Envisioned Theme Documentation

How to install 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.

Adding thumbnails (aka "featured images") to your posts

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.

Defining a Custom Logo Image

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.

How do I manage advertisements on my blog?

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 "Envisioned 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.

Creating a Gallery

Envisioned uses page templates to create its galleries. To create a new gallery, the first thing you will need to do is create a new page. After it as been created, locate the "Template" dropdown menu to the right of the WP Text Editor while editing your post. From this dropdown menu, select the "Portfolio" page template. Once selected, you will notice that a new settings box is loaded below the dropdown menu. This settings box is used to configure your new gallery. The portfolio works by aggregating a list of posts from a certain category (or combination of categories). Each post represents a single gallery item (which can be either a photo or a video).

The "ET Page Templates Settings" box that appears after selecting the Portfolio page template gives you several options. Here you can choose to remove the sidebar from your page (by selected the "Full Width Page" box). You can choose to remove the Titles/Descriptions from each gallery item (by deselecting the "Show Titles/Descriptions" check boxes). You can also choose to allow the theme to automatically detect the orientation of each of your gallery photos. If the "Detect Portrait Images" option is selected, then all of your portrait image will be displayed in portrait mode in the gallery. If this option is not selected, then all posts will be cropped to a uniform landscape size. This looks a little nicer, but you sacrifice pieces of your portrait images when viewing the thumbnails in the gallery.

Next you will need to define what actually shows up in your gallery. From within the settings box, locate the "Select gallery categories" section and check which categories you would like to include in your portfolio. When you select a category, every post from that category will show up as a thumbnail image on your gallery page.

Now that your gallery has been populated with posts, the next step is to define a Photo and/or a Video for each. Edit one of the posts within your gallery category. When you edit your post, you will notice that some additional options have been added below the text editor. Here you can choose what type of post you are creating. If you are creating a "Photo" post, then check the "Photo" box. Next you will need to define an image for your post by adding the "Thumbnail" custom field as outlined in the "How do I add the thumbnails to my posts?" section above. If you would like to add a Video to the gallery item, then you would check "Video" instead. Then simply input the URL to your video in the "Video url" field below. The theme supports embedding videos from popular video hosts such as youtube. So if you wanted to embed this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkGeOWYOFoA) then you would simply input that URL in the "Video url" field. Even if you are creating a Video post, you still need to add a Thumbnail custom field to create a thumbnail image for your video post.

How do I set up the featured slider on the homepage?

The featured slider can be set up using two different methods. You can either popular the tabs using Pages, or you can popular it using posts from a designated category. In the Appearances > Envisioned 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 add content to the slider, you will need to add a Thumbnail image to each page/post as outlined in the "How do I add the thumbnails to my posts?" above. You can also add Video to each post as outlined in the "Adding video to your posts" section above.

The slider must have at least 3 slides to function properly. More slides are recommended to ensure that the animations are pleasing on larger screens.

How do I set up the two blurbs on the homepage, below the slider?

These blurbs are created using pages. Create two pages that you would like to use for these two blurbs, then go to the Appearances > Envisioned Theme Options page and click the General Settings > Homepage tab. Under the Content Area 1/2 dropdown menus, choose the two pages you would like to use. Within the pages you can use a "more" tag to truncate the post preview.

Next you will need to assign an Icon image to each blurb. This works just like Thumbnail images, except you use the custom field name "Icon" instead. So create a custom field for each page with the name of "Icon" and a value of the icon image you would like to use. Icons must not exceed 36x36 pixels to ensure optimum display.

How do I add a blog section?

To create a blog, all you need to do is create a new category and add posts to it. Because the theme uses Page Templates to create its galleries, the default category layout is already in blog-style mode.

Using Sample Data to populate your first installation

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.

Using Shortcodes - Create advanced layouts with ease

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/

Using Page Templates To Create Advanced Layouts

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.

Translating The Theme To Another Language

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

How To Update Your Theme To A New Version

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.