Learn how to use your new theme
Before you can upload your theme, you first need to download the theme package from the Elegant Themes Members Area. Log in and locate your desired theme on the list and click the "download" link. There will be two download options: Theme Package and PSD Files. Click the "Theme Package" link to download the theme. Next you must upload the .ZIP file you just downloaded to your website via the WordPress Dashboard. Log in to wp-admin and click the Appearances > Themes tab. Next click the "Install Themes" button and then click the "Upload" link. Click "Choose File" and locate the .ZIP file you just downloaded and click "Install Now." Once then theme has been uploaded, you can activate it from within the Appearances > Themes tab.
For each post, you can define an image that will be displayed along with your content on Posts and Category pages. Thumbnail images (aka Featured Images) are added using the "Featured Image" option within your WordPress Dashboard. Whenever you create or edit a post, look for the "Featured Image" box. This box will be located to the right of your text editor or below your text editor depending on the size of your screen. Click the "Set featured image" link and upload the image that you would like to use. Once uploaded, scroll down and select "Full Size" as your image size, and then click the "Use as featured image" link. This image will now be used as your Thumbnail image for the post.
Important Note: The WordPress thumbnail function re-sizes the image you upload based on what thumbnail sizes are needed for your theme. Each time you change a theme, you may need to re-generate these thumbnails so that they fit your new theme correctly. You can use the Regenerate Thumbnails plugin each time you switch themes to re-generate your thumbnails. After enabling this theme, you should run this plugin to update all of your old thumbnails to avoid design inconsistencies.
You can define your own logo image from within the ePanel theme options page in your WordPress Dashboard. Within ePanel, under the General Settings > General tab, locate the "Logo" field. In the field, input the full URL to your logo image. You can use the "Upload Image" button below the field to upload your logo image if haven't already done so. After installing, copy and paste the URL to the file into the field and click "Save" to save your ePanel settings.
If you don't already have a logo image, then you can use the included logo.psd file as a starting point. If you have Photoshop, this file can be opened and the logo's text can be easily edited using Photoshop's type tool. If you don't have Photoshop, then you can use included logo_blank.png file as a blank canvas in a different graphic design program. These files (logo.psd and logo_blank.png) are located within the Theme Package inside the /psd/ folder.You can change the images used in each of the advertisements, as well as which URL each ad points to, through the custom option pages found in wp-admin. Once logged in to the wordpress admin panel, click "Design" and then "Feather Theme Options" to reveal the various theme options. You can also use the 125x125 advertisement widget by adding the ET: Advertisement widget to your sidebar, and filling in the required fields.
The featured slider can be set up using two different methods. You can either populate the tabs using Pages, or you can populate it using posts from a designated category. In the Appearances > Feather Theme Options page in wp-admin, under the General Settings > Featured Slider tab, you will see an option that says "Use Pages." If you select this option then pages will be used, if you don't then posts will be used. If you want to use Pages then you simply select "Use Pages," and then below the option select which pages you would like to display in the slider. If you don't use pages, then simply select the "Featured Category" from the dropdown menu and posts from that category will be added to the slider.
After you have chosen which posts/pages will be added to your slider you can adjust the content that appears in each slide via the custom write panels that have been added below the text editor. When your write your post/page, you will notice that some new options have been added below the text editor. When editing a page that is in your slider, select the "This page is Featured" checkbox. Doing so will reveal a new set of options that can be edited, all of which pertain to the various elements in the slider. Fill in these fields to edit the slide's title, tagline, image, button text and button destination URL. Furthermore, you can switch between 5 slide variations via the "Featured Slider" dropdown menu.
The slide variations dropdown menu allows you to give each of your slides a unique look. You can choose to add an image to your to your slide, a video, or text-only. You can also choose whether your slide's image appears on the left or right of the slide and whether or not you want to give your image a border. If, for example, you would like to use a transparent PNG image with no border then you would select the "PNG Image on the left" slide type.Once you choose your slide type you will need to fill in the rest of the fields that pertain to that slide. For example, if you chose the "Image/Video on the left" slide, then you would need fill in the "Video URL" field or the "Video Embed Code" field to embed a video into the slide. To add an image to the slide you should use either the Thumbnail custom field or the Featured Image link as outlined in the "Adding Thumbnails Images To Posts" tutorial above.
Each item in the recent works on the homepage comes from a post. All of these posts are pulled from a single category that is defined within the ePanel theme options. The first thing you need to do is choose which category you would like to pull your posts from. To do this, navigate to the Appearances > Feather Theme Options page and click on the General Settings > Homepage tab. Look for the "Exclude categories from Recent Works section" field and select, with a green checkmark, which categories you would like to display in the media bar.
Next you will need to add "media" to each of the posts within those categories. To add an image to the media bar, you simply need to add the Thumbnail custom field to each of the posts as outlined in the "Adding Thumbnails Images To Posts" tutorial above.
Finally, you can customize the text that appears to the left of the works from within ePanel. Under the Generals Settings > Homepage tab, edit the text within the "Recent Work Section description" field.
These blurbs are created using pages. Create three pages that you would like to use for these three blurbs, then go to the Appearances > Feather Theme Options page and click the General Settings > Homepage tab. Under the "Content Area Page 1/2/3/4" dropdown menus, choose the three pages you would like to use. Within the pages you can use a "more" tag to truncate the homepage text.
You can also add an image to each blurb. To do this, simply add the Thumbnail custom field to the page as outlined in the "How do I add the thumbnails to my posts?" section above.
Finally, you can customize the text that appears to the left of the works from within ePanel. Under the Generals Settings > Homepage tab, edit the text within the "Recent Blog Posts Section description" field.
Feather makes it easy to change what fonts are used in the theme. You can change the Header and Body fonts independently from within the Appearances > Feather Theme Options page under the General Settings > General tab. Look for the "Header Font" and "Body Font" settings and select your desired font from the dropddow menu.
Feather comes with loads of background options. You can change the background color as well as choose from various overlay patterns to give your background a unique look. To adjust the background color of your theme, adjust the "Background Color" setting in ePanel located under the General Settings > General tab. When you click the field, a color wheel will pop up allowing you to choose any color.
Next you can choose a background texture via the "Background Texture" setting located in the General Settings > General Tab of ePanel. You can also upload your own background image via the "Background Image" option.
Feather comes with a nifty customization control panel that allows you to adjust the visual elements of your theme on the fly. This control panel makes it easier to choose great colorschemes, instead of having to adjust colors one-by-one in ePanel, and having to save/preview along the way. To enable the control panel, locate the "Show Control Panel" option in the General Settings > General Tab of ePanel. Once enabled, a settings box will appear on the left hand side of your screen when browser your website. Use the various settings to adjust your theme's colors until you have found a combination that pleases you. Then simply add the color values you have chosen into ePanel and turn off the control panel to finalize your setup.
If you are starting from scratch, and installing your theme onto a WordPress blog that does not have any content yet (posts, pages, categories, etc), then you can choose to import our sample data file, which will populate your new WorPress blog with "dummy content." This dummy content is just a bunch of gibberish text, however, it will give you a good template to work with. Instead of following the above instructions, some people prefer to simply upload the sample data first, and then replace the dummy content with their own. To do this, you can use the Tools > Import feature in wp-admin to import the included sample data file. This sample data file comes with all themes, and is located in your theme folder here: sampledata/sample.xml. When performing the import procedure, be sure to check the "Import epanel settings" box.
All of our themes come with a comprehensive collection of shortcodes. These shortcodes allow you to use pre-made design elements to create advanced page/post layouts without any HTML knowledge. When you install the theme, you will notice that some new buttons have been added to the WordPress text editor. Clicking these buttons will reveal options for adding shortcodes to your post. For complete shortcode documentation you can refer to the video on the left, as well as the following documentation page: http://www.elegantthemes.com/preview/TheProfessional/357-2/
All of our themes come with a collection of page templates that can be used for a variety of purposes. You can apply each of these page templates to any page that you have created. When you edit a page in wp-admin, you will notice a Templates dropdown menu to the right of the text editor. Here you can select from a list of available page templates. Once a template is selected, additional settings will appear in the "ET Page Templates Settings" box below the dropdown menu. These settings should be configured to acheive the desired result, as outlined in this video tutorial.
You can use the included Mo and Po files (located in the /lang folder of your theme) to translate the various English words that occur throughout the design. You can learn more about translating WordPress here: Translating WordPress
Updating your theme is done via the WordPress Dashboard just like any normal theme. Before you can update, however, you must first authenticate your Elegant Themes subscription using the Elegant Themes Updater Plugin. Once authenticated, you can update your Elegant Themes using the standard update interface in WordPress.
To authenticate your WordPress installation, you must first download and install the Elegant Themes Updater. Download the ZIP file here, and then install it via the Plugins > Add New link in your WordPress Dashboard. Once it has been installed and activated, navigate to the Settings > General tab and scroll to the bottom of the page. You will notice that a new section has been added called "Elegant Themes Automatic Update Settings." Here you will need to input your Elegant Themes Username as your Elegant Themes API Key. You can find your Elegant Themes API Key here. Once both fields have been filled in, click the "Save Changes" button. You can now update your theme when a new version has been released via the Dashboard > Updates page, or via the Appearances > Themes page.
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