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 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 "Flexible 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 > Flexible 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.
Your portfolio items are managed using the "Projects" custom post type. When you activate the theme, you will notice a new link in your WordPress Dashboard nav menu called "Projects." Here you can create new projects and project categories. To create a new category, click the Projects > Category link. To add a new project, click the Projects > Add New link.
Before you can add new projects, you will first need to upload some images to use in your portfolio. To upload images for use in your portfolio, click the Media > Add New link and upload all of your photos. Next create a new project by clicking Projects > Add new. Below the text editor your will notice a gallery of all your images. To add an image to your new project post, simply click on the thumbnail. You can also add videos to your post by inputting the youtube or vimeo URL into the "add video" field and clicking the Submit button.
Once you have created some projects, you can then choose which projects you would like to display on your homepage. To do so, navigate to the Appearances > Flexible Theme Options page and click the General Settings > Homepage tab. Under "Exclude categories from 'Recent Work' Section," choose which categories you would like to appear.
To create a new portfolio page, you will need to use the "Filterable Portfolio" page template. When creating a new page, choose the Filterable Portfolio page template from the Template dropdown menu. You will notice that some additional settings appear. Here you can choose which project categories to include in your page. Once published, all of the projects from the selected categories will appear on the page in gallery format.
The homepage will now display the most recent posts from your chosen category in the "Recent Works" section. Next you need to add a Thumbnail image to each post, as outlined in the "How do I add the thumbnails to my posts?" section above.
You can choose display a list of recent blog posts on your homepage. These posts will come from a specific category that you define in ePanel. To choose your blog category, navigate to the Appearances > Flexible Theme Options page in your WordPress Dashboard and click on the General Settings > Homepage tab. Look from the "From The Blog Section Category" setting and choose your desired category from the dropdown menu. Your homepage blog section will now display the most recent posts from that category.
Flexible 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 > Flexible 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 dropdown menu.
Flexible 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.
Flexible 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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