Kirby 5 Templates · Yirang Ok

Library — setup guide

Each book is one spine image and one number. Physics does the rest. This walks through installing the template and adding your first book. Nothing here needs the command line beyond one copy-paste.

Live demo Buy on Gumroad

01 Put the files on a server

You need PHP 8.2 or newer. Any shared host will do — no database, no build step, nothing to compile.

Unzip the download. What you get is the template: templates, snippets, blueprints, assets and the demo content. Kirby core is not in the zip — Kirby may not be redistributed, so you add it yourself in one step. Inside the folder, run:

composer install

No Composer? Download the free Plainkit from getkirby.com, unzip it, and copy its kirby folder in next to index.php. Then upload the whole folder to your web root.

To look at it on your own machine first, run this inside the folder and open localhost:8000:

php -S localhost:8000 router.php

02 Make your Panel account

Open /panel on your site. The first time, Kirby asks for an email and a password and makes you the administrator. That account is stored in your own files — there is no service to sign up for.

The Kirby Panel login screen — After the first setup this is the screen you come back to.

On a live domain, Kirby requires HTTPS before it will let you install. If your host has not issued a certificate yet, do the setup locally first and upload site/accounts/ with the rest.

03 Find where the books live

Books live under the Library page, split into Drafts, In Review and Published. Only Published books appear on the shelf.

The Panel screen listing every book — The Library page. Drag the rows to reorder; the dot on the right is the status.

04 Add a book

Press Add, give it a title, and open it. These are the fields:

One book open in the Panel, showing its fields — One book: a title, a spine image, and the height that sets its size on the shelf.

Title: Used for the generated fallback spine, and for accessibility.
Spine image: One image of the spine only — not the cover. Its aspect ratio is preserved, so a thick book reads thick.
Spine height (mm): Relative height on the shelf. The tallest book in your set fills 90% of the screen; everything else scales against it.

Worth knowing. A book with no spine image still works — the template generates a Swiss-style spine from the title, so the shelf never looks half-built while you are still uploading.

05 Look at the site

Nothing to publish or rebuild — the front end reads the same files the Panel just wrote. Reload and it is there.

Library running with its demo content — The result. Spines fall in, settle, and can be thrown.

Colour. The page colour is one field on the Site screen — Background colour. Pick anything; text and buttons switch between a light and a dark look on their own.

06 Replace the demo content

The books that came with the template are original work and yours to keep, reuse or delete. Delete them from the Panel like any other page once your own are in.

Kirby CMS is licensed separately and is not included with this template. Check the current licence options and prices at getkirby.com before publishing your site.