Thank you for purchasing our theme. In case of any questions or doubts, do not hesitate to contact us via our Support Forum: http://support.apollo13.eu/. We will do our best to solve any problem concerning the project.
At the same time we invite you to visit often our profile on ThemeForest since there will be appearing the improvements of our project and the newest theme updates.
You have probably seen our demo page and this is why you bought this theme. To see most of this things in your page you will have to provide proper content for it, and here we will guide you how to achieve this.
Yes we have:-) Please visit http://blame.theme.apollo13.eu/features/narrated-tutorials/. We hope it will help you.
More info here.
If you see message like "The package could not be installed. The theme is missing the style.css stylesheet.", then be sure that you extracting ZIP file with theme from whole ZIP file you get from ThemeForest before trying to install.
More info here.
If you see empty front page after theme installation or message "Apologies, but no results were found for the requested archive. " it means you have to add some content or change front page to display something else.
You will have to add some posts/page or add some works and works list page. Next follow this section.
Check this section.
Check our plugins recommendations and how they should be configured in this section.
If you like to edit some CSS and JS, or maybe some theme behaviour you should check theme modification section.
Here will be important info for users that are updating theme and may encounter some problems or 'need to do' things:-)
Hopefully there will be no important info here, so no extra actions will be required.
Here we will write about bugs that for now don't have any solution. However we are trying to solve them:-)
Before you install or update theme it would be good that get familiar with Wordpress info about it. To install theme you can:
After that you will see new menu named Blame theme and that is where all fun begins :-) Also you will see Works and Galleries menus. We will talk about them later.
Before you proceed any further you will have to install required plugins by clicking link in top notification, check images below:
If you don't want to install all recommended plugins you can dismiss notice.
If some of embeded plugins fails on install you can go to blame/advanced/plugins
and install every plugin(zip file) from there manually, by wordpress panel http://codex.wordpress.org/Managing_Plugins#Installing_Plugins
To update theme you can either follow below description or try to use plugin from Envato named Envato WordPress Toolkit. Here is description how to use it http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/how-to-update-themeforest-themes-with-the-envato-wordpress-toolkit/.
As this theme is commercial one, for now we don't provide auto update option for theme, as this will lead to easily stealing our work. In future this may change, but for now updates are only available on ThemeForest in place where you have downloaded your first version of theme:-) Although WordPress will inform you about new version of theme, but you still will have to go to ThemeForest site.
When you got zip file with theme, best way to update theme is to use plugin such as http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/easy-theme-and-plugin-upgrades/.
If you have problems with updating theme from Wordpress admin panel, then delete theme (from panel or manually via FTP) and upload new version. It is same process as installing via FTP. You wont loose your theme settings. To do it:
If you have made some changes in theme files you will have to manually update(file after file) to keep your changes.
Remember to always backup your data before update!(or cry if you didn't and something went totally wrong)
Use of Easy Theme and Plugin Upgrades
Upgrading a Theme
After installing new theme version there is chance there will be needed some plugins updates. You will see similar notice like when installing theme:
If you dismissed previously notice about plugins, you also wont see it after theme update. To see it again you will have to deactivate and activate again theme. You can also check if there is menu Appearance->Install Plugins. If this menu option is available then go inside and check what need to be updated.
This time you will have to manually update each plugin by clicking update under each outdated(Not updated) plugin. Check below image:
It is good practice to set permalinks for your site. Go to Settings->Permalinks and set anything other then default seetings.
Check our plugin recommendations.
Next you should choose menu to use in theme. To do it follow this.
Next you should scan through Theme options to set everything you need.
If you really need to see your new site as our demo page, then this is section for you. This is why we provide sample data, if you like to see how it is all made from backend in admin page. If you are confused about options in theme, we advise to use it only to see how things are made. After that, you should clean your WordPress so you don't have any unwanted content ;-)
Since version 1.1.0 we provide one click import demo! You just go to Import & export->Import demo data and click Import demo data content. The process will then start and in few minutes you will have same version of theme as on our demo:-)
Only difference may be in plugins configuration, but this you can do alone following our instructions in plugin recommendations.
You need to know that It will also, probably, wipe any pages, posts and other theme settings that are in your site. So it is best to use on fresh Wordpress installation.
What exactly this button do?
You need to know it is pretty new function in our theme, and if you will face any issues with it then please come to our support forum. It will help us make better version that will work for any user.
Below is described old way of importing demo data:
But it would be simple if this will end here :-) Import will probably fail(cause of timeout while downloading images), so you will have to repeat above steps few times, till you get success message. After this fallow next steps:
Cause of server load and servers(yours and our) connection speed there can be issues while making full demo data import. When you select to download attachments there is possibility it won't make it in 30 seconds(default maximum execution time of PHP script). That is why you sometimes have to try many times before all data is downloaded to your server.
As there is ~90MB(of images and media) to download, multiple attempts with fails may produce some errors in imported data. This may cause site to not working at all or giving strange results.
To avoid it, but still get view on how sites are created, don't check Download and import file attachments while importing.
To install sliders from our demo go to Revolution Slider. and click Import Slider. In Dummy Data\Revolution Slider (Blame Demo)\ folder (in file downloaded from ThemeForest) you will find ZIP files with various sliders. You can import, as shown on image below, any file that you are interested in.
In Appearance->widgets menu you will see set of widgets. To use it just drag and drop them to sidebar you would like to see them. Available sidebars:
Available widgets:
Besides default Wordpress widgets, we also added:
We have also extended 3 other widgets. In case of these widgets use these prefixed with Blame - :
We have also prepared special footer area for twitter widget. You should only insert there one widget to make it work. It is compatible with Twitter Widget Pro.
To use Flickr widget styled as in our theme you will have to install plugin Quick Flickr Widget.
In our theme we use page builder. It is part of Visual Composer plugin. Using it is very easy and intuitive. Documentation for it can be find here.
You can also see it in action by watching this movie
By default builder is only available in pages, but you can change this in its settings. However pages will take most benefit from using builder as they have special options for it.
To see available things that are made with shortcodes and page builder check http://blame.theme.apollo13.eu/shortcodes/accordions-tabs-faq/ and select category from submenu.
To switch to builder while making page click button Visual Composer:
Also whenever you don't see some option in builder that you think should be available, please check plugin options as shown on image below. Often after activating some 3rd party plugin like contact 7 form you will have to enable its option in builder.
To see these settings go to Settings->Visual Composer
Most fundamental part of builder is Row element. By editing it properties you can gain various effects, like:
To edit properties of a row or any element, click pencil icon of it. See image below
You will find here following options
You have also separate tab with video background options(Not working in IE 8).
Animation option can be found in various elements like single images or text blocks, so scroll options of element carefully to find it;-)
To make frontpage and Blog work as it should you have to follow this steps:
To select what should be visible on front page go to General menu
Also if you want to add Blog as separate page just go to Appearance->Menus and add selected Posts page to menu.
With these settings you can setup your front page easily, but there are few things you need to be aware:
If you are not familiar with adding posts in WordPress please read http://codex.wordpress.org/Writing_Posts
Adding posts is same as always in WordPress, but with few tweaks.
Extra options for posts are:
If in Blame theme->Blog->Type of post excerpts is set to Auto, then If while writing posts you won't use more tag then theme will use excerpt feature. Excerpt are made automatically, but you can also specify what will be displayed. Just find Excerpt box, and type text you wish Read more.
If you won't give excerpt either, then post will be cut after first 30 words. This number can be changed in Blame theme->Blog->Number of words to cut post.
Our theme supports also Post Formats. In implementing them we are following general guidelines from Wordpress.
If you are not familiar with adding pages in WordPress please read http://codex.wordpress.org/Pages
Adding pages is same as always in WordPress, but with few tweaks. Mainly you can use page builder
Extra options for pages are:
fa-coffee
. To add more icons separate them with white space.If you arrange sites in children/parent then you can display this order in sidebar of each page. Below you can see on image how it looks in wild:
Before you start anything below, it is good to visit Works menu
To add Works list to your site first you need to create Works list page:
If you wish to use front page as Works list then settings for Works list page you will find in page you defined as front page in here.
Adding new work is pretty easy. First you should set title and Featured image as it is cover of your work which is visible on Works list page.
Next you can fill description about this work by using main editor. You have to set some settings also, lets check what we have there:
Next it is time to add some photos & videos to present our work. Lets check screen below:
In case of Slider(by default) and Full width photos images are loaded in full size(same as uploaded). Important thing here is to keep images in rational dimensions cause uploading here 10MB file could kill user transfer when viewing single work. And what would happen if you would have 20 images with 10MB each... :-)
Here is cite from our user about uploading too big photos, it is from our forum:
That is a real shame. For any other photographers that might read this post, there are two very important reasons to keep the images a reasonable size:
1) Loading time. The last thing you want when an agent or client is viewing your portfolio is for them to have to wait more than a split second for an image to load. With a 3MB image and even a reasonable connection speed these people will quickly move on and find another photographer for the job (especially if you have a number of images in your portfolio).
2) Discourage theft of your images. An 800px image will print at 300dpi on a 4x6 but no larger. This makes it more difficult for anyone to use your images without permission or payment. If you provide a 3MB image, you are asking for your work to be stolen. This happens ALL THE TIME.
JackieR0
You can create multiple works list if you wish. To do it, first you have to assign your works to different categories. You can do it by choosing categories while adding work, like you can see on image below:
All your genres can be find in Works->Categories
After you assigned different works to different categories you may want to add this Works list to menu. To do it go to Appearance->Menus and be sure to activate adding Work Categories to menu, just like you can see on image below.
If you are using multiple Works list then template for Works list will display all your works with filter, so you can view them by genre.
For adding Galleries list please follow adding of Works list but while reading please CHANGE all words like "work", "Works" with "gallery", "galleries". It is exactly same process.
There are two type of galleries:
Here we will talk about second type.
Adding new gallery is pretty easy. First you should set title and Featured image as it is cover of your gallery which is visible on Galleries list page.
Next you have to set some settings also, lets check what we have there:
Next we will have to add some items to our gallery, but it is exactly same process like in case of works, so please follow this section.
To add contact page simply create new page and from templates choose one of Contact templates. You have one with full width map(displayed above sidebar and content) and normal in content map. Please also check out Contact page menu for more settings.
Theme is prepared for translation, so it will just require some time for you to see our theme in your language(if it isn't translated to it yet). If you are not using any plugin for translations like WPML, then keep on reading. Important files you will find in theme directory in blame/languages/default.po
This file should be opened in program like Poedit and translated. After everything is done you have to save your translation with proper name. Names for each country can be found here (in parenthesis in titles). So for example for German - Deutsch you should save files as de_DE and get 2 files: de_DE.po and de_DE.mo.
Copy these files to blame/languages
At end you have to go to your Admin Panel, Settings-> General-> Site Language and set your language.
After that if everything went fine, you will see theme in your language:-)
In every update, file default.po may change as we may add some new functions or fix some spelling, but you can use your old translation to get most of work done.
Good article about translating theme can be found in http://www.solostream.com/blog/tutorials/translate-wordpress-theme/
Also good to read is http://codex.wordpress.org/Translating_WordPress
There is also file with translation in backend area in blame/languages/admin/default.po. You can edit it by following same process.
Here we post image where to type translated texts in Poedit, as not everyone get it right away.
Many of you may be tempted to edit theme files, but by doing so you block yourself from geting updates of theme, as you will loose your changes when you update theme. Fortunately there is solution - making child theme. Even WordPress team advice this as best solution:-)
Anyone intrested in this should read http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes
But lets check how to do it with this theme.
In file downloaded form ThemeForest there is attached sampel child theme, so you can start changing theme even faster. To install it follow this steps:
Now you can overwrite styles, theme functions and even whole templates. Lets check some examples.
If you want to change color and font size of content area you just have to edit style.css in child theme and add:
#content { color: #000; font-size: 20px; }
Now you have black big text :-)
Good tool to detect what should you change and where is Firebug for firefox. Here is tutorial how to use it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe1nqI4fNRc. Any browser has similar tool(under F12 key you can call it).
For changes in css you can also use special area in theme Blame theme->Custom CSS. There you can insert your custom css.
In this theme default stylesheet is loaded from main theme, and then you can overwrite CSS rules in style.css in child theme. After this comes user.css with changes set in admin panel. So finally it loads in this order:
1. main theme style.css
2. child theme style.css
3. user.css(settings form admin panel)
4. Custom css from panel(it is added at end of user.css)
This is not real example, and it wont work with this theme. It is only here to demonstrate the idea.
Another example, you may wish to change info that is displayed under title of each post(date, author, categories, tags) so you have to define your own version of a13_post_info() function. Lets say you wish to remove tags from that list. Just open functions.php in child theme and drop this code:
function a13_post_info() { ?> <div class="post-info"> <span class="categories"><?php _fe('Category' ); ?>: <?php a13_posted_in( ', ' ); ?></span> <?php echo ' <span class="comments"><a href="' . get_comments_link() . '" title="' . sprintf(__fe( '%d Comment(s)' ), get_comments_number()) . '">' . sprintf(__fe( '%d Comment(s)' ), get_comments_number()) . '</a></span>'; ?> <?php edit_post_link( __fe( 'Edit' ) ); ?> </div> <?php }
You have now overwritten main theme function, and your version will be loaded.
Most interesting functions you will find in advance/utilities.php(in main theme) , but there is more functions that you can change in child theme. All functions that can be overwritten has before its definition code: if(!function_exists('function_name'))
. If you wish to change other functions ask on our forum for support in that case or just don't bother with child theme and change main theme(if you understand implications;-) ).
In case of any questions or doubts, do not hesitate to contact us via our Support Forum http://support.apollo13.eu/
Instruction how to get Purchase Code:
Thumb name | Default size(width x height) | Can be changed? | Where used |
---|---|---|---|
sidebar-size | 100 x 100 | no |
In sidebar for posts/works Posts navigation Thumbs for Jackbox ligthbox |
apollo-post-thumb | 810 x auto | no | featured image in post & pages with sidebar |
apollo-post-thumb-big | 1080 x auto | no | featured image in post & pages without sidebar |
apollo-post-short_list | 450 x auto | no | Blog in short list variant |
apollo-post-brick | 500 x 360 | no | Similar posts in post |
apollo-post-masonry_blog | 576 x auto* | yes | Blog in masonry variant |
cpt-cover-big | 525 x 380 | no |
Works list in Big size images variant Galleries list in Big size images variant |
cpt-cover-medium | 340 x 245 | no |
Works list in Medium size images variant Galleries list in Medium size images variant Similar works in single work |
cpt-cover-small | 250 x 180 | no |
Works list in Small size images variant Galleries list in Small size images variant |
work-cover-fluid | 504 x 384* | yes | Works list in Fluid size variant |
work-scroller-image | auto x 500 | yes | Scroller in single work |
work-slider-image | auto x 400 | yes | Slider in single work/td> |
gallery-cover-fluid | 504 x 384* | yes | Galleries list in Fluid size variant |
gallery-bricks | 408 x 312* | yes | Single gallery in bricks variant |
gallery-slider-image | auto x 640 | yes | Slider in single gallery |
* images have 120% size of what is set in panel. Thanks to that zoom effect doesn't look that bad on High DPI screens
Theme support Youtube and Vimeo videos, and also HTML 5 types.
For youtube best to use links as : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JByDbPn6A1o
For vimeo best to use links as: http://vimeo.com/12280336
Any other link will be treated as HTML 5 video. Browsers that understand the HTML5 tag will display MPEG/H.264 (.mp4) files, VP8/webm (.webm), or Ogg/Theora (.ogv) files. Other browsers can use Flash to play the .mp4 or .flv.
Here you can see recommended by us plugins, that works well with this theme, and also you can see recommended configuration for these plugins, so it is worth to see:-)
You can get it from http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/addthis/.
AddThis is social plugin that will provide support for social media in your blog and works. Install plugin, configure its options, and you are ready. We done already things that if should look nice with our theme.
We advise to turn off top sharing tool. See screen shot
You can get it from http://wordpress.org/plugins/breadcrumb-navxt/.
If you want to see bradcrumbs like on our demo you might want to install this plugin.
To use nice separator insert this below code in Breadcrumb Separator
<span class="sep fa fa-caret-right"></span>
Do you have problems with spam from comments form? Install and activate this captcha plugin http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/captcha/
Styles for it are prepared in theme:-)
Here is sample configuration:
You can get it from http://wordpress.org/plugins/contact-form-7/.
It is best plugin for preparing contact form. Here you will find plugin documentation - http://contactform7.com/docs/
To use Filckr widget styled as in our theme you will have to install plugin Quick Flickr Widget.
You are worried about image quality for your retina(or alike) users? To support such users you can use this great plugin http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-retina-2x/faq/ . It will serve better quality images for high DPI screens.
You can get it from http://wordpress.org/plugins/infinite-scroll/.
To activate lazy load on blog you will need to install this plugin. Below you will find list and screen shot of needed settings
This plugin is included in our theme, you will just have to install it while activating theme.
If you aren't familiar with this plugin please check its documentation
To make full width responsive slider set everything like on image below:
We have prepared some styles for "Like" plugin so it looks nice with this theme. If you would like to use it install and activate this plugin http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/i-recommend-this/
Here is recommended configuration of this plugin to work best with our theme:
Thsi plugin adds newsletter widget. You can get it from http://wordpress.org/plugins/mailchimp-for-wp/
Here is recommended configuration of this plugin to work best with our theme:
You can get it from http://wordpress.org/plugins/post-types-order/.
If you wish to reorder posts, works or galleries differently, then this plugin is for you.
This plugin is included in our theme, you will just have to install it while activating theme.
If you aren't familiar with this plugin please check its documentation
If after changing some theme settings(conected to image sizes) images look weird, then you may have to regenarate thumbanails.
To do that you will have to use some plugin, we advice AJAX Thumbnail Rebuild. Just "Upload the plugin to your blog, activate it, done. You can then rebuild all thumbnails in the tools section (Tools -> Rebuild Thumbnails)." (copied from plugin page).
Sometimes it will be time saving to check to only rebuild featured images:
If you want to regenerate single images then you might want to use Regenerate Thumbnails plugin.
If you aren't familiar with this plugin please check its documentation
You can get it from http://wordpress.org/plugins/testimonials-by-woothemes/.
You can get it from http://wordpress.org/plugins/twitter-widget-pro/.
If you wish to add your feeds to sidebar this widget is good choice:-)
To use you will have to provide twitter account info as explained in plugin instructions.
This plugin is commercial one, but widely used by Wordpress community. Thanks to it you can work with different languages on your page. It is required if you wish to see language switcher. You can get it from http://wpml.org/.
You can get it from http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-paginate/installation/.
For blog and archives you can either use theme native pagination or enable this plugin and gain some more controll at it. You just need to install plugin and activate it. Also it would be good if you disable defult plugin stylesheet like shown on image below.
The scripts and plugins used is the project:
- jQuery (http://jquery.com)
- Modernizr (http://modernizr.com/)
- Masonry (http://masonry.desandro.com/)
- jQuery resize event (http://benalman.com/projects/jquery-resize-plugin/)
- VideoJS (http://videojs.com/)
- hoverIntent (http://cherne.net/brian/resources/jquery.hoverIntent.html)
- jQuery mouseWheel Brandon Aaron (http://brandonaaron.net)
- FitVids.js ( http://jquery.fitvids.min.js)
- Jackbox(extended license) (http://www.codingjack.com)
- Automatic Updates For Private And Commercial Themes (http://w-shadow.com/blog/2011/06/02/automatic-updates-for-commercial-themes/)
- HTML5 Boilerplate (http://html5boilerplate.com/)
- Font Awesome (http://fortawesome.github.io/Font-Awesome/)
and lots of internet wisdom out there. Thanks a lot everybody!
Once again, thank you so much for purchasing this theme. As we said at the beginning, we'd be glad to help you if you have any questions relating to this theme. No guarantees, but we'll do our best to assist.
Apollo13 Team
Socials options
Here you provide links to social profiles you have. Nothing new :-) What you set here will be displayed in Apollo13 Social Icons widget
You can drag & drop social items to set them in order you wish to see on your page.
Only filled inputs will activate each social icon. Not filled = not shown :-)