Live

This post has our instructions on using the Live Theme. If you need help installing it, there is a quick screencast in our video section that will walk you through installing a WordPress theme.

Once you have the theme installed, go to the Appearance section of your WordPress control panel and select “Theme Options” to get started.

Theme Options

The theme options page is where you define your primary settings for the Agency Theme on your site. It is divided up into three tabs that group similar options together.

General Options

At the top of the first tab, you can choose the style of logo for the site. The “text” option will display the site title and the image option uses the next field to allow you to upload your own image logo. The theme demo uses an image logo.

Below that are two uploaders that allow you to add a favicon and an Apple shortcut icon. The favicon is the small image that generally appears next to the current page’s URL in your browser’s address bar. For best results, use a small PNG of GIF image there. The Apple shortcut icon is used when a visitor adds a shortcut to your site on their iOS device’s home screen. You’ll want to use a square PNG image for this. Both are optional.

Next up are the SEO (search engine optimization) options. You can use the built in SEO to generate your page titles and descriptions for you. If you use that option, be sure to fill in a home page description in the next box. I recommend using WordPress SEO by Yoast for everyone who wants to fully optimize their site for search.

The excerpt or full content option allows you to specify how much text is shown on your blog archive pages. You can set it so only an excerpt (the first 55 words) is displayed or you can show the full content. Lastly, you can enter text to go in the left hand side of your footer.

Home Page

This tab allows you to set your home page options. First up is the call to action banner. You can set the text that will be displayed here as well as the URL you’d like the button to link to.

After that you have the settings for your slideshow. You can set how long each slide is visible in milliseconds. You can also choose how long it takes for each slide to transition, also in milliseconds. There are two transition animation options, slide or fade for you to choose between. You can also include directional arrows (or not) and set the slideshow to play automatically or not. If you do not set the slideshow to play, you’ll need to include the arrows so your visitors can reach the inside pages.

Styling

This tab allows you to set the styling for your site. The first option is for your background. You can upload an image, set how is to appear and repeat. You can also choose a color fallback too.

The other options on this page are for specifying the colors of various elements in the theme. All are optional. Just choose the color you’d like to have to change that style for you.


Creating Your Home Page

Page TemplatesTo set up a home page like the demo, first go to pages and select “add new.” This new page will serve as your home page. You can give it any title you like, but “home” is a good starting point. In the right hand column, you’ll notice a box labeled “Page Attributes” with a drop-down menu in it. Choose “Home Page” from the list of available templates there (we’ll cover the other templates shortly). Now publish your page.

Next go to the Settings section of your WordPress control panel and select “Reading.” Here you can select a page to serve as your home page. Choose “Front page displays” a “Static page” and then select your home page from the drop down of available pages.
Reading Settings

This video shows how to add your slideshow images:

The content on the home page comes from widgets. You can add these by going to the Appearance section and selecting “widgets.” The “Home Left,” “Home Middle,” and “Home Right” are the sidebar areas that are available on the home page for you to use.


Navigation Menus

You can set up your navigation menus by going to the Appearance section and selecting “Menu.” Here’s a quick video about WordPress menus:

Live offers the option of using social media icons to link to your profiles on various social media services. You can add those by creating “Custom Links” in your menu builder for each service.

Once you’ve created the link, you’ll have a menu item with the name whatever you specified in the label. To change that to the appropriate icon, click the “Screen Options” tab in the top right hand corner. Make sure the box next to “CSS Classes” is checked. Then scroll down and click on the down arrow next to the custom menu item you created. In the box for CSS Classes, enter the class that corresponds to the service you’re using.

Here are a list of the included styles with Live. Just enter the name as it appears below to use that icon.

  • dribbble
  • facebook
  • flickr
  • foursquare
  • forrst
  • google
  • linkedin
  • pinterest
  • twitter
  • youtube
  • vimeo
  • yelp
  • podcast
  • rss
  • Adding one of the class names above will replace the menu item’s name (label) with the corresponding icon.


    Staff Members

    You can use the “staff” section to create a directory of your staff. To add a new staff member, click on “Staff” and select “Add New.” At the top, you will enter the staff member’s name. In the right hand column at the top, there is a box where you can enter details about your staff members: title, Facebook URL, Twitter, Email, Phone and a custom link. All of these are optional.

    The main content box is where you’d enter the staff member’s “bio.” You can add an image for your staff member using the “Featured Image” option. In the right hand column, you’ll find a box for “order” that you can use to establish the order your staff members will be displayed in.

    You can also assign your staff members to “Staff Groups.” These work like categories do for posts. It’s possible to create more than one staff list by assigning your staff members to different groups. That would let you establish lists like “Founders” and “Trustees” for example using the staff section for both.

    Once the staff members have been assigned to groups, you can then add these to your navigation. To add a group to your navigation, go to the Appearance section and select “Menu.” This will open up the menu builder. In the left hand column are items you can add to the navigation menu on your right.

    To add your staff group, look for the staff group section on your left. If you don’t see it, click “Screen Options” in the top right and make sure the box next to staff groups is checked. Then you can add a group like a page or category.

    Page Templates

    Live includes five page templates that you can use. You can select those by editing the page where you’d like to make the change. Look in the right hand column and you’ll see a drop-down for “templates.” The “No Sidebar” template is a page that does not have a sidebar, but instead fills the theme with your content. The “Staff” page can be used to create a simple staff list without using staff groups described above. The “Default” template is a basic page with content on the left and a sidebar on the right. Lastly the “Sitemap” page will generate a page that lists the content on your site.


    Formats

    The theme supports two formats for posts: image and video. The image format will display the “featured image” of that post above the page title both in the archive view and the single post view. The video format will display a video in the same location. To use the video format, choose video and then paste the embed code from the video service of your choice into the box in the top right hand corner of that post.


    That pretty well wraps up the Live theme. If you have any questions, please post them in our forum and we will get back with you shortly.

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