Introduction
Please carefully read this guide in order to properly install and configure this theme.
Getting Started
Install WordPress
1- Unless you already have installed WordPress in your own server, follow these steps to do so:
2- Download the latest version of WordPress here: https://wordpress.org/download/
3- Unzip the downloaded file and upload the content of the wordpress folder into your own server through Filezilla
4- In your browser’s URL bar, type the URL of your website, followed by /wp-admin, here’s an example:
http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin4- You’ll be redirected to the first WordPress installation page, where you’ll have to choose the language of your Dashboard. Select it and click Continue:
5- Click on the Let’s go button to get to the page where you’ll set up your database info:
6- I assume you already have created your own Database in the cPanel of your hosting provider’s website. If you haven’t done that yet, login into the cPanel of your domain, create a database with the MySQL Database Wizard and assign it an admin user - give it ALL PRIVILEGES in the page where you’ll assign a user to your database.
Then go back to your WordPress installation page and insert your Database Name, the Username, and Password of the admin of your database.
Leave the Database Host and Table Prefix as they are, do NOT edit their values, and click the Submit button
7- On the next page, you’ll get, click the Run the installation button.
8- Then you’ll just have to complete your installation by providing a Site Title, a Username, and Password to log in into your WordPress Dashboard lately, and Your Email address.
When you’re done, click the Install WordPress button:
9- You’re done, just login into your WordPress Dashboard with the username and password you’re set in the previous step.
Upload the theme through WordPress (recommended)
To upload this theme through your WordPress Dashboard, select Appearance and then Themes.
Next, select the Install Themes tab at the top of the page and then select the Upload link, right above the search field.
Choose the vintymag.zip file and select Install Now.
Once the theme is fully uploaded and installed, click Activate to activate the theme.
The theme files will be stored on your server in the wp-content/themes location.
When uploading your theme with the Installer, please ensure you are uploading only the vintymag.zip file, not the entire package you downloaded.
FTP Upload
To manually upload your new WordPress theme, use FileZilla as an FTP client to enter your server files and locate the wp-content folder in your WordPress install files.
Unzip the vintymag.zip file and upload that folder into the wp-content/themes folder.
Once uploaded, activate the theme by heading to the Themes menu in the WordPress Dashboard. Locate the VintyMag Theme theme and hit Activate.
Theme Options
Setup the Theme and upload Demo data
When you make a fresh WordPress installation, the default theme gets automatically activated and some demo posts and widgets are included in such theme. So you need to delete those demo content in order to upload the vintymag.zip theme file, and its demo content as well (The files included in the Demo content folder are necessary to make this Theme work). After that, you can customize the theme as you wish, edit the demo posts, delete them and create new ones, etc.
So watch this video to see how to do this process and get your website ready in just a few minutes:
In case you don’t want to upload the Demo content, stop the video after the Plugin installations part, and read the chapters below to learn how to create Pages, Posts, Widgets and customize the theme.
Create the Home Page
First of all, you should create a Home page and set it as the Frontpage, so click on Pages -> Add New in your WP Dashboard, set Home as title and select one of the 4 Home page Templates from the Template list box on the right-side Document panel:
Now enter the Settings -> Reading section, select the A static page option, and select your new Home page from the Homepage menu. Lastly, click the Save Changes button:
Create the Contact page
Another important page to create is the Contact page, in order to have the Contact Form 7 plugin do its job. So click again to Pages -> Add New and give a title to your contact page - type Contact Us, it’s needed for some custom fields (explained later).
Use the Gutenberg editor to create some content, I would suggest you create a 2-column content:
Fill the left column with some text and your contact info, then click on the (+) button of the second column, type shortcode in the search box and select the Shortcode item:
Now click the Publish button to save the page, and enter the Contact section from the left-side menu. You’ll find the default Contact form 1 which has a default code that you should replace with the following one:
<div class="row">
<div class="comment-form-author col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<label>Name * [text* your-name placeholder "Your Name *"]</label>
</div>
<div class="comment-form-email col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<label>Email * [email* your-email placeholder "Your email *"]</label>
</div>
</div><!-- ./ row -->
<p class="comment-form-comment">
<label> Your Message *
[textarea your-message placeholder "Your message *"]
</label>
</p>
[submit "Send Message"]So click Contact form 1, copy the above code and replace the existing one with it, then click the Save button.
Copy the shortcode in the blue section on the top and go back to your Contact page:
In your Contact page, simply paste the copied shortcode into the Shortcode box of your content, and click the Update button:
IMPORTANT
After you published the Contact Us page, you must set its slug as contact only, that’s because that slug name will call the page-contact.php file that has the necessary code to properly display the Contact page.
You can change the slug of your page by clicking Quick Edit below its name in the Pages section and editing the slug filed:
Create the Primary and Footer menus
Before seeing your theme in action, you must create the Primary and Footer navigation menus, so click Appearance -> Menus link from the left-side panel, type Primary Menu in the Menu structure box and click the Create Menu button:
Select the Home and Contact Us items from the Pages list on the left, click the Add to Menu button, drag the Home item on the top (in case it’ll be placed on the bottom), check the Primary Menu option in the Display location section and click the Save Menu button:
Now click the create a new menu link from the Edit Menus tab on the top, give it Footer Menu as name, click the Save Menu button.
Then check the Footer Menu option in the Display location section and click the Save Menu button again:
You have to create your social links URL’s and icon name, which is pretty easy, just expand the Custom Links box, type the URL of your social page in the URL text box, then type the LOWERCASE name of your social network (ex: facebook, twitter, pinterest, etc.).
Lastly, click the Add to Menu button.
Repeat this action for all the social pages you want to set for your Footer Menu, then click the Save Menu button:
Create Posts
Finally, you can start creating your Posts/News, click Posts -> Add New from the left panel, give your post a title and enter your own content.
Don’t forget to:
• Type one or more tags in the Add New Tag box.
• Select at least a Category in the Categories section.
• Set a Featured Image by clicking the Set featured image button and selecting an image from the Media library (drag images in case it’s empty).
• Write an excerpt of your post in order to be displayed as a preview in the Home page.
In case you’ll insert an Image or a Gallery item in the content of your post, take advantage of the WP Featherlight plugin and just select Media File option from the Link To menu (the Image or Gallery item in your post content must be selected):
In this way, once you’ll click on an image, the WP Lightbox will show up in your page.
You may also choose to post a Video, Audio or Standard post. In order for you to do that, just select the option you want from the Post Format list:
PLEASE NOTE that if you’ll embed a Youtube, Vimeo or SoundCloud item in your post content, that will take place over the Featured Image of your post’s page, and it will be hidden from the page’s content.
When you’re ready to publish your Post, just click the Publish button and check your website. Repeat the steps above to create all your desired Posts.
Widgets
Enter the Appearance -> Widgets section of your WP Dashboard to find the default widgets, you should see a page like this:
This theme comes with a custom Widget called * Popular Posts/News || VintyMag *, you can see it in the widgets list on the left, so I strongly recommend you to drag it on the top of the Right Sidebar list. In this way, if you refresh your website, you’ll see a list of 5 most viewed posts.
You can use all the other Widgets as you wish, although I recommend you to set the following ones:
- Popular Posts/News || VintyMag
- Search
- MailChimp Sign-Up Form
- Tags Cloud
Create Post Categories
Another important thing to create in your theme is a list of Categories. Enter the Posts -> Categories section from the left menu and start by clicking Quick Edit below the default Uncategorized item and renaming it into one of your post categories (ex: Technology, or whatever you want):
Then you can start adding a few categories on the left side by typing a Name, a slug (optional, since WP will automatically generate it) and a Description (optional as well).
There are 4 different Category Templates you can set for your categories, so click on the Category Template box and select one of the following options, then click the Add New Category button
- Category - List
- Category - Big Articles
- Category - Grid
- Category - Masonry
If you want to add your Categories in the Primary Menu as menu items, just go back to Appearance -> Menus, select the Primary Menu, expand the Categories box on the left, click its View All tab and select the Categories you wish to have in your Menu.
Click the Add to Menu button in order to add them, then the Save Menu button to save your Menu:
Home page templates
When your website is ready with the VintyMag theme installed and its demo content imported, you may edit the Home - Front Page page - From the Pages menu - and set template you with between the following ones:
- Home Default
- Home Grid
- Home Carousel
- Home Slider
In order for you to do that, just click on the Template box and select the option you want.
PLEASE NOTE that you must choose one of the templates which name starts with “Home”, DO NOT choose the ones with the “Category” name, they are for the Posts categories.
Featured Posts
The Home page Templates show a few featured posts on the top, so in order for you to set the posts you want to display as featured, simply type featured in the Tags field of your post’s editor page:
Boxed Layout
This theme gives you the chance to embed it ina thin frame (boxed layout). Simply enter the Appearance -> Customize section from your WordPress Dashboard, click the VintyMag Theme option, select Boxed Layout and click the boxed preview image, then click the Publish button:
Google Maps
This theme comes with the Advanced Custom Fields Pro plugin (worth $25), and you should import the custom_fields.json file that it’s inside the Demo content folder, in order to be able to set your own Google Maps API Key, Latitude and Longitude values for the Map on the Contact page.
So click Custom Fields from the left menu, then click Tools and then Choose file button. Navigate into the Demo content folder and select the custom_fields.json file, then click the Import File button:
Now you can enter your Contact Us page, and find a custom field called Google Maps, where you have to set your own Google Maps API Key, Latitude and Longitude values about your location. It’ll be displayed in the Map of the page:
PLEASE NOTE that the Google Map Javascript code of the page-contact.php file is a custom code that makes the Map UI grayscale. If you’re an experienced developer and wish to change its UI, just edit the code in that file.
The Customizer
Watch this video to see what you can do with the WordPress Customizer, it has many options like Typography, website title, favicon, etc.
Privacy Policy page
Lately, because of EU GDPR and Internet Privacy terms, you need to have a Privacy Policy page on your website, so you can edit that page as you wish, you can find it into the Pages section of your WordPress Dashboard. Please note that it’s just a sample, so you need to edit with your own policy descriptions.
Pages Permalinks (Slugs)
You may edit the demo pages as you wish, but please be aware of the fact that they have a Slug that identifies each page and makes them available in the Navigation Menu, so DO NOT change their Slug.
You can see their Slug in either the Quick Edit section of a page:
Or inside the Page editor -> URL box:
Mailchimp Subscribe form
Enter the Mailchimp for WP section from the left menu and paste your Mailchimp API Key in its relative text box, then click the Save Changes button:
The page refreshes, and you should see the name of the newsletter’s list of users that you should have already created in your MailChimp account. If you haven’t created a List of emails yet, just do it and then go back to your WordPress Dashboard, refresh the page and you should see your List in the Your Mailchimp Account section.
Now enter the Form section, type a name for your form, mark the Mailchimp list option and click the Add new form button:
On the next page, you’ll get, you may just click the Save Changes button or customize the HTML code of your subscription form (in case you know how to handle HTML).
In this way you’ll enable the MailChimp form for users to subscribe to your newsletter:
If you go back to your website and refresh a Post’s page, you should now see your Mailchimp Subscription Form in the sidebar.
Useful stuff
F.A.Q.
I’m getting a max_upload_size error when trying to upload the theme
Some hosting, especially budget shared hosting, may impose file restrictions for uploads to your WP site. In some cases, installing this plugin and work very well: increase-upload-max-filesize.
However, if it fails to work, then you will have to contact your hosts to they can make the necessary changes from their end as this is something we cannot help with from a theme point of view.
I’m seeing a ‘stylesheet missing’ error when trying to upload the theme
This means your uploading the wrong zip package. When downloading your theme you have the option to download the full package, or the installable theme itself.
Just download the whole package again from your Downloads page, then unzip the package to locate your vintymag.zip file.
I’m getting a 404 error when viewing my portfolio/team etc
WordPress is a rock-solid platform in most cases, but sometimes, when working with a new theme for instance, it needs a little nudge to update all of its core settings, etc. If your seeing a 404 error or such when trying to view your projects (or team members, clients, etc - depending on your theme)
To do this, simply head to Settings -> Permalinks and select the Post name option from the listed options - if this option is already selected, click Save Changes anyway (this is the nudge we mentioned earlier) - Once done, you should be able to view all your content with no issues.
Should any issues remain, this indicates an issue with your server (the theme has no control of this) so you will need to contact your hosts for further support.