Default Group Home page

The setup your community/group widget would need to be removed, then you can set a default layout ad widgets for the group.  The way the setup widget works, it would overwrite any reconfigured layout based on what was setup.

But after you run the setup the home page for that group becomes a customized home page for that group. And that home page has a layout and widgets in it. The layout and widgets for that custom home page came from some configuration somewhere. I was thinking that maybe it was defined in the template-group-home-groups.xml file that is in the Setup your community/group widget. But that doesn't seem to be it. 

I have discussed changing the Group Theme default page to be the page layout we want, but my business owner likes the group creation automation of the Setup widget. But it leaves him having to change the home page settings for every site after the setup is complete. The other page templates are fine because those we can set in the default group theme.

Unfortunately it's one or the other.

Actually I don't think so. I had been looking at the wrong XML file in the Setup your community/group widget. I should have looked at template-group-home-default.xml rather that template-group-home-groups.xml. I updated that file with the widgets I wanted and saved the Setup your community/group widget. Then created a new group using the setup widget. The resulting home page had the new widgets I added in the template-group-home-default.xml file of the setup widget. 

Keep in mind modifying the XML directly is likely is not upgrade safe and may be unsupported.

So you're implying that the XML in that widget is updated automatically by the application? I understand that modifying any standard widget has risks when applying a patch or upgrading. But I am not aware of any widgets that have their code updated dynamically. Applying configurations yes, but not actually changing the widget code. Is that what you are saying is happening with this widget? If so, it must be happening when you edit the default group theme and save. Is that the case? 

So you're implying that the XML in that widget is updated automatically by the application? I understand that modifying any standard widget has risks when applying a patch or upgrading. But I am not aware of any widgets that have their code updated dynamically. Applying configurations yes, but not actually changing the widget code. Is that what you are saying is happening with this widget? If so, it must be happening when you edit the default group theme and save. Is that the case? 

My Apologies, I was thinking you were editing a widget directly in the file system xml vs through Widget Studio.  You should be fine with those changes.