Plastic theme manual

Thank you for selecting the Plastic theme by WPStudio. If you have any trouble, please fill out the contact form for assistance.

Pre-Installation Setup

Must have installed

Make sure you have the following installed on your hosting account:

• WordPress version 4.0+
• Genesis Framework version 2.0+

Plugins

No plugins are required. We recommend the following plugins for optimal performance of the Plastic theme.

• Featured Video Plus
• Genesis eNews Extended
• Genesis Simple Share
• Genesis Subtitles
• Ninja Forms
• Regenerate Thumbnails
• Simple Social Icons
• WordPress Importer

Theme Installation

After you’ve downloaded the .zip file you can upload the theme files in two ways:

WordPress Dashboard upload:

1. Navigate to Appearance -> Themes -> Add New
2. Click the ‘Upload Theme’ button to browse and select the zipped the folder.
3. Click the ‘Intall Now’ button to upload and install the theme

FTP Upload

1. Unzip the theme on your computer
2. Make a FTP connection with your hosting account
3. Upload the unzipped theme folder into the /wpcontent/themes directory on your server.

When the theme is uploaded you see the theme under Appearance > Themes. Click the theme to activate.

Select color style

The Plastic theme has 4 color styles by default.

Navigate to Genesis > Theme Settings and select the color style of your choice.

Site title, logo and description

Title and description

If you want to display your site title and description follow these steps.

First navigate to Genesis > Theme Settings. Be sure under Header: Use for site title/logo Dynamic text is active. Don’t forget to save the settings.

Your site title and site description can be set by navigating to Settings > General.

1. The Site Title will display at the top of your site.
2. The Site Description will display underneath  the site title.

Logo

If you want to use a custom logo follow these steps.

First navigate to Genesis > Theme Settings. Be sure under Header: Use for site title/logo Image logo is active. Don’t forget to save the settings.  Next navigate to Appearance > Customize. Click the option upload logo and upload your custom logo. Don’t forget the save.

Default header image

When no featured images are set on a page or post you can display a default image. Navigate to Genesis > WPStudio Theme Settings. You can upload an image with the media library and copy the URL. Paste this URL in the field under Default header image.

Configure the navigation

Create a menu

Plastic doesn’t use the primary and secondary navigation. Go to Appearance > Menus and create a new menu. The name of the menu is not important.  Add the pages to the menu and save the menu.

Assign menu to theme

After creating a menu you can assign your new menu to the proper location within the theme. Go to Appearance > Widgets and choose Custom menu. The Header right widget area is used for the navigation. Place the Custom menu widget inside this widget area. Select the menu you’ve created and save the widget. Your menu is now set.

Subpages

The menu is designed for using subpages. The subpages will show in a dropdown menu. The theme supports submenus, not sub-sub menus. You can create submenus by placing an menu item under the parent indent it to the right.

Setup the homepage

Create a new page an give this page for example the name Home. In the right column under Page Attributes select the Home template. Publish the page.

Navigate to Settings > Reading. Set the Front page displays on A static page.  Set the Front page on the page you’ve  just created. Don’t forget to save the changes.

Header image

The header image on the homepage is the featured image set on the page which uses the home page template. This is the page set as homepage in previous steps. When the featured image is not set the default image will show. This can be set under Genesis > WPStudio Theme Settings.

Call to action buttons

Navigate to Genesis > WPStudio Theme Settings. Under Header Settings file in the fields for the Left/Right Call to Action Button. Fill in the Button text and the Button link. Save the settings.

Widget Area’s

The homepage has three widget area’s. All three situated beneath the header image. See screenshot. In the preview of the theme we’ve used the Genesis eNews Extended widget (1) and two text-widgets (2 and 3).

Navigate to Appearance -> Widgets.

Home CTA
Click the Home CTA widget. Drag the ‘Genesis eNews Extended’ (if installed) from the left to this widget area. Fill in the necessary fields and hit save. Information about setting up the Genesis eNews Extended plugin can be found here.

Home Left and Home Right
Click the Home Left or Right widget. Drag a ‘text widget’ from the left to this widget area. Fill in the title and the text and hit save. If you only use one widget (Home Left) then this widget will shown full width.

Text above masonry

To add content above the masonry edit the page which uses the homepage template. This is the page set as homepage in previous steps.  Add some text in the content field and save the page. This text will be shown above the masonry.

Setup the masonry

Posts

The bricks in the masonry are posts. Per post you can set the format to Standard, Quote or Image. By default the masonry will load 6 post. When the users scrolls down there will be loaded 6 new post until there are no more left.

Standard Post format
Shows the post with text and featured image if is set. Links to the single post.

Quote Post format
Shows only the quote with background color. Doesn’t link.

Image Post format
Shows only the featured image. Links to the single post.

Setup the blog

Create a new page with the name blog or a name you prefer.  Navigate to Settings > Reading. Under ‘Posts page’ select the page you’ve  just created. On this page you can also set the maximum number of posts shown per page. Don’t forget to save the settings.

Featured images

The images left of the posts on the blog page and single posts are featured images. In the right sidebar of the post you see the featured Image option. If this option is not available check your screen options at the top right. Click on Set featured image and set the image you want to use as featured image.

Blog settings

Navigate to Genesis > Theme Settings. Set the Archive settings under Content Archives. Don’t set Include the Featured image. This will add another featured image.

Featured image on blog page

A featured image for the blog page can be set under Genesis > WPStudio theme settings -> Default header image.  This is the default featured image.

Footer widgets

Set the footer widget by navigating to Appearance > Widgets. The footer area has two widget area’s you can use, from left to right footer 1 and footer 2.

Install demo content

The demo data is included in the theme XML file, along with the theme package. You may only use the demo data as “dummy” content for staging and configuration purpose only.

The XML file

To located the XML file, you will need to unzip the theme zip file first. After unzipping, you see a folder labeled with the child theme name Plastic. Open that folder and look for the xml folder. The XML file will be located inside this xml folder. The name of the file you need is theme_plastic.xml.

Import the demo content

To import the demo content follow these instructions:

1. Log into your site as an administrator.
2. Go to Tools → Import in the blog’s admin panels.
3. Choose “WordPress” from the list.
4. Upload this file using the form provided on that page.
5. You will first be asked to map the authors in this export file to users on the blog. For each author, you may choose to map to an existing user on the blog or to create a new user
6. WordPress will then import each of the posts, comments, and categories contained in this file into your blog

Send a support ticket

Still run into a problem? Send us a support ticket with the problem you run into and please be as descriptive as possible.