

Pagination

• Page numbers, a Load more button or infinite scroll on the collection and search pages. Load more and infinite scroll add the next page under the grid with a Showing X of Y counter; infinite scroll loads three pages on its own, then hands over to the button so the footer stays reachable.

Promo tiles

• Promo tile blocks, up to four, on the collection and featured collection grids: an image with a mobile version, a heading, text, a button and a link, a color scheme, a position in the grid and a width of one or two columns. They appear on the first page only, so Load more and infinite scroll never repeat them.

Before and after

• Two images compared with a draggable handle, horizontal or vertical, with labels, a starting position, a round or line handle, contained or full width, heading and text, and keyboard access through a slider.

Recently viewed

• The products a visitor opened, newest first, from a list kept in the visitor's own browser. The section takes no space until there is a history, can leave out the current product, and shows as a grid or a slider on mobile, with quick add and quick view.

Lookbook and hotspots

• An image with product or text hotspots, positioned separately on desktop and mobile. On desktop a hotspot opens a popover with the product card and its quick add; on a phone it opens a sheet from the bottom of the screen. An Image with product list layout lines the products up beside the image, and a card and its hotspot light up together.

Compare products

• Up to five products side by side, with image, price, availability, vendor and rating rows, and Row blocks that read product metafields as text, a number with its unit, or yes and no. Differences can be highlighted, empty values show as n/a, and on a phone the label column stays in place while the products scroll.

Gift wrapping

• A checkbox in the cart drawer and on the cart page adds the wrapping product you pick in Theme settings, in quantity 1, and records the cart attribute Gift wrapping: Yes. An optional gift message, up to the length you set, is saved as the cart attribute Gift message. Both reach the order.

Collection, search and cart

• Collection and search pages with filters and sorting from Search & Discovery, in a column, a drawer or a horizontal bar, with value counts, a price slider, color swatches and a results count. Visitors can change the column count or switch to a list view.
• Cart page and cart drawer with quantity rules, an order note, a taxes and shipping note and accelerated checkout buttons. The cart page works without JavaScript.
• Cart drawer with a reward progress bar, suggestions from Shopify recommendations or a manual selection, a promotion note on each line and a solid or glass panel.
• Blog with tag filters, blog post with comments and share buttons, page, list of collections, 404, password and gift card templates.

Translations

• Storefront and theme editor in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. Text settings for interface labels left empty show the translated default in every language.

Accessibility

• A skip link, landmarks and headings on every template, one h1 per template, visible focus rings and 24 px touch targets.
• Focus kept inside the popups, the drawers, quick view and the age verifier, and live regions for variant changes and for the products added by Load more.
• Carousels with tab semantics and pause controls, a pause button on the marquee, and a before and after handle usable from the keyboard.
• Reduced motion respected: no video autoplay, no turning badge, instant scrolling and a still loader.
• Glass button labels switch to black or white when their contrast would fall below the floor.

Performance

• Stylesheets scoped per section and block, subset by page, and feature scripts loaded only on the pages where the feature renders.
• One image per device on the slideshow, eager loading reserved for the first section, the hero video loaded after the page by default, and the animation library loaded on demand.
• Glass surfaces fall back to a near opaque fill under reduced transparency, and on phones when the merchant picks Near opaque.