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WordPress Installation

A working and up-to-date version of WordPress must be installed before you can install Protheme. If you need help installing WordPress, follow the WordPress Codex, or check our knowledge base.

Server Requirements

Consideration

Most of the issues users may experience are related to Server Requirements not respected.

Issues you may encounter, such as demo content importing fails, menu partially not saving, page not rendered correctly and other oddity are related to excessively low PHP configuration limit settings of the server.

Many hosts will try to keep the limits low to save their resources. These values are typically lower if you choose a low budget host.

System Status

Before starting, right after installing the theme, check your System Status.

The most important values you need to be compliant are:

• WP Memory Limit: the WP Memory Limit is the maximum amount of memory (RAM) that your site can use at one time. When you reach your Memory Limit, you’ll encounter a fatal error. (read more)
• Max Input Vars: the PHP Max Input Vars is the maximum number of variables your server can use. Lower values can create issues such lost data in your Theme Options, Widgets disappear etc. (read more)

Installation

WordPress Installation

1. Extract the archive package downloaded on ThemeForest.
2. In your WordPress admin panel, go to "Appearance" > "Themes".
3. Select the "Install Theme" tab at the top panel.
4. Choose the "Upload" option and upload the protheme.zip file.
5. Once you activate Protheme, you will be redirected to the "Welcome" page that features a System Status table.
   There you will see a button to install and activate the required & recommended plugins. If you see any red message about the Server Requirements not fulfilled please fix.
6. You must install all the required plugins if you want to import the demo data.
7. If you want to import the demo data, it is recommended to decline all plugin page installations to avoid duplicate content.

FTP Installation

1. Extract the archive package downloaded on Themeforest.
2. Via your FTP client, put the "protheme" folder in wp-content/themes/.
3. Once the upload is complete you can activate Protheme theme.
4. Follow the instructions from the paragraph above starting at point 5.

Save some time and use our custom installation services.

Get Installation Services

One-Click Demo Import

After installing and activating the theme, you will have a "blank" version of the theme with the defaults options and mods.

Importing the demo data is the easiest way to setup your theme. It will allow you to quickly edit everything instead of creating content from scratch. In Protheme, you can install the whole demo content through the "Import Demo Data" panel.

First of all, you must install all the required plugins after theme activation. You may be invited to install default plugin pages. You must decline all plugin page installations to avoid duplicated content. Once all your plugins are installed, go to the "Appearance" > "Import Demo Data" panel, choose your chosen demo and click the "Import" button and wait, it can take a few minutes.

Import Demo Content Manually

First download the demo data files here.

Upload the zip folder and extract it using an archiver (winrar, winzip etc..). You will find 3 files and a folder in the extratced archive.

1. content.xml - The file containing all pages, medias etc...
2. customizer.dat - The customizer settings
3. widgets.wie - The widgets settings

Import the content

1. In your admin panel, go to "Tools" > "Import"
2. Choose the WordPress option (last one)
3. Select the content.xml file
4. Hit the "upload file and import" button and follow the instructions

Note that some of our demo data files are huge and you may encounter issues if your server settings are too low, especially max_execution_time, post_max_size,  and upload_max_filesize settings (read more).

Import the customizer settings

On theme activation, all Customizer Mods are automatically set just like the demo. Still, you can reset them or upload a different set of Customizer Mods using Customizer Export/Import plugin.

1. In your admin panel, go to "Appearance" > "Customize" or click on the "Customize" link in your frontend admin bar
2. Navigate to the "Export/Import" tab
3. Click the "browse" button and select the customizer.dat file
4. Hit the "Import" button

Import the widgets

To import the widget settings you need Widget Importer & Exporter plugin.

1. In your admin panel, go to "Tools" > "Widget Export & Import"
2. Select the widgets.wie file
3. Hit the "Import" button

Theme Update

To update Protheme automatically, you can install Envato Market plugin.

You will be invited to install and activate this plugin on theme activation, so it is recommended to install it if you want to update the theme automatically.

Once the plugin is installed, simply go in the Envato Market admin panel and follow the instructions to connect your Envato account.

You will get notified in your admin dashboard every time a new version of Protheme is available. Simply follow the link in the notification message and update the theme is a single click in the Envato maket plugin page.

Header Options

You can choose how you want to display your header for each post in the "Header Options" below the main text editor.

This will overwrite the "Header Layout" settings from the Customizer.

1. By default, the featured image will be used as header background. If no featured image is set, the header image from the customizer header tab will be used (if set). If no featured image and no default header image is found, the header background will be a simple solid default color.

   

2. If you want a different header image than your featured image used as post thumbnail over the blog, simply choose the "Image" option in the dropdown field.

   

3. You can also choose a video or a slideshow as header background. In this case, simply set the desired option and fill the fields below accordingly.

   

For even more flexibility, and to create a custom header with any type of content to replace the in-built header, you can choose to hide the header completely and use a Content Block.

Home

To set a page as "Front page", go in the "WordPress Settings" > "Reading" panel and set the desired page as "Front page".

Create a Custom Home Page Header

Protheme offers the possibility to hide the default page header on certain pages using the header Options below your editor. This way, you can set your own custom page header using Visual Composer or even use Content Blocks to create a custom header for your page.

Full Screen Section

To create a full screen header section for your home page, insert a Visual Composer "Row" in your page and set the "Full height" option in the section setttings.

Set the background you want for your section and insert any element you want in the row.

Home Page Slider

If you prefer a slider as home page header you can use our "Advanced Slider" Visual Composer element or a "Revolution Slider".

In this case, no need to set your first section to "Full Height". You will be able to set the slider height in the "Advanced Slider" or "Revolution Slider" settings.

If you want your slider to take to full space in your section, select the "Full Width" option for your row.

We will see more page builder tricks in the Visual Composer section.

Blog

By default, when no pages are set in the WordPress "Settings" > "Reading" panel, your last posts will be displayed on your front page.

But here, we want to set a specific page for our blog.

To do so, create a page with no content and assign it as "Posts page" in the "reading" settings.

This particular page will used to display the blog archives, categories, tags etc...

Post formats

The Protheme blog supports all WordPress post formats. Post Formats allow you to display your posts differently depending on your content. In you post editor page, you can select which post format you want to use in the "Format" box, usually, at the right of your text editor.

Standard

It is the typical WordPress post. It will display the title, the featured image (if set) and the content below.

Image

A single image. The featured image will be used, and, on click, will open its full size version in a lightbox.

Gallery

The theme will look for the first gallery in your post content and use it as featured gallery.

Any gallery or slider will be considered as gallery.

Video

The first video URL will be considered the video.

You can use our Wolf Video Thumbnail Generator plugin to generate a thumbnail from any Vimeo or YouTube video automatically and use it as featured image. The script will look for the first YouTube or Vimeo URL in your post and generate a thumbnail. You should find the “Video Thumbnail” metabox above the “Featured Image” box.

Audio

An audio file. You can use the audio shortcode provided by WordPress using the media library ("Add media" button). You can also embed a soundloud song using WordPress embed feature by pasting your song soundcloud URL.

Link

A link to another site. The first URL in your post will be used and your post title will be linked to this URL.

Quote

The first quote of your post will be considered as the featured quote.

Status

Typically styled without a title. Similar to a Facebook note update. You can use this post pormat to display an embed tweet.

Aside

Same as status format

Chat

A chat transcript, like so:

John: foo
Mary: bar
John: foo 2

There isn't any specific style for the chat post format in Protheme.

Split your post

Firs, note that the more tag won't be used if you choose the "Auto excerpt" option in the customizer "Blog" tab or with certain blog layout.

You can split your post to add a "Continue reading →" link on the post index page.

To do so, use the WordPress more tag.

You can find the More Tag button in the first row of the visual editor

You can further customize the message that displays in the link to the full post content.
You will need to do this in the HTML view of your editor. Once you have changed to the HTML editor, look for this code: To customize the message, simply add a space after and turn it into something like this…

Single Post Options

You can choose how you want to display your post single view in the Post Options, just below your text editor.

Note that the "Featured" options will be used for the metro layout, to display a bigger post thumbnail for your post.

Google Fonts

With Protheme, you can load any Google font you like and use it for your menu, headings, text etc...

To load Google Fonts:

1. Go to the Google Fonts website and select the fonts you like.
2. Open the "Families Selected" frame at bottom right of your screen.

3. Copy the fonts list from the last part of the URL right after "?family="

   

4. Go to the "Appearance" > "Font Loader" panel and paste your fonts list.

   

Now, you will be able to select your Google fonts anywhere in the theme where a “fonts” option is available.

Typekit Fonts

You can also add any Typekit fonts to Protheme using Typypekit Fonts for WordPress plugin.

1. Install and activate Typypekit Fonts for WordPress plugin.
2. Go to "Settings" > "Typekit Fonts" and follow the instructions to import your font kit into your website.
3. Go to "Appearance" > "Font Loader" tab add your fonts separated by a "|" (i.e "Adobe Caslon Pro|Acumin Pro").

Now, you will be able to select your Typekit fonts anywhere in the theme where a “font” option is available.

Basics

Set a featured image

A post featured image is an image that you can upload to represent your post, page or other post type.

Set a featured image is very simple: In your text editor, click on "set a featured image" (usually the box at the bottom right), upload an image and click on "use as featured image" instead of "insert into post".

Create a gallery

To create a gallery in your post or page, first click on the "Add media" button at the top of your text editor.

When you open the Media Manager, you will be shown the files in your Media Library. If you’d like to create a gallery from those files, then you’re already where you need to be. Just click on "Create a gallery" on the left menu and select the files you’d like to include in your gallery. You can re-order you image as you wish, upload new files, add captions to your images etc...

Protheme comes with additional options for your galleries. Take a look at the right of your media manager: you will find some advanced settings to set your gallery layout.

WordPress embed

This WordPress feature allows you to display a media by simply paste its URL in your post.

For exemple, simply paste a youtube video URL into your post. WordPress will automatically turn that into a YouTube embed.

Learn more infos on the WordPress Codex page.

Page templates

If you use Visual Composer plugin to create your pages, you will have a lot options to set your page layout and you won't have to care about your the page templates.

But in case you want to create a page in the old fashion way, with the WordPress editor, you can choose between a few available page templates.

• Default Template

  The default template, with no specific style. The content is centered and takes 750px width for the best readability.

• Page Full Width

  A template where the content take a larger width that the default one : 1140px.

• Page with a Left Sidebar

• Page with a Right Sidebar

Visual Composer

Protheme comes with a tailored version of Visual Composer powered by the Wolf Visual Composer extension.

This VC extension, only available with Protheme, adds many additional elements and comes with a custom admin design.

Additionaly, Protheme also adds Visual Composer modules, so you can use VC to display your posts integrated in the theme design. We will see that later in this section.

To use Visual Composer for your page or post, be sure to click on the "Backend Editor" button at the top left of your WordPress text editor to switch to Page Builder mode.

Create a Row

The "Row" is the main Visual Composer container structure.

Each rows can be displayed differently: you can choose a background, a main Skin Tone - Light: dark font for light background or Dark: light font for dark background -, and the column layout you want to use.

Depending on the settings you choose, the design of the theme (row padding, margin etc..) will adapt automatically.

But if you wan to polish the row design even more, you can use the "Custom" tab to add your own padding and pargin settings and even add your own custom CSS.

Column settings

Columns are the second level container of the row. This is where you will insert your different elements. Just like rows, columns come with many settings to create advanced layout. For each column you can set a different background color tone etc...

You can check a few examples of what it's possible to do with the Row & Columns system on this demo page.

Elements

The Visual Composer elements are the actual content taht you can insert in your page. It includes, text blocks, icon box, cusotm headings, medias etc...

To insert an element in your column, click on the "+" icon in your column to open the VC elements window.

Use Visual Composer to Display Posts.

In the VC backend editor, click on "Add Element" and choose the "Posts", "Works" or "Products" elements.

You will be able to choose the layout and styling options for your post module.

Create a "Maintenance" or "Coming Soon" page

To create a page to use as "Maintenance" or "Coming Soon" page, create a page using VC with the elements you want to display (count down, newsletter subscribe form etc...) and use the Page Options below your text editor to hide the in-built header, footer and menu.

Once you're done, switch your website to maintenance mode.

Content Blocks

The "Content blocks" feature is an amazing system to create content that you can use as page fragments.

You can create a content block ("Content Block" > "Add New") using Visual Composer just like a regular page and then use it anywhere you want in different pages.

To do so, find the "Content Block" element , in the Visual Composer elements window and insert in your page.

Post-Header & Pre-Footer

With Protheme you can set content blocks as post-header and/or pre-footer area. It will display your choosen Content Block, just below the header, and/or just before the footer. Simply use the "Site Options" below your text editor.

...

Of course, you can use this feature to replace the in-built header or footer, by hiding the footer or header using the page options. This way you can, for example, create a cutsom footer for several pages and use the in-built footer on every other pages.

Portfolio

To create a "Portfolio" page, you must have Wolf Portfolio plugin installed.

Once the plugin is installed and activated, you will see a notification in your dashboard inviting you to create a page for your portfolio.

Simply click on the "Create Page" button and a page will be automatically created and assigned for the "Portfolio" page.

You can change the page you want to use as "Portfolio" page at any time in the "Portfolio" > "Settings" panel.

Note that any content in this page will be ignored.

For more flexibility, you can also create another page and use Visual Composer to display your works.

Add a work to your "Portfolio" page

To add a work to your "Portfolio" page, go to "Portfolio" > "Add New" and fill the "Release Details" box below the text editor. Additionally, you can insert any content to display on your release page.

One-Page Website

To create a one-page website there is 3 things you have to do for each Visual Composer row

1. First set a unique anchor name in your Visual Composer row settings.

2. Create a custom link menu item in your WordPress menu panel, and add your full main page URL with the anchor at the end.

3. Check the "scroll to anchor" option in your menu item settings.

WooCommerce

Protheme comes with WooCommerce integration, which allows you to build your online shop.

If WooCommerce is activated you will find a "Shop" tab in the Protheme customizer options. You can set your number of products per page and your shop layout there.

You can also use Visual Composer to display your products wherever you want.

You can check the complete WooCommerce documentation here:

http://docs.woothemes.com/documentation/plugins/woocommerce/getting-started/

Wishlist

Protheme comes with a wishlist feature for WooCommerce.

To create a "Wishlist" page, you must have Wolf WooCommerce Wishlist plugin installed.

Once the plugin is activated, you will get a notice that invites you to create a page for your wishlist. Simply click on the "Create Page" button and a page will be automatically created with the [wolf_wishlist] shortcode inserted.

To display a Wishlist icon link into your menu, go in the "Custmizer" > "Navigation" tab and check the "Add Wishlist Menu Item" option.

Maintenance Mode

To switch your website in maintenance mode you can download Wolf Maintenance plugin. It is ultra light and ultra simple to use.

Once the plugins installed, while you're working on your website, go in the admin > Tools >"Maintenance" panel and choose the page where you want to redirect all your visitors. For example a coming soon page.

When your website is ready to go, simply set the options to "Disabled" to put your whole website back online.