WooThemes

Getting Started

Introduction

So you've purchased a WooTheme and you are dying to get it up and running on your website?

To install a WooTheme, is not much different to installing any other (free) WordPress theme. Remember though, you'll need to set up your theme options afterwards to have it functioning like our demos.

There are two ways to install a WooTheme on your website. Both methods are explained below in video tutorials, we however recommend doing it via the Wordpress backend.

Below is a quick overview of the Wordpress "Add New Themes" installation method:

1. Download your template file (wootheme_name.zip) from your WooThemes account.
2. Log into your WP admin panel and click on the "Appearance" tab. Now click on the "Add New Themes" tab.
3. Click on the "Upload" button, "Browse" for your zip folder you downloaded from our site to your computer and select "Open".
4. Click the "Install Now" button.
5. Activate the theme from this page, OR "Return to Themes Page" and activate from there if you experience a problem. See screenshot of an activated theme.
6. REMEMBER to set up your theme option's panel for it to display correctly. See example of theme option's panel.
7. MAKE SURE your theme "cache" folder is CHMOD 777. View this tutorial for help.

Installing a WooTheme via the Wordpress Backend

Installing a WooTheme via an FTP program

Prior to Wordpress 2.8 this was the only way to upload and install Wordpress themes, but since then Wordpress have made the process much easier, documented above. Many users still prefer to install themes via FTP, as it offers more flexibility when modifying themes.

Installing a WooTheme from WooThemes on Vimeo.

Explaining the Theme Options

Below is a screenshot of the theme option's panel included in this theme. The default settings used are what we have used in our demo.

How To

Adding Images To Posts (Using the Image Resizer)

Background Information

Many of the different template pages within Premium News, uses an embedded image within a post when displaying the post to the user. This means that you need to add a custom image to a post should you wish to display the image with the post. If you decline to add an image to a post, it will not be displayed and won’t disrupt the theme in any way. Note: Images do need to be added to Featured Posts as specified below in section #4.

Our themes use a custom image resizing script (thumb.php) which will dynamically resize, crop & create an image in the appropriate size needed for the template, i.e. the featured tabber and thumbnails for archived posts.

Instructions:

View video demonstration. To add images to your posts, please reference the screenshot below and follow the subsequent instructions:

Screenshot 3: Premium News Custom Settings.

1. On your Write > Post tab, complete all of the standard fields when adding a new post.
2. Now scroll down to the NewsPress Custom Settings panel and “Browse” for the image you desire to use for the thumbnail or featured image. Once you click “Save” you are done. The image resizer script takes care of resizing the image to the correct size.

Adding Featured Posts (Homepage Only)

Setting up the featured section

1. First you need to create or identify a specific post category that you would like to use as your featured category. You can create a category by going to Manage > Categories in the WP admin panel.
2. Now go to Premium News Options and open the “Front Page Layout” panel. Then select the appropriate category as the “Featured Category”. Then save those options.

Adding the post (basics)

1. Go to Write > Post.
2. Type a title for the post and complete all of the post’s body content. Add an image if you desire using the method described above.
3. Make sure to select the appropriate category (as you have specified on the theme options page – see above).
4. Once you have completed the post’s body content, copy a section of that body content, which you will use as the shortened summary of the post on the homepage. Now paste that section of content into the “Excerpt” field further down the page.

Adding Videos (Sidebar)

Setting up the video section

1. First you need to create or identify a specific post category that you would like to use as your video category. You can create a category by going to Manage > Categories in the WP admin panel.
2. Now go to Premium News Options and open the “Front Page Layout” panel. Then select whether to display the video player or not and select the appropriate category as the “Video”. Then save those options.

Adding a new video

1. Go to Write > Write Post in your WordPress admin panel.
2. Select the category for your videos (the same category as the category you specified in NewsPress Options).
3. Now you should have the YouTube page open to copy the video embed code.
4. You will now need to enter this code into the “Text Area” field. Don’t worry about width and heights of the video as the theme will resize it automatically.
5. Click Publish.

Using Other Video Services

You can use any other video services (eg. Google Video, Vimeo, Revver etc.) if you’re not a fan of YouTube. You would simply need to copy their embed code and paste into the “Text Area”.

Widgets

Custom NewsPress Widgets

NewsPress includes a bunch of different widgetized spaces, along with custom, NewsPress-specific widgets to allow you more customisation options than ever before. Here’s a brief run-down of both the widget areas and custom widgets:

Widgetized Spaces

There are 2 different widgetized spaces throughout the Premium News template:

• Sidebar 1 (the left sub column in the sidebar);
• Sidebar 2 (the right sub column in the sidebar); and

Note: You will need to go to Appearance > Widgets to add any widgets to these spaces. By default the theme will not display anything in these spaces, until you add your own widgets.

Setting up widgets in a WooTheme

Widgets are hugely powerful optional modular blocks of content or functionality that you can place on your WooThemes powered, Wordpress website. This tutorial shows you how to set up widgets to further enhance your website's appearance.

Page Templates

Custom Page Templates

This theme comes bundled with unique page templates for some additional functionality to your WooThemes powered website. Below is a list of some of the page templates available across our themes. Please note they are not all bundled with all our themes.

• Archives (template-archives.php) - Displays all categories, monthly archives, popular tags and the 30 latest posts
• Sitemap (template-sitemap.php) - An alternative to some WordPress plugins out there, this page template will create a sitemap, which you can use for SEO & user-usability purposes.
• Full Width (template-fullwidth.php) - A full width page template without the sidebar.
• Redirect (template-redirect.php) - Is a nifty page template used to "fool" Wordpress into creating a menu item in your page navigation, which is in fact a link to an external site. Simply follow the steps mentioned below under "Adding an external url to your page navigation menu"
• Image Gallery (template-imagegallery.php) * - Displays the images you have associated with your posts in an image gallery, linking back to the original article
• Contact Form (template-contact.php)* - A page with a contact form on it so that a web visitor can email you. Please note you will have to add your email address to the theme option's panel of the theme to make sure it is set up correctly.

* This page template isn't included in all themes

Setting Up Page Templates

If you still need some guidance after this video tutorial then follow the steps below:

1. Go to Write > Page in the WP admin panel.
2. Simply fill in the page title, which can be anything, and then ignore the page body content.
3. Scroll down to the "Templates" field in the "Attributes" box and select the page template you'd like to use.
4. And publish!

Adding an external url to your page navigation menu

1. Create a new page in WordPress
2. Add a title to the page (e.g. WooThemes)
3. Add an URL to the content of the page (e.g. http://www.woothemes.com OR woothemes.com OR www.woothemes.com)
4. Add the “Redirect” page template to the page (using the method described in the video tutorial above)
5. Publish! Your menu item will now be in your page navigation and link to an external site.

Changelog

The Original Premium News Changelog

2009.09.18 - version 2.0.4

• home.php - Hide video when not selected in options panel
• index.php - Hide video when not selected in options panel

2009.09.13 - version 2.0.3

• layouts/blog.php - fixed syntax error

2009.08.30 - version 2.0.2

• /functions/ - Core Framework 1.0.7
• /lang/premiumnews.po - Added language file. See: http://www.woothemes.com/2009/08/how-to-translate-a-theme/
• Added gettext functions to template php files to support localization.

2009.08.25 - version 2.0.1

• /includes/theme-functions.php - Added missing function for comments

2009.08.20 - version 2.0

• functions.php - New Framework
• /functions/
• /includes/
• index.php - updated if statement
• home.php - updated if statement
• header.php - updated GLOBALS (line 81-85)
• layouts/default.php - updated query
• layouts/blog.php - updated query
• /ads/ - fixed advertise here link

2009.06.16 - version 1.2.3

• header.php - Removed WP's automatic include of jQuery and replaced with manual inclusion of latest version of jQuery
• includes/js/jQuery-1.3.2.js - Added

2009.06.15 - version 1.2.2

• header.php - Removed old jQuery include

2009.06.11 - version 1.2.1

• footer.php - removed scripts
• header.php - added scripts
• functions.php - get_categories fix
• /includes/js/jquery.bgiframe.min.js - added
• /includes/js/superfish.js - update
• /includes/js/tabs.js - update

2008.10.22 - version 1.2.0

• thumb.php - new version

2008.10.09 - version 1.1.6

• functions/custom.php - Fixed bug with update of custom fields

2008.10.02 - version 1.1.5

• functions.php - Changed post_title to post_name

2008.09.04 - version 1.1.4 (only updated to svn)

• sitemap.php - fixed wp_list_pages
• header.php - fixed wp_list_pages
• style.css - fixed .nav-left, .nav-right

2008.09.04 - version 1.1.3

• style.css - Fixed flickr badge style error

2008.09.02 - Version 1.1.2

• functions.php - Fixed archives variable name
• includes/version.php - Archive variable with page ID
• layouts/default.php - Archive variable with page ID

2008.08.21 - Version 1.1.1

• functions.php - Changed default value on options

2008.08.08 - Version 1.1

• changelog.txt - Added changelog and revised version number
• includes/test.php - Added phpinfo() file for debugging resizer on buggy hosts
• includes/popular.php - Display popular posts in sidebar.php
• includes/comments.php - Display recent comments in sidebarh.php
• functions/custom.php - Custom settings panel in WP post window
• sidebar.php - Changed tabs to use popular.php and comments.php
• sidebar.php - Changed flickr script
• sidebar.php - fixed <ul> to <span> to validate on tag cloud
• header.php - fixed <? to <?php
• footer.php - Stripslashes on google analytics
• footer.php - WooThemes credit logo
• screenshot.png - New screenshot
• functions.php - .mainrow border-bottom: 1px solid #D4E9FA !important;
• functions.php - Added flickr options
• functions.php - Added pages dropdown to archive
• functions.php - Fixed google analytics slashes when saving
• functions.php - No <br/> before description of checkboxes
• style.css - Fix float on .flickr img