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Summary | A Discourse theme component that displays a fullscreen cover image over the entire forum on page load. |
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Repository | GitHub - communiteq/discourse-tc-fullscreen-coverimage · GitHub |
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Install Guide | How to install a theme or theme component |
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New to Discourse Themes? | Beginner’s guide to using Discourse Themes |
Install this theme component
A Discourse theme component that displays a fullscreen cover image over the entire forum on page load.
Originally developed for a government agency (“this site has been seized”), but generic enough for any use case — maintenance notices, splash screens, event announcements, etc.
How it works
On page load the image is rendered centred on screen, scaled to fill as much of the viewport as possible while preserving its aspect ratio (object-fit: contain). The remaining area outside the image is filled with a configurable background colour.
The overlay disappears when either condition is met first:
- the configured number of seconds has elapsed, or
- the user has clicked the overlay the configured number of times.
Set either value to 0 to disable that dismissal method.
Settings
| Setting | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
cover_image |
upload | (none) | The image to display fullscreen |
trigger_after |
string | (none) | ISO-8601 UTC datetime after which the overlay activates, e.g. 2026-04-01T08:00:00Z |
display_seconds |
integer | 5 |
Seconds before auto-dismiss (0 = never) |
dismiss_on_clicks |
integer | 3 |
Clicks required to dismiss (0 = disabled) |
background_color |
string | #000000 |
CSS colour for the area outside the image |
Cookie behaviour
Once a visitor dismisses the overlay (by timer or clicks), a cookie named tc_coverimage_seen is set recording the trigger_after value. The overlay will not show again until trigger_after is changed to a new value — which resets everyone’s seen state and causes it to show again on their next page navigation.
Example
Set trigger_after: "2026-04-01T00:00:00Z", display_seconds: 0, dismiss_on_clicks: 1 for a single-click splash that activates at midnight UTC on April 1st and each visitor only sees once.
Obviously this theme component was not developed for a government agency but for @WorldIsMine who kindly open sourced it 
