If you find any bugs with this theme get in touch with a clear description of the problem so we can fix it. However we do not support modifications such as: changing the appearance or functionality of the theme.
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The following things are required to run this product:
This theme uses the following external plugins to provide functionality:
This theme includes multiple plugins custom built or purchased for use with this theme (Revolution Slider, Symple Shortcodes, Symple Portfolio, Symple Staff, Symple FAQ..etc). Upon theme activation these plugins should be installed automatically. If they are not, you can find them in your theme's functions/plugins folder.
You'll want to install this theme just like any other WordPress theme, either by uploading the main theme folder via FTP (unzipped) or the zipped file via the Wordpress theme upload section. Make sure you located the main theme folder from the downloaded zip file and that you are not uploading the entire zip with all the documentation, sample data, etc. Watch the
After you have finished installing the theme you will see a yellow notice stating you should install the recommended plugins, the theme will run without them but functionality will be impaired. We suggest you activate them to receive full benefits of the theme.
After installing and activating the recommended plugins go to your Settings → Permalink settings and hit the save button. To prevent any 404 errors on custom post type pages.
This theme includes a .xml file that will allow you to import some sample data to your site. We don't provide every single page and image from our live demo because it's overbloated and would be uncessary for you to have all that, but we do include at least 1 of each main theme function to make it easier for you to see how the theme works.
Once your Sample Data is imported your site should have all the content as shown on the Sample Data Site. Whenever you upload sample data though, you will have to go to Settings → Reading to define your homepage and also go to Apperance → Menu to set your menu locations. Also you will have to setup your widgets as they are not included in a WordPress export.xml.
This theme makes use of the awesome "Options Framework" plugin for the theme options. This plugin must be installed and active in order for you to take advantage of the built-in options, such as the custom logo, any color options, etc. To access this panel you would log into your WordPress dashboard and browse to Apperance → Theme Options, as shown below.
This theme includes support for the Yoast WordPress SEO plugin, in particular it's breadcrumbs function. You must first install this plugin then you can browse to SEO → Internal Links to setup your breadcrumbs as shown below:
This theme makes use of the WordPress featured images function a lot so you'll need to know how to add featured images.
Due to the responsive nature of this theme and our effort to keep the quality of your images high, featured images used in this theme have specific cropping sizes. All the image sizing is controlled via a function at includes/default-img-sizes.php. This means you can easily change your featured image sizes via a filter in your child theme if you want.
Images are also cropped using the aqua-resizer script which uses native WordPress functions for cropping your images. This means images are cropped "on-the-fly" so if you make changes to any default image sizing you don't have to run the regenerate thumbnails plugin.
If you have selected masonry style on the blog or you have thumbnail_hard_crop set to "false" on any of the post type shortcodes, then the height value will be 9999, which means they won't be cropped at all vertically. Below I'm showing you the hard crop height values.
What does it all mean?
· Basically when you upload an image to use on your site it should be at least 500px wide and 450px tall for best quality assurance in the grids.
· If you want your images to cover the full-width on posts then they should be at least 650px wide and if using the full-width layout for services/portfolio items/pages then they should be 100px wide.
· Of course you can upload smaller images, just keep in mind when seting up for example a portfolio, if you are using different image sizes for various posts, the grids might not look perfect since images won't be the same dimensions.
The homepage can really be setup however you want it. When you first activate the theme though, it will show your latest blog posts. So to create a homepage much like the ones on the live demo you'll need to do the following.
This theme includes the awesomeSlider Revolution plugin which should have been installed automatically upon activating your theme. You will find the Slider Revolution
The Slider Revolution documentation can be accessed here → (Only accessable via local documentation not live version)
When using the "Responsive" style your settings should look as follows for this particular theme:
The Revolution Slider comes bundled with the theme to make it easy for your to create awesome slides for your site. You are of course welcome to use any slider plugin you wish. We will provide support for Revolution Slider as best as we can, however, you can also purchase the slider from the author here, for only $15. This will give you full access to support from the plugin developer as well as you would be allowed to use the slider with a different theme.
The blog can be setup in 2 ways:
You can add a featured slider to the top of your main blog template (only the blog template, not using the shortcode option). The featured slider options will be in your options panel (Options Framework Plugin must be installed) under the "Blog" tab. Here you will be able to select a category for your featured slider and how many items to show.
This theme comes with custom post type plugins built specifically for WPExplorer users. Why plugins? Well, if you ever decide to switch to another theme you can take all your content with you. We aren't going to force you to use our themes and we don't want you to lose your valuable content/time if you decide to ever switch.
These plugins should be installed automatically on theme activation. If they are you should have the following new menu items in your WordPress dashboard. This is where you'll be adding your content. If they are NOT showing up, go to "Plugins" and make sure the Symple Portfolio, Symple FAQ, Symple Staff, Symple Services Plugins are installed and active.
This is usually because of your server/WP permissions the plugins aren't getting automaticall added to your site. You can always access the plugins by opening your theme's folder locally and browsing to functions/plugins to upload them manually via FTP.
If you have used WordPress before it should be a no-brainer. Adding your custom post types is basically the same thing as regular posts. You just hover over the menu item and click "Add New Item" then add your title, fill out your info, set your featured image, define your meta options and publish. Some specific tips/tricks for various post types are shown further down.
By default custom post types in WordPress will create archives automatically at your-site.com/post-type-name. So for example your portfolio will be located at your-site.com/portfolio and your staff page at your-site.com/staff - there is NO need to create page templates to showcase your custom post types. And of course you can create categories and tags for your custom post types, these will also be rendered automatically by the theme's template files.
The coolest thing about this theme is you can showcase any of your custom post types on the front-end via a shortcode! Also, you can simply click 1 button to insert your shortcode right in the dashboard. See image below:
Below are some samples of a shortcode for each post type. Not sure why you would copy it from here, but if you do, make sure you aren't copying the "pre" tag as well as it will cause issues.
[symple_blog count="-1" columns="3" pagination="false" thumbnail_crop="true" thumbnail_hard_crop="false" title="true" excerpt="true" excerpt_length="15" read_more="true" category_id="" tag_id=""]
[symple_portfolio count="-1" columns="3" pagination="false" lightbox_only="false" thumbnail_crop="true" thumbnail_hard_crop="false" thumbnail_overlay="none" title="true" excerpt="true" excerpt_length="15" read_more="true" category_id="" tag_id=""]
[symple_services count="-1" columns="3" pagination="false" excerpt_length="15" read_more="true" category_id="" tag_id=""]
[symple_staff count="-1" columns="3" pagination="false" thumbnail_crop="true" thumbnail_hard_crop="false" title="true" excerpt="true" excerpt_length="15" read_more="true" category_id="" tag_id=""]
[symple_faq count="-1" pagination="false" category_id="" tag_id=""]
When using your portfolio, staff, services, FAQ.. shortcodes you can easily choose what category or tag to pull your posts from by enteting the ID for that taxonomy. See below on how to find these.
Install/activate and make use of the WP Show ID's plugin.
You don't "need" a plugin to find the ID of a category, you can also do it as shown below
The Portfolio and Service posts support the ability to enable a post slider (enabled by default). See image below:
The slider works by showing all the images attached to your post. So in order to show an image in the slider you MUST upload it to the post (this is how WordPress core works) you can't select images already in your library. The template file will loop through all post attachments automatically for the slider output. See below:
We recommend you install and use the MetaBox Plugin for better management. This plugin will show all your attachments below the post editor so its easier for you and/or your client. See below:
Since the post types have been added with a unique filter, you can easily change the labels and slug for your post types. The example below could be used in a child theme or in your main theme's functions.php file. PLEASE be CAREFUL when adding custom functions to your site, best done by someone that knows what they are doing.
/*******************************************************************
/* This function changes our Portfolio post type labels to Gallery
********************************************************************/
if ( ! function_exists( 'custom_portfolio_args' ) ) {
function custom_portfolio_args( $args ) {
$labels = array(
'name' => __( 'Gallery', 'wpe' ),
'singular_name' => __( 'Gallery Item', 'wpe' ),
'add_new' => __( 'Add New Item', 'wpe' ),
'add_new_item' => __( 'Add New Gallery Item', 'wpe' ),
'edit_item' => __( 'Edit Gallery Item', 'wpe' ),
'new_item' => __( 'Add New Gallery Item', 'wpe' ),
'view_item' => __( 'View Item', 'wpe' ),
'search_items' => __( 'Search Gallery', 'wpe' ),
'not_found' => __( 'No Gallery items found', 'wpe' ),
'not_found_in_trash' => __( 'No Gallery items found in trash', 'wpe' )
);
$custom_args = array(
'labels' => $labels,
'public' => true,
'supports' => array( 'title', 'editor', 'excerpt', 'thumbnail', 'comments', 'custom-fields', 'revisions' ),
'capability_type' => 'post',
'rewrite' => array("slug" => "gallery"), // Permalinks format
'menu_position' => 5,
'has_archive' => true
);
return $custom_args + $args;
}
add_filter( 'symple_portfolio_args', 'custom_portfolio_args' );
}
/*******************************************************************
/* This function changes our Portfolio Tags to say Gallery Tags
********************************************************************/
if ( ! function_exists( 'custom_portfolio_tag_args' ) ) {
function custom_portfolio_tag_args( $args ) {
$taxonomy_portfolio_tag_labels = array(
'name' => _x( 'Gallery Tags', 'symple' ),
'singular_name' => _x( 'Gallery Tag', 'symple' ),
'search_items' => _x( 'Search Gallery Tags', 'symple' ),
'popular_items' => _x( 'Popular Gallery Tags', 'symple' ),
'all_items' => _x( 'All Gallery Tags', 'symple' ),
'parent_item' => _x( 'Parent Gallery Tag', 'symple' ),
'parent_item_colon' => _x( 'Parent Gallery Tag:', 'symple' ),
'edit_item' => _x( 'Edit Gallery Tag', 'symple' ),
'update_item' => _x( 'Update Gallery Tag', 'symple' ),
'add_new_item' => _x( 'Add New Gallery Tag', 'symple' ),
'new_item_name' => _x( 'New Gallery Tag Name', 'symple' ),
'separate_items_with_commas' => _x( 'Separate portfolio tags with commas', 'symple' ),
'add_or_remove_items' => _x( 'Add or remove portfolio tags', 'symple' ),
'choose_from_most_used' => _x( 'Choose from the most used portfolio tags', 'symple' ),
'menu_name' => _x( 'Gallery Tags', 'symple' )
);
$custom_taxonomy_portfolio_tag_args = array(
'labels' => $taxonomy_portfolio_tag_labels,
'public' => true,
'show_in_nav_menus' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'show_tagcloud' => true,
'hierarchical' => false,
'rewrite' => array( 'slug' => 'gallery_tag' ),
'query_var' => true
);
return $custom_taxonomy_portfolio_tag_args + $args;
}
add_filter( 'symple_taxonomy_portfolio_tag_args', 'custom_symple_taxonomy_portfolio_tag_args' );
}
/*******************************************************************
/* This function changes our Portfolio Categories to say Gallery Categories
********************************************************************/
if ( ! function_exists( 'custom_portfolio_category_args' ) ) {
function custom_portfolio_category_args( $args ) {
$taxonomy_portfolio_category_labels = array(
'name' => _x( 'Gallery Categories', 'symple' ),
'singular_name' => _x( 'Gallery Category', 'symple' ),
'search_items' => _x( 'Search Gallery Categories', 'symple' ),
'popular_items' => _x( 'Popular Gallery Categories', 'symple' ),
'all_items' => _x( 'All Gallery Categories', 'symple' ),
'parent_item' => _x( 'Parent Gallery Category', 'symple' ),
'parent_item_colon' => _x( 'Parent Gallery Category:', 'symple' ),
'edit_item' => _x( 'Edit Gallery Category', 'symple' ),
'update_item' => _x( 'Update Gallery Category', 'symple' ),
'add_new_item' => _x( 'Add New Gallery Category', 'symple' ),
'new_item_name' => _x( 'New Gallery Category Name', 'symple' ),
'separate_items_with_commas' => _x( 'Separate Gallery categories with commas', 'symple' ),
'add_or_remove_items' => _x( 'Add or remove Gallery categories', 'symple' ),
'choose_from_most_used' => _x( 'Choose from the most used Gallery categories', 'symple' ),
'menu_name' => _x( 'Gallery Categories', 'symple' ),
);
$custom_taxonomy_portfolio_category_args = array(
'labels' => $taxonomy_portfolio_category_labels,
'public' => true,
'show_in_nav_menus' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'show_tagcloud' => true,
'hierarchical' => true,
'rewrite' => array( 'slug' => 'gallery_category' ),
'query_var' => true
);
return $custom_taxonomy_portfolio_category_args + $args;
}
add_filter( 'symple_taxonomy_portfolio_category_args', 'custom_symple_taxonomy_portfolio_category_args' );
}
This theme of course comes with support and custom styling for the Symple Shortcodes plugin which we developed for free and share on our site.
Using the plugin is very simple. Once activated (should be auto activated with your theme) you'll see a new drop-down button in your post editor which you can use to insert shortcodes into your posts
Creating a contact page is super simple. In our live demo what we've done is used the map shortcode from the Symple Shortcodes plugin a couple column shortcodes for the layout and then we used the Contact Form 7 plugin for the actual form. It's a free plugin and highly recommended by many.
Below is the code we use, if it makes it easier for you, you can copy and paste into your site (do so in HTML mode in the editor).
[symple_googlemap title="Envato Office" location="2 Elizabeth St, Melbourne Victoria 3000 Australia" zoom="15" height=400] [symple_column size="two-third" position="first"] [symple_heading type="h2" title="We'd love to hear from ya, contact us today!" margin_top="30px;" margin_bottom="20px" text_align="left"] Pellentesque mi nunc, lacinia vitae feugiat vel, viverra at tortor. Duis dictum tristique feugiat. Nunc non leo nec justo pretium pharetra. Vestibulum risus turpis, pharetra tempus porttitor id, porttitor et lectus. [contact-form-7 id="6870" title="Contact Form"] [/symple_column] [symple_column size="one-third" position="last"] [symple_heading type="h2" title="Contact Info" margin_top="30px;" margin_bottom="20px" text_align="left"] L 5 140 Bourke StMelbourne, VIC 3000, AustraliaPhone: 1-800 555-5555 Fax: 1-800 222-2222 Email: company[at]site.com [symple_social icon="twitter" url="http://www.twitter.com/wpexplorer" title="Follow Us" target="self" rel=""] [symple_social icon="facebook" url="http://www.facebook.com/WPExplorerThemes" title="Facebook Page" target="self" rel=""] [symple_social icon="dribbble" url="http://www.dribbble.com/aj-clarke" title="Our Dribbbles" target="self" rel=""] [symple_social icon="vimeo" url="http://www.vimeo.com/" title="Vimeo" target="self" rel=""] [symple_social icon="youtube" url="http://www.youtube.com/aoclarkejr" title="Youtube" target="self" rel=""] [symple_social icon="evernote" url="http://www.evernote.com/" title="Evernote" target="self" rel=""] [/symple_column]
* You might notice the "thin" style text on the demo. This can be added by applin a font-weight of 300 to any text. To make it easier I have added a drop-down for these in the post editor. See below:

Please remember you have purchased a really cheap Theme and not paid for a full-time web design agency. Occasionally we will help with small tweaks, but these tickes will be put on a lower priority due to their nature.
Support is also 100% optional and we provide it for your convience, so please be patient, polite and respectful.
Thank you!
This is AJ Clarke the owner of Symple Workz and more specifically WPExplorer.com. I wanted to thank you personally for purchasing our WordPress theme. I hope you enjoy the theme fully and that it works well for your or your client's website.
Also a thanks to all the awesome resources I've used/purchased for the development of this theme