Optimal Theme Setup

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Here is some basic documentation to help setup your Theme. If you run into any issues, create a post in the Community Forums and we’ll be more than happy to help 🙂

Plugins

Below are the list of Plugins that we use in most of our Theme Demos. These plugins are free, and not required for the theme to work/function, but are useful if you want to add these features in your site.

Theme Customizer

The Theme Customizer allows you to change the design of your theme without using any code!

To get started, first head over to your WordPress Admin, then go to Appearance > Customize to access the Theme Customizer.

Here are the list of options you can change with the Customizer –

  • Logo/Header Image
  • Theme Colors – Automatically change Links, Buttons, and Homepage Backgrounds Colors.
  • Site Title & Tagline
  • Front Page Background Images
  • Menus
  • Widgets
  • Plenty More!

How to Change Home Page Background Images

If you’re Theme features background images in the demo, then you can change those images by using the Theme Customizer. To access the Customizer, head over to your WordPress Admin, then go to Appearance > Customize and you’ll see the options to change the background images under the Tab/Link labeled Front Page Background Images. From there you can change the background images of the homepage.

The default size of the demo images are 1800px width, and 1200px height. You can of course change this to whatever size you prefer for your site. Keep in mind, the images are designed to be large, full width and cover the entire area of each widget location.

How to Add Homepage Widgets

To activate a Widget Area, simply add any widget you want into it’s place. Once you do this, the Widget Area will activate and show up on your homepage.

If you don’t need to use all of the available widget locations on your homepage, leaving them blank will deactivate/prevent them from showing.

The same process works for your Sidebar Widget Areas as well.

How to Import Home Page Demo Widgets

A quick and easy way to setup the Homepage demo is to download and install a Plugin called “Widget Importer & Exporter” – https://wordpress.org/plugins/widget-importer-exporter/ Once installed, this plugin can import the Widget Content from the Demo’s Home Page automatically.

So by using this plugin, you won’t need to copy and paste the text and html code used from the demo since the plugin will automatically add it in your widgets for you.

We recommend this plugin since WordPress XML files won’t Import the Home Page Widgets from the Demo. The XML file will only import Posts, Pages, Categories, etc, but not Home Page Widgets. So in order to install the widgets all in “One Click“, you can use the plugin above and it will take care of the entire process for you.

You can download the Optimal Demo Widgets file here – https://www.dropbox.com/s/q5mrrp4r1mxmyrh/demo.appfinite.net-optimal-widgets.wie?dl=0

To import this file, install the Plugin, then go to the Tools > Widget Importer & Exporter link from your WordPress admin page. From there you’ll see the Import/Export option. Choose the Import Widgets option, and upload the file above.