WPCrest

This is the official documentation accompanied with the WPCrest theme for WordPress. It covers everything you will need to set up and use the theme.

This theme is a product of Rhyzz, a web development firm which has been developing websites and blogs using WordPress since 2006. It has been leveraging it's abilities to develop projects with complex requirements using WordPress by taking it to a completely different level. It is the author of the WordPress Fields Framework plugin.

This experience combined with the weeks of effort that has been put into it's development makes WPCrest a unique and reliable WordPress theme. You can read more about this theme in the next section. The official support page for this theme is maintained here.

• Preview
• Introduction
• Features
  • For Users
  • For Designers and Developers
• Installing the theme
  • Prerequisites
  • Using Automatic Install
• Plugins
  • Required
  • Optional
• Configuration
  • Site-wide
  • Homepage
• Usage
  • Post Formats
• Customization
  • Without a Child Theme
  • Using a Child Theme

WPCrest is an elegant and easy to use WordPress theme which is responsive and uses a fluid layout. A responsive design is one which adapts the layout to the viewing environment to provide the best viewing experience to the user. WPCrest takes into consideration a wide range of devices which includes desktop computers, laptops, mobile phones and tablets. If the resolution depth being used by the user to view the website is small then the theme will shrink the layout accordingly to ensure easy reading and navigation. Regardless of whether a user is using a device which has a resolution that's 320 pixels wide or 1920 pixels wide, the theme won't compromise the user's experience browsing through your website.

To get a better idea of it's responsive nature, it is suggested you view the demo of the theme using a mobile simulator such as Opera Mini simulator.

The theme comes packed with a number of features which are outlined below. They are grouped under 'For Users' and 'For Designers and Developers'. As a user you won't have to worry about the 'For Designer and Developer' features to be able to use this theme.

• Post Format support for Image, Gallery, Video and Audio
• A Teaser which lets you display a title, a small description and a call to action button.
• A Scheme Switcher which lets visitor switch the skin in use and the background images. Also lets the user increase or decrease the font size
• A Social Media links section
• A User Support block which you can use to display your contact number or email address
• A Preloader that can be displayed while a page loads and while AJAX calls are being executed
• Ability to modify all Headings, Labels, URL Slugs and Messages
• Site-wide bottom widget panel
• Widgetized sidebar for blog section
• Ability to replace text logo/description with a logo. Also lets you upload your logo right from the backend.

• Full Localization Support (which means you can translate the text visible on the frontend and backend for Non-English users)
• Ability to load custom PHP, CSS and JavaScript without modifying any of the core theme files.
• Fully supports creation of Child Themes

This section covers the installation of this theme.

The only prerequisites I assume are as follows:

• You have WordPress installed
• You know how to unzip a package and upload it using FTP (this one is only needed if your web host doesn't support WordPerss' automatic installation feature)

This one is the quickest way to install the theme! All you have to do is navigate to Appearance -> Themes -> Install Themes from your WordPress administration area. Once there, click on the 'Upload' link on the top.

Now that you have the theme upload form on your screen, click on the 'Browse' button and navigate to the folder which contains the file named 'wpcrest.zip' and select it. Click on the 'Install Now' button and wait! Your theme should be installed in a jiffy!

Your theme should now be installed! Congratulations!

You can now head towards the Initial Setup sub section.

WPCrest requires that you have the following plugin installed and activated to manage options from the backend.

• Fields Framework

WPCrest has in-built support for the plugin below. So all you have to do is just install and activate these plugins and you are done.

• WP PageNavi

Now that you have installed the theme successfully, you should be seeing a new menu on the bottom of the sidebar of your administration panel labeled 'WPCrest'.

This menu is divided into various sub menus. The basic configuration of the theme is done using the Configuration sub menu.

Header Section

Title / Logo

Use a Logo

Enable this option if you want to use an image based logo rather than text for the title and description.

Logo URL

Enter URL of your logo image here or upload one. This image will only be used if the above option is enabled.

Link Title or Logo to

Enter URL you want the title/logo to link to. Leave this blank if you don't want them to be a link.

User Support

Enable User Support

Enable this if you want to display a support section in the header which can display a text message of your choice.

User Support Icon

Specify icon to display if you don't want to use the default telephone icon. The theme also includes an email icon.

User Support Text

Enter your Call to Action text which you want displayed next to the icon.

Search Form

Search Input Placeholder

You can use this field to replace the default search input placeholder with something custom

General

Disable Page Preloader

While the content of a page is downloaded and loaded, a preloader is displayed. You can disable this behaviour using this option to prevent the display of a preloader.

Disable AJAX Preloader

Similar to the above except that this one is displayed during AJAX requests.

Disable AJAX Pagination

By default AJAX is used for navigating through paged sections of archives. This means the page won't have to reload when a user clicks on a link inside the pager.

Default Scheme

You can select the default scheme you want to use from here. If you select None here, the grayscale version of the theme will be displayed. Remember, if you disable the scheme switcher then the scheme you select here is the one which will be visible to your visitors.

Disable Scheme Switcher

If you do not want to let visitors be able to switch the site's scheme that is visible to them then you can choose to disable the scheme switcher using this option. Default value for this is no.

Open External URLs in New Window

By default all external links are configured to open in a new window. You can disable this feature to prevent that from happening.

Open Media URLs in New Window

Enable this if you want URLs pointing to media like images or PDF documents to open in a new window.

Enable Lightbox

Enable this option if you want links pointing to images to open in a modal dialog using Lightbox

Copyright Notice

Use this area if you want to display a custom copyright message on the footer of your website

404 Message

Use this area if you want to display a custom message on your 404 error page

Comments Support

Disable for Posts

By default comments are enabled for posts. You can disable this using this option.

Enable for Pages

By defaults, comments are disabled for pages. You can enable them using this option.

Custom Headings, Labels and URL Slugs

Headings

Taxonomies

Use %s as replacement substitution for the respective taxonomy term

Category

This is the heading that's displayed on Category archive pages

Tag

This heading is displayed on the Tag archive pages

Date-based

Use %s as replacement substitute for year, month or day respectively

Yearly

This is the heading that's displayed on yearly archive pages

Monthly

This one is displayed on monthly archive pages

Daily

This one is displayed on the daily archive pages

Search Results

Use %s as replacement substitution for query being searched

Main

This is the main heading that's displayed on the search results pages

Posts

This is the sub heading that's used by the posts section on the search results page

Pages

This is the sub heading that's used by the pages section on the search results page

Others

Author

This heading is displayed on the author's archive page

Labels

Attachment Browser

This label is displayed on the attachment's page just below the image

Current Attachment

This label is used for the section that displays the current attachment number

Links

Social Media

The social media icons section on the top right area is controlled using this section. Enter your links for the services you would like to use. The title field is used as the alternative image for respective social media icons.

This provides usage instructions for various sections.

WPCrest has support for 4 custom post formats viz. Image, Gallery, Video and Audio. You can create your posts using either one of these Formats or you can create it using the standard format.

To select a Post Format, while creating your post just look for the heading 'Post Format' which will probably be right under the editor. From here you can select which format you want to use for a post.

The Image Format is suitable for posts which feature a single image.

You can upload the image you would like to feature either using the form provided under Post Formats Image section or using WordPress' Upload/Insert media section.

The former gives you more flexibility as you can provide a direct URL to the full size and small size image. The small size version isn't required however the full size version is required.

If you don't want to use this section you can just upload the image using the Upload/Insert media section. You don't need to do anything after uploading it from there as the image will be fetched automatically on the frontend.

The Gallery Format is very similar to the Image Format, the diffence being that this time lets you upload more than one image, hence the name gallery.

So if you have a post which will feature more than one image then you can use this format.

Usage for this is the same as the Image Format section. If you use the Upload/Insert media section for managing gallery images, you can upload as many images as you would like and you can control ordering using the order feature provided by this section.

The Video Format is for displaying featured videos. You can either upload the video locally or you can insert a link to an external video. You can link to a direct video file or to a video hosted using a service like YouTube or Vimeo.

Raw videos are displayed using the built-in video player. External videos are automatically embedded using their provider's player. However if this fails, they'll be loaded using the built-in player

The Audio Format is for displayed feature audio clips.

As easy WPCrest is to use, it's equally easy to modify it if you have some coding skills.

There are two ways you can customize the theme. One involves the use of creating a Child theme where as the other lets you do it without creating a Child theme.

Please don't modify any of the theme files directory because your modifications will be lost when you update the theme to a latter version. Instead use one of the methods outlined here.

The WPCrest theme provides you with the ability of modiying your theme without actually editing any of the core files. This is achieved by using custom files which you can use to add your PHP, JavaScript and CSS code. Because these files are not part of the core, you don't have to worry about them being overwritten when you update the theme whenever a new version is available. You can modify both the frontend and the backend of your website using this approach. You can use it to add new functionality or override existing functionality. This includes the ability of overriding default PHP functions used by this theme.

This method is well suited if you don't require any major customization. If you do then creating a Child Theme might be a better option.

PHP

If you want to load your own PHP code, all you have to do is create a file named functions.php and save it under WPCrest/custom/php/. This directory don't exist by default so you will have to create it first.

Modifying the WPCrest theme by using a Child theme is no different from doing the same for any other theme. However, this theme uses two utility functions for accessing files that belong to it. These functions are described below.

	WPCrest::get_file_path($file, $type = null)

This function returns a path to the file and can be used for loading PHP files etc.

	WPCrest::get_file_uri($file, $type = null)

This function returns a URI to the file and can be used for accessing Images, CSS and JS.

The first parameter takes in a relative path to the file like '/images/filename.png'. The second parameter is optional but you can pass in two possible values to it namely 'child' or 'parent'. If you pass the value child to it, the function will return the file from the Child theme where as if you pass parent it will return the file from the Parent theme. If you aren't using a Child theme then both these functions return the same value. If you leave this option blank then the function will check to see whether a Child theme has this file. If it does, that is what is returned. Or else the path from the Parent theme is returned.

Instructions

Use the following instructions to create a child theme

1. Create a new folder under /wp-content/themes/ and name it whatever you like. Just make sure it doesn't contain any spaces! WPCrest-Child would be a good name.
2. Now create a file named style.css and add the following to it:

	/*
	Theme Name: WPCrest Child
	Template: wpcrest
	*/
	

3. The value next to "Theme Name" specifies the name of your child theme and the value next to "Template" is the directory name of the parent folder, which in this case is wpcrest.
4. Upload this file to the folder you created in step #1.
5. You are almost done! All you have to do now is activate this theme from the administration panel and you can start customizing using this child theme.