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.

Thumbnail images are added using Custom Fields. First you should make sure that you have Custom Fields enabled. While editing your post or page, click the "Screen Options" link on the top right of the screen and make sure that "Custom Fields" is checked. Next, scroll down below the text editor and locate the Custom Fields box. Under "Add New Custom Field," click the "Enter New" link. In the "Name" section, input the word "Thumbnail" (this is case sensitive). In the "Value" area, input the url to your thumbnail image. Your image will be automatically resized and cropped. The image must be hosted on your domain name.

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 uploading, 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.

This theme was made for gaming sites, but it certainly can be used for whatever you like. However, because a lot of gaming websites like to review games I decided to input a basic author rating system. The recent reviews section can be turned off from within the theme's options menu, you are not required to add review posts.

Whenever you make a post you can assign it a rating value. To do this create a custom field with the Name "rating" and a Value of how many stars you would like to give the post. Simply input any number between 0-5. (no decimals) Once you save your post a rating will appear on your post page as a star value. On the homepage, there is a section that displays recent reviews. This sections searchers through all your posts and gathers any post that has a rating assigned to it, and then displays the most recent 4 reviews in a descending fashion.

This theme can embed videos from other sources, but does not have a native video player. This means that you can only post videos that are taken from online video sources such as Youtube. When you make a new post you will need to add a custom field with the Key "Video" In the Value area just paste the embed code from your video host. For example, an embed code from youtube looks like this:

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/WneDU-K3Sww&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/WneDU-K3Sww&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

You will notice that some video hosts try to add in links to their website, you probably want to delete these. All you need is the object and or embed codes.

Important Note: There is a bug with the upgrade of WordPress 2.6 that adds random "/" to the embed code when you add it. For this reason you need to add the code twice. After you click "Add Custom Field" you will notice that the code in the value area refreshes and the "/" appear. After this occurs simply delete the embed code from the value area and paste in the original embed code again and then press the "update" button. If you don't do this the video won't show up.

Whenever you add a video to your post, using the method above, it will be displayed cleanly above your post content on single post pages. On the homepage there is a section called Recent Videos. This box searches through all your posts and gathers the ones that have a Video Custom Field assigned to them. It then displays the most recent video on the homepage. This section can be turned on and off from within the theme's options menu.

In this theme, the title/logo is an image, which means you will need an image editor to add your own text. You can do this by opening the blank logo image located at Photoshop Files/logo.jpg, or by opening the logo PSD file located at Photoshop Files/logo.psd. Replace the edited logo with the old logo by placing it in the following directory: theme/eGamer/images. If you need more room, or would like to edit the logo further, you can always do so by opening the original fully layered PSD file located at Photoshop Files/eGamer.psd

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 "Current Theme Options" to reveal the various theme options.

You sure can. The number of recent posts being displayed on the homepage can be changed at any time via the custom option pages in wp-admin.

The Featured Articles are pulled from a specific category. You can choose which category is used for the Featured Articles section via the Theme Options page in wp-admin. Under the General > Featured Articles section of ePanel (the elegant themes options page) you will see a dropdown menu where you can choose your featured articles category.

If you are starting from scratch, and installing Nova 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