Four store themes and a stronger page editor

This is a written-up look back at 26 April to 9 May 2026, published on 12 October 2026. Period covered: 26 April - 9 May 2026. The lead feature of these two weeks is themes: a store's look that you can switch as a whole.

In short

• We built a theme system and decided that the first version ships with four themes: Neo-Brutalism, Botanical, Sketch and Playful Geometry.
• The page editor got a long list of tools: multi-select, rotate, crop, undo and redo, version history and an honest save indicator.
• Course generation was reworked so a long course is less likely to stall halfway.

Lead feature: four themes

A theme decides what buttons, cards, inputs, tabs and dialogs look like across the whole store. Before this, a creator who wanted a different feel had to change things one section at a time.

On 9 May we made a scope decision and wrote it into the code: the first release has four themes only.

• Neo-Brutalism: sharp corners, heavy outlines and hard shadows.
• Botanical: soft, organic shapes, italic emphasis and diffused shadows.
• Sketch: a paper-grain background with a hand-drawn feel and handwritten fonts.
• Playful Geometry: the default for a new store.

Three other styles we had been researching (Claymorphism, Flat Design and Material You) were deferred to a later version. We would rather ship four that work than seven that half work.

What the commits show for the theme work:

• Core building blocks such as buttons, cards, badges, inputs, tabs, dialogs and side sheets now read their look from the active theme.
• A new store starts on Playful Geometry. A theme picker was added to onboarding, a theme control to the inspector, and a switcher for our own admin team.
• Many storefront pages that buyers see were moved over so they follow the theme instead of fixed styling.
• The header got an elevation control: flat, soft, strong or floating.
• Internal checks and a performance budget per theme were added. That is not something you see, but it is part of why we kept the number small.

We have not tested these with creators outside the team, and we make no claim about how stores look in the wild.

What else we built

A stronger editor. The page editor gained tools you would expect from a design app:

• Select several elements at once, by clicking with a modifier key or dragging a box.
• Group, ungroup, duplicate a section, align and distribute evenly, lock a layer, hide a layer.
• Rotate with a handle, nudge with the keyboard, drag a column splitter.
• Copy and paste a style from one element to another, and pick a colour with an eyedropper.
• A right-click menu, a quick-jump search, a page mini-map and a help dialog that lists the shortcuts.
• Undo and redo buttons.

Image tools in the editor. Crop, a focal point so the important part stays in view, filter presets, an aspect-ratio lock, a size badge you can type into, and drag-and-drop to replace an image on the page.

Honest saving. The save indicator now says one of three things: Live, Saved as draft, or Saving. It used to say "Saved" in cases where the page was not yet visible to buyers. If you open the same page in two tabs, the editor asks whether to take over or continue read-only. A Save history panel lists earlier saves.

Page-level sliders. Three sliders for Motion, Density and Style, plus a floating badge you can add to a hero section, and a density preset from compact to cinematic. Hero sections let you turn individual elements on or off.

Text formatting. Formatting controls for each piece of text, applied across the editor.

More reliable course generation. Course creation became a staged process with fallbacks, so one failed step does not kill the whole course. Lessons are generated in parallel by module, and quiz generation is tracked in the interface while it runs. See the AI course generator.

Currencies and languages. The list of currencies grew to more than 135. Languages that are not translated yet now show "Coming soon" and the storefront switcher is locked to the default language, so the store does not advertise languages it cannot serve.

AI usage. A usage page in settings shows what the AI features consume, down to token level.

Feedback. The in-app bug report now takes a screenshot automatically.

What it means for a coach or academy

If you run a studio or a gym, the look of the store should match your brand without a designer. The theme system is the first step: pick one of four, and buttons and cards follow it. It will not fit every brand with only four options, and we say that plainly.

The honest save indicator matters most if several people edit a site. You will not be told a page is live when it is not. The editor changes matter mostly to the person who builds the pages; if you only run classes, you can ignore them.

What is next

The next fortnight, 10 to 23 May, followed the saving theme directly: drafts that are separate from the live page, with version history. We also started on landing pages and reviews. Plans and what they include are on the pricing page.

Want to talk? I am one of the co-founders of PersonaCart. If you have a question, an idea or something you want us to build, write to me directly: [email protected].

Vinod Morya, Co-founder, PersonaCart