Getting started with the theme
After you are done with the installation it's time to set up your page. TIMES makes it easy to create content so if you are familiar with WordPress you can totally skip this guide. If you, however, would like a step by step guide on how to recreate the demo then read along.
Create and publish your first post.
Before we start, make sure that you are logged into your WordPress site. If you see a admin bar on top of your site that means you are logged in, if not, navigate to YOURSITE.com/wp-admin/ and log in.
When you are logged into WordPress, you will see an admin bar at the top of your site, that allows you to quickly and easily add a post or a page. Hover over the "+ New" button and select "Post" to create your new article.
You will land on a page where you can create your first article. Enter your title exactly how you want it to appear on the page and head down to the editor where you can compose your article. Just start writing your first paragraph and if it's long enough we will style it as a proper lead for your article. No shortcodes, less mess. Just see.
As you can see above, if your first and second paragraphs are long enough TIMES will style the first letter as a drop cap and the whole post as a proper article. If you don't like that behavior we cover how to turn off all the text modifications in a separate article on this page.
If you've used a text editor before you should be familiar with the WordPress toolbar at the top of the editor. It allows you for basic text formatting like highlighting or bolding phrases, adding titles, links, quotes and even aligning your paragraphs to left and right.
By default WordPress toolbar shows only the basic tools that allows you to style paragraphs, if you want more control over your text , simply click the toggle icon (marked above), which will expand your panel with the set of extra tools.
There are three tools that TIMES adds to WordPress to help you style your content even further. Those tools utilize shortcodes. To put simply a shortcode is a WordPress only code that allows you to insert ex. videos, audio and more without the need for ugly, complicated code.
Shortcodes help to shorten and simplify large chunks of actual code, but don't worry, you don't have to know them or remember them or even understand them to utilize them in your articles. Let's start then.
The first tool from left will allow you to insert a quote. Just click it's icon and a modal window will pop-up where you can enter the quote and optionally it's author and source. You can also choose the alignment of the quote with a dropdown. To insert the quote shortcode press OK.
Next tool will create a button shortcode for you. Same thing as in quote shortcode. Press the icon and window will pop up where you can enter the button's text and link. Optionally, you can change the button size, color and one of 600+ icons (the list is included in the modal window). When you're done press OK to insert a button shortcode.
Finally, the last tool will enable you to select/highlight the most important information from your articles. Just select the text you want to highlight and press the icon in the toolbar to wrap your text with alert shortcode. Press again for second level highlight, and press again to remove the highlight completely.
If you want to preview your changes, press the gray "Preview Changes" button in the "Publish" box, above the blue "Publish/Update" button.
To best organize your content, create couple of categories by clicking the "+ Add New Category" button in the Categories panel. Assign your post to a category by selecting it form the list. You can also tag your post, which is much recommended. You can do so in a panel below.
You can also rearrange the panels however you like, just drag and drop them to pick them into a sidebar or below the editor. If you don't see the category or tag panel localize the "Screen Options" tab at the top of your page and check the box next to Categories and Tags checkbox.
Next, we highly recommend that you add a featured image to your post. You can do so in the Featured Image panel that's by default below the Tags panel. Click on the "Set featured image" button and upload your images, make sure they are at least 1000px wide.
Great, you have just created your first article. To publish it press the blue button at the top of the page in the Publish box. After your post is live, it will display on the front page. The slider will show up if there is at least 7 posts, so don't worry if it doesn't show up just yet.
The more posts you add the richer your page will be. Make sure to add at least 14 to reproduce the demo slider and load more posts button.
Create a simple 'About us' page
Pages are very similar to posts, except pages are static and the are not listed by date. Pages don't have tags or categories. You can list pages in the secondary menu or via widgets, more on that in a minute.
The about page is a classic example that's why we will cover it here. You may wish to create an about page to help your readers find out more about you, you can link your social media pages there, add a contact email or throw in a quick biography and mission statement.
The best part is that you already know how to do all those things, because you create a page in the same way as you create and article. To begin creating a new page, again, hover over '+ New' in the admin bar and this time select 'Page'. You will be redirected to the editor.
Same deal here, compose your page and once you're happy press the blue 'Publish' button. Now comes the time that we talk about menus. Your newly created pages, unlike the posts, won't show up on the front page, because they don't know where, we need to make a menu.
Creating a menu
Now there are two menu spaces available in this theme. We call the menu before the site name and tagline, a primary menu and the smaller one at the top of the page, a secondary menu. With TIMES you don't really have to worry about the Primary menu.
By default we take your categories and subcategories and turn them into nice and neat drop-downs with subcategories and their recent posts. That's why we recommend that you categorize your posts.
If you, however, would like to compose a menu with custom links, categories and pages, WordPress dashboard is the best way to do it. You can access it via URL ex. example.com/wp-admin/nav-menus.php or the admin bar (if you are logged in into WordPress)
It's time to create the menu (if you don’t have one)! In order to do that, click the blue Create Menu button and name your menu somehow (just for the organization purposes). Now you have to check the right checkbox which depends on where you want your menu to be. Primary Menu is the one below the logo and Secondary is the one above.
By default, WordPress comes bundled with example menu that automatically creates Home & Sample Page menu items. You can delete them by clicking the arrow on the right of the menu item and pressing the Remove link, like so:
If you want to add more pages, posts, categories or custom links to the menu you can do so in the panel on the left side of the section. It allows you to add selected pages, post, categories or even to insert a custom link to some website, or anything you want.
If you want to create a sub menu just drag the menu item and nudge it to the right a little. We recommend one level submenu items as more than this is simply a burden for your readers to navigate.
Change the title and the subtitle of your page
The best and fastest way to change your page title and subtitle is by going to the customizer panel. You can find a quick link to it in the admin bar at the top of your page, or in the dashboard by clicking the Theme Options in the menu. You should see a panel on the left.
You can do all the theme customizations here but for now let's focus on the first position labeled "Site Identity". It's pretty straight-forward. The input labeled "Site Title" is responsible for, well, the site title. Same with Site Tagline. Make your changes and click the blue "Save" button.
Add the favicon and a logo to your site.
Since we are in the Site Identity section it's worth pointing out that you can also add a logo to your site from there. Just click the "Select Image" button and upload your logo. Make sure it's twice as bigger so it will look good on retina screens, if it's not hit the checkbox below.
Next, we recommend that you upload a site icon/favicon. This icon will show up as an icon for your page in the tab of your browser and as an web app icon when you pin your page to the home screen on mobile.
Add your logo and/or icon and 'Save' the changes by clicking the blue button at the top of the panel. In some cases you may need to hard reload your browser without cache for changes to take effect.
Pick the home page layout.
There are four options to pick for when it comes to homepage layout. You can see all of them in the customizer, that you can access via admin bar by clicking the "Customize" button.
Select the "Layout Options" position, second from the top and you should see the default "Left" option highlighted. Pick any options you think would be good and preview your change instantly. The random option will change the layout on every page refresh.
Once you are happy with the changes, click the "Save" button.
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