Getting Started
Installing The Theme
Installing The Theme via WordPress Dashboard
To Install a Theme via WordPress Dashboard follow these steps:
- Go to your WordPress Admin Panel & Log in (Ex: http://yourwebsite.com/wp-admin)
- Go to Appearance -> Themes -> Add New
- From top, Click on Upload Theme
- Choose the ZIP file you’ve downloaded & Click Install Now
- Click on Activate to active the theme
If you are a visual learner, you can watch this video tutorial about How To Install a Theme
Installing The Theme via FTP
To install a WordPress Theme via FTP, follow these steps:
We will be using Filezilla
- Open Filezilla
- Enter the FTP account details provided by your web host in Host, Username & Password field
Host: Server hostname (FTP.yourdomain.com)
Username: Your Username
Password: Your Password - Once connected, you’ll see two panes.
Left Pane (Local Site): Shows the files on your computer
Right Pane (Remote Site): Shows the files currently on the web server. - Locate your root folder (Ex: public_html)
- Extract the theme file; drag & drop the unzipped theme folder to wp-content/themes directory.
- If you’re done uploading files, to disconnect just click the disconnect icon
- Activate the theme from Appearance -> Themes
If you are a visual learner, follow Video tutorial about How To Use FTP To Upload Files To WordPress
Theme Installation
Install theme via WordPress Admin Panel
1. Open WordPress admin panel (navigate through the web browser to the folder where you have installed the WordPress e.g. www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin/ ) and go Appearance > Themes on admin sidebar.
2. Click Add New link and click Upload Theme link.
3. Activate Whitish Lite theme.
4. Set Discussion settings in Settings > Discussion.
5. Change image sizes in Settings > Media.
6. You should ensure that a non-default permalink setting is selected, e.g. Post name in Settings > Permalinks.
Plugin Installation
Bulk Install Required and Recommended Plugins (recommended)
Whitish Lite comes with the ability to bulk install all* required and recommended plugins. Once you have activated the theme you will be prompted to install and activate the required and recommended plugins. Simply click Install “Begin installing plugins” and the process will begin.
Recommended Plugins
JETPACK: Jetpack is a single plugin that gives you the most powerful WordPress.com features, hooking your self-hosted WordPress site to WordPress.com’s infrastructure to take advantage of robust stats, easy social sharing, and a whole lot.
CONTACT FORM 7: Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.
PAGE BUILDER SANDWICH: Page Builder Sandwich is quite possibly the the last page builder you’ll ever need. With its front-end drag and drop capabilities, Page Builder Sandwich allows you to create and design your site the way your visitors see it. Get access to numerous features such as shortcode mapping, hassle-free and pop up-less editing, and more. With us, you’re sure to have a page building experience like no other.
WOOCOMMERCE: WooCommerce is a free eCommerce plugin that allows you to sell anything, beautifully. Built to integrate seamlessly with WordPress, WooCommerce is the world’s favorite eCommerce solution that gives both store owners and developers complete control.
Build Your Site
Before building your site you need to configure WordPress and the plugins. Please read carefully Theme Installation/Plugin Configuration.
For Building your site you need to look into:
- WordPress Configuration
- Customizer
- Menu Setup
- Posts
- Widgets
- Pages
WordPress Configuration
Adjust WordPress settings as follows:
1. Set Site Title in Settings > General.
2. Set Blog pages show at most in Settings > Reading.
3. Select Front Page and Posts Page in Settings > Reading.
4. Set Discussion settings in Settings > Discussion.
5. Change image sizes in Settings > Media.
6. You should ensure that a non-default permalink setting is selected, e.g. Post name in Settings > Permalinks.
Customization
You should configure customizer options in Customize on admin sidebar. Or you can choose customizer option from Appearance Menu in the dashboard.
A. WordPress Settings
All the settings like site title, tagline and logo, header image, background image and static front page under WordPress Settings.
B. Theme Options
The next option is “Theme Options” which has following sub-options.
- General Options
- Layout Options
- Display FrontPage Features
- Social Icons
- Custom CSS
- Footer Options
- General Options
This option lets you enable or disable search from the top menu, sticky menu, go to the top section, social icons on top and social icons on the bottom in your site. It also lets you reset all default settings.
- Layout Options
This option lets you choose blog layout (grid, list or single column), show or hide Meta in blog page, design layout (full width, boxed or small boxed)
- Display FrontPage Features
This option lets you choose three pages which you want to make featured on your site. You can add a title of this section and also enable or disable this section in the homepage.
- Social Options
You can add social media links on your site from this section.
- Custom CSS
Add CSS in this section to tweak the appearance of the site.
- Footer Options
You can add footer text and background image under footer options.
C. Slider Options
Slider options let you configure slider setting in your site for Front Page. There are further two options slider settings and display page slider.
One can enable or disable slider in homepage. If the slider is disabled, the header image is displayed instead of a slider. You can also add button text and link to the slider.
Display page slider lets you choose four pages whose featured images will be displayed as a slider.
D. Contact Us Page Option
This option lets you add contact information for you or your company on the site.
The form in the above screenshot is coming from contact form 7 plugin.
E. Color Options
Color options allow you to choose the color style, background color, nav, and links color, buttons reset/submit color and WooCommerce.
Posts
Posts
Creating posts
Step 1: Navigate to Posts in your WordPress admin sidebar.
Step 2: Click on the Add New option to make a new post. Create a title, and insert your post content in the editing field.
Step 3: Select Post Format from the right side.
Step 4: Add categories from the right side. To assign it to the post, check the box next to the category name.
Step 5: Add tags from the right side. Type the name of the tag in the field, separate multiple tags with commas.
Step 6: you can add featured image. To do so, first click the featured image box, select an image and click the set featured image button.
Pages
Pages
New pages can be added by clicking pages on admin dashboard and can be assigned to various templates on the right side.
Page Templates
There are various page templates that you can choose.
- Default Template (default page template)
- Gallery Template (Create image gallery page template. Tilled gallery from Jetpack should be activated)
- Contact Us Template (Contact template where Google map, contact form and other contact information can be added)
Menus
Menu
Whitish Lite has two menus “main menu” and “footer menu”. The former is shown in the top below the logo/site title and the latter is shown on the bottom of the site. To create a menu, navigate Appearance > Menu and click on “create menu”. Add pages, categories, posts etc. to the menu and assign the menu to “main menu” or “footer menu” and click “save menu”.
Widgets
Widgets
There are six widgetized areas in Whitish Lite. You can add widgets in the main sidebar which is displayed in homepage and other pages. In footer region, you can add widgets in four different widget areas. WooCommerce Sidebar is only activated if there’s WooCommerce plugin installed.