How To

Setting up the homepage

Below is a screenshot of the Simplicity home page with each of it’s modules explained. More detailed documentation below.

The home page of Simplicity is largely widget based, with 4 regions available for placement of custom woo widgets in the footer and 1 (optional) sidebar regions. Place widgets in this region under “Appearance > Widgets”, follow the documentation on placing widgets below under the corresponding documentation.

The featured slider, mini-features, portfolio and testimonial modules can easily be enabled/disabled under “Homepage Layout” theme options (more information in the next “How To” section) in the theme options.

The Simplicity theme comes with support for 2 menus. The Primary Menu is located to the right of the logo in your theme header. The Top Menu (not show in the demo) will appear in a strip across the top of the site.

Setting up the featured slider

The unique home page featured slider can be used to display noteworthy content and has it’s own custom post type called “slides” designated to it. This custom post type is hugely flexible in it’s display in the slider. You can have background images for the whole slide, an image left/right aligned to the text, only text, buttons in the text, or content with a video.

The Simplicity homepage slider pulls the custom “slides” post type. The number of slides is set under the “Homepage Slider” theme option’s panel. You can set the animation speed, effect, auto start and slide interval under the theme options.

Adding a slide

To add a slide simply follow these steps:

1. Go to Slides > Add New.
2. Type a title for the slide and complete all of the post’s body content.
3. If you want an image to appear as the background to the entire slide than add a “Feature Icon” in the Custom Settings panel.
4. Write an excerpt for the feature.
5. Publish the slide.

Add buttons to featured slide

To add a button to a page in the featured area you can use the [simplebutton] shortcode like this:

[simplebutton url="http://woocommerce.test/"]Click here to take the Tour[/simplebutton]

Add video to featured slide

Adding video is just as simple as adding an image to the page. Simply use the Video Embed Code field in the Custom Settings panel to add the embed code you have from a video sharing site like YouTube or Vimeo.

Setting up the Mini-Features module

The mini-features area of the home page can showcase your services you offer, products you sell, or little pieces of information about your company. The mini-features are custom post types just like the slides documented above, so use them exactly how you wish.

Adding the Mini-Features Module

The number of mini features depends on how many “Mini-Features” you have published. You can enable the mini-features area on the home page under the “Homepage” theme options. You can also add two pieces of content from WordPress pages to the home page if you specify the page IDs of the pages you wish to display.

To add an info box simply follow these steps:

1. Go to Mini Features > Add New.
2. Type a title for the Mini Features and complete all of the post’s body content.
3. Add a “Mini Features Icon” in the Custom Settings panel if you want to display an icon next to the slide.
4. Add an excerpt
5. Publish the mini feature.

Remember to enable the mini features area in the theme options under the “Homepage layout” tab.

Setting up the Portfolio

This theme includes a portfolio module which can showcase your work or products on both the home page and on a dedicated portfolio page of your site. To add the portfolio you need to follow these steps:

Add the Portfolio link to navigation

1. Add a new Page in WordPress (Page -> Add New)
2. Add a title to the page e.g. “Portfolio”
3. Select the Portfolio page template in the Attributes panel on the right
4. Publish your page!

Adding portfolio items

The portfolio section also uses a custom post type called “Portfolio”.

1. Add a new portfolio item in WordPress (Portfolio -> Add New)
2. Add a title to the portfolio item
3. Add a tag to the post if you wish to categorize your portfolio (e.g. “Web” or “Print”)
4. Add some text in the content to describe the portfolio item
5. Upload the Portfolio Thumbnail (450x210px) image in the Custom Settings area
6. Add an URL to an external image or upload a large image which your thumbnail will link to
7. Publish the portfolio item and repeat for next portfolio item

Upload multiple images per portfolio item

To have multiple images under the portfolio item, enter the rest of the images by uploading image attachments to the Portfolio Item and click Save Changes.

Setup options

To get the latest portfolio items to display on the home page follow the three steps below:

1. Go to the “Homepage Layout” theme options panel.
2. Enable the portfolio.
3. Save settings and you’re done!

Setting up the secondary navigation on Pages

As of Simplicity version 1.7, the optional secondary navigation is controlled using a widgetized area called “Secondary”. If no widgets are added to this widgetized area, the secondary navigation neatly hides itself.

To add a navigation menu to this second, we’d recommend using either the “Pages”, “Categories” or “Custom Menu” widget to achieve this. We explain below how to add widgets to your widgetized areas.

Widgets

Custom Simplicity widgets

The theme includes 8 custom widgets that you can add to any of your 5 widgetized regions – 1 sidebar and 4 footer widgetized regions.

The custom woo widgets included are:

• Woo – Adspace
• Woo – Search
• Woo – Tabs
• Woo – Twitter Stream
• Woo – Flickr
• Woo – Blog Author Info
• Woo – Embed/Video
• Woo – Subscribe/Connect

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Page Templates

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