James Documentation

James WooCommerce Responsive Theme Documentation

James responsive theme documentation by RoadThemes

Thank you for purchasing my theme. If you have any questions that are beyond the scope of this help file, please feel free to email via my user page contact form here. Thanks so much!









Welcome to General Theme Documentation




















Getting Started

Intro Video

What this intro video before you start with this theme, it provides basic steps to make everything easier.

Installing Theme

Once you've downloaded the installation file on ThemeForest, extract it and locate a file called James.zip. You can install the theme by using one of two installation methods:

  1. WordPress upload - This is probably the simplest way for most users. Here are the steps you need to take:
    1. Login to WordPress admin
    2. Go to Dashboard> Appearance > Themes > Add New > Upload Theme
    3. Click on "Choose File" and select James.zip
    4. Click on "Install Now"
  2. FTP upload - If you wish to install via FTP, here are the steps you need to take:
    1. Using FTP client, login to the server where your WordPress website is hosted
    2. Using FTP client, navigate to the /wp-content/themes/ directory under your WordPress website's root directory
    3. Using FTP client, upload the Theme directory to themes directory on remote server

Once installation is complete, your Theme theme will be ready to use. You should now see "James" appears in the WordPress themes manager panel.

Installing Plugins

We need to install some plugins from WordPress plugins repository

Install 3 premium plugins: Visual Composer, Mega Main Menu, Revolution Slider.

For premium plugins, please open the "plugins" folder in the theme package to see plugins file. Extract the zip file for each plugin to get the installable file. Go to Plugins=>Add New to upload & install plugins.

Watch the intro video above to see in details.

Importing Demo Content

There are 2 methods to import sample content, by one click in Theme Options panel or do manually.

1. One Click

After installed and activated all required plugins, we will see the Demo Importer tab in Theme Options panel.

Click on the Import Demo button and wait for some minutes.

2. Manually

We can import content for pages, posts, menu, projects, contact form, testimonials...

Login to your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Tools - Import. Click on WordPress link on the table then click "Install Now" button on popup window to install WordPress Importer.

Click on "Activate Plugin & Run Importer" link to begin

Click "Browse..." button and select XML file in "sample-data/exported_files" folder:

- all-content.xml: This is exported of many content, includes posts, pages, products, contact form, testimonials, menus. You can ignore this file if you website has already content.

Click on "Upload file and import" button

On the next interface, select existing user on dropdown, check on "Download and import file attachments" to download sample images.

Click on "Submit" button to import.

Import Widgets

To create widgets for this theme quickly, we use a tool to import all widgets from exported files in "sample-data/exported_files" folder.

Login to your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Tools - Widget Importer & Exporter

Click on "Browse..." or "Choose File" button then select "James-widgets.wie", click on "Import Widgets" to finish.

After importing widgets, if you need to update some widgets like menu, posts... go to Apperances - Widgets

Import Theme Options

Import sample theme options will help you to configure options for the theme quickly. After that, you change colors, text, menu, images, background...for the theme to make it unique.

Open the wp_James_package_1.0/sample-data/exported_files/theme-options.json with Notepad (or Text Edit on Mac). Copy all file content.

Login to your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Theme Options - Import/Export.

Click on "Import from File", paste content into the text box. Click Import button.

Updating Theme

Auto-Update Feature

You can now enable the Auto-Updating feature for Theme. To do this, please first make sure that you have the Envato WordPress Toolkit plugin installed.

After you have installed and activated the Envato WordPress Toolkit, please go to Envato Toolkit from your dashboard and enter your Marketplace Username and API Key. You can find your API Key by logging into your profile on Themeforest and navigating to Profile > Settings > API Keys. 

When you have entered your Marketplace Username and API Key and clicked Save Settings, a new tab will appear at the top of the screen named "Themes". Click on this tab to see all the themes you have purchased. If there is an update available for a theme, you will be notified here. To update your theme, just click on the "Update Automatically" link. 

Please note that each time you use the Auto-Update feature to update the theme, a backup file of the old version of the theme will be stored on your server in ".../wp-content/envato-backups".

Manual Update

You can update your theme manually by performing the following steps:

  1. Download the latest theme zip file from ThemeForest
  2. Extract it and locate James.zip
  3. Extract James.zip and open the James/readme.txt file
  4. Replace files which listed in the readme.txt file

Using Theme

Once you've installed Theme, you can start building your site.

Setting Up the Header

One of the first things you might want to do is to set up the header area. This section contains the header layout, welcome message, top bar, mobile menu, vertical menu, sticky header and other options.

To set it up, go to Theme Options - Header from the admin panel. The settings you define here will be the default settings for all pages on your site. If you need help with any of the options, please refer to Theme Options in this user guide.

Now let's add a logo. Go to Theme Options - General from the admin panel and click the upload button next to the "Logo" field. You should now have a visible logo in your header area.

Menu Creation

To create a menu, go to Appearance - Menus from the admin panel. Click on "Create a new menu." Enter a name for your menu, and then click on "Create Menu".

Every page that you've created up until now will be listed in the section on the left called Pages. Simply check the ones that you want added to the menu, and then click on the "Add to Menu" button. Once added, you can click and drag the menu items to rearrange them, or nest them one under the other.

Now let's set up the footer by going to Theme Options - Footer from the admin panel. We can add link for social icons, select menus for footer, enter contact us, about us information.

The settings you define here will be the default settings for all pages on your site. If you need help with any of the options here, please refer to Theme Options in this user guide.

Building Pages

To create a new page, go to Pages - Add New from the admin panel. Enter a title for your page in the text field near the top of your screen. Then choose the "Full Width" template for your page in the section on the right called Page Attributes. This will allow you to have sections on your page that go across full width of the screen.

Now let's start adding elements to your page. Make sure that you're in the backend editor. If the blue button on the top left says BACKEND EDITOR, click it to enable the Visual Composer. Once you're in backend, the button will say CLASSIC MODE. You can now click on "Add Element" and start building your page.

Finally, click the "Publish" button in the upper right section of the page. (If you made some changes on already published page, "Update" button will appear.

Additional Notes

Font Icon Pack

Please note that Theme comes with font icon pack: Font Awesome. You can see an overview of all the available icons in this icon packs at the following link:

  1. Font Awesome: http://fortawesome.github.io/Font-Awesome/icons/

 

 

 

 

Theme Options

You can access Theme Options from the WordPress admin panel. The settings found here are applied globally and will affect all pages of the site.

General

This section allows you to set up general settings for your site. We can upload Logo for the header, upload favicon for your website, change body background, content background and show/hide the back to top button.

For the logo image, we recommend the PNG format and small size. Use .ico file format for the Favicon and size is 16x16 pixels.

Colors

This is where you can change colors for your website. We can change the primary color, sale label color, link color, text selected color and background. Some elements in special area has different color from this panel, we can use custom css to change colors.

Header

This section allows you to set up the header area. The first choice to change the header layout. You can upload an image for the header background or simply, select a background color. Change the header text color and welcome message.

Sticky header:

We can turn on or off the sticky header. Change background for the sticky header, it supports transparent background color.

Top bar:

In this area, we can change background, text color for top bar. We also have a text editor to add code for the email and phone.

Menu:

We can change mobile menu label. The submenu background and submenu color is applied for the main menu (horizontal menu) in desktop view.

Vertical Menu (Not available in this theme):

This is option for the vertical menu on header. Some header layouts have the vertical menu, often for the product categories list. We can change background, label of the toggler, number of level items to show, more & less label. We also can show or hide the item list on home page, inner pages.

Fonts

In this area, we can change font for text, heading, menu, price. There are some options to select for each font like font family, back up font family, font weight and style, font size, line height, color. We can use default options or change any font like you need.

If we want to restore default options, click on "Reset Section" button. Watch the video below, we change some options then restore default.

Layouts

In this tab, we can select page layout is full width or box, select theme preset and turn off the style switcher.

Preset: There are 2 presets to select, if we select a presets (example: preset 2) the theme uses pre-defined fonts and colors in that preset. If we select "Use Options" then the theme uses fonts and colors from "Colors" and "Fonts" tab.

Brands Logos

This section allows you to upload brands log and configure the options for the brands slider. Click on "Add Slider" to add more logos.

Sidebar

This section allows you to change position of sidebars to left or right side

Portfolio

This section allows you to change portfolio columns, projects per page, related projects title.

Product

This section allows you to change the layout for the shop page. We can change how the products appear in grid view or list view. We have products per page, product columns and secondary image. We can change cross-sells title.

Product page:

This area allows you to change options for the product page. We can change the related title, number of related products, up-sells title and sharing icons.

For social sharing code, go to http://www.sharethis.com or http://www.addthis.com/ then follow guide on website to create sharing button and get code. Remember to select "website", not "WordPress".

Quick View:

This area allows you to change the text link on the quick view window.

Blog

This section allows you to change the text on header of blog page "Blog", select blog layout, change read more text and the excerpt length.

Latest posts carousel:

This area allows you to change options for the latest posts carousel on home page.

Testimonials

This area allows you to change options for the testimonials carousel on home page.

Error 404 page

No options, please edit the code of 404.php file if you need to change layout.

 

Custom CSS

This section allows you to add custom css code for website. You can change font size, color, background...for elements. It requires the CSS knowledge.

Less Compiler

This section allows you to turn on/off the less compiler. In the theme, I used .less files in the "less" folder to generate .css files. Turn off the compiler after you finished changing colors, fonts to save server resources.

Blog

Blog Posts

To create a new blog post, go to Posts - Add New from the admin panel.

  1. Enter a title for your post in the text field near the top.
  2. Next, at the right side of your screen, in the section called Format, choose a format for your blog post.

Let's go over the possible options:

  • Standard - This is the default blog format. You can start adding content with the Visual Composer.
  • Image - This is same as the default format, but it uses the content-image.php to display post. You can edit file to change layout of this post type.
  • Gallery - This post type has a gallery, you can add shortcode to show a slider at Post featured content.
  • Video - This post type has a video player, you can add shortcode to show YouTube or Vidmeo at Post featured content
  • Audio - This post types has a audio player, you can add shortcode to show a player at Post featured content
Now it's time to categorize this post.
  1. Under Format, in the section called Categories, select the categories that you wish to add this post to. Alternatively, if you'd like to create a new category, click on "+ Add New Category." A text field will unfold where you can enter a name for the category.
  2. Then click on "Add New Category".
  3. Once you've checked the categories where you want this post to go to, click the "Publish button".
  4. Under the Categories section are the Tags and Featured Image sections. Here you can add tags to your post, and upload an image to be displayed for this post on blog list pages, respectively.

Now that you've set up your blog post, let's go over the custom fields.

Note that most of them are the same custom fields you'll find when creating standard pages.

 

 

 

Pages

When creating a new page, one of the first things you might want to do is to assign an appropriate template for it. To do this, go inside the page backend and locate the section on the right called Page Attributes. Theme comes with a variety of templates to choose from:

  • Default Template - Choose this one if you wish to create a standard page with a sidebar.
  • About page - This template to use is for your "About Us" page.
  • Front Page Template - This is the template to use for your "Home" page.
  • Full Width - Choose this one if you wish to create a standard page with elements that go across full width of the page, no sidebar.

Home Page

The default home page is blog, to create a home page with layouts of this theme, we have to create a new page and set it as front page.

Go to Pages - Add New, enter page title and select template is "Front Page Template"

For the page content, open "sample-date/pages" folder in this package, open a "home-[page name].txt" and copy content.

Click on "CLASSIC MODE" and click on "Text" tab to switch to HTML mode, paste content there and click Publish to save page.

Go to Settings - Reading, select "A static page" in "Front page displays" then select your page in dropdown.

 

Blog Page

Go to Pages - Add New to create an empty page, enter page title is "Blog".

Go to Settings - Reading, select "A static page" in "Front page displays" then select your blog page in "Posts page" dropdown.

Contact Us Page

Go to Pages - Add New to create a new page, use the sample content from the "contact.txt" file. Select page template is "Full Width".

Portfolio Page

Go to Pages - Add New to create an empty page, enter page title is "Portfolio".

Go to Projects - Settings, select portfolio page in "Projects Page" dropdown.

Shop Page

To create pages for WooCommerce, click on "Run the Setup Wizard" button in the back-end. Follow all steps to setup WooCommerce.

About Us Page

Go to Pages - Add New to create a new page, use the sample content from the "about-us.txt" file. Select page template is "About page".

Other Pages

Go to Pages - Add New to create a new page, use Visual Composer to add elements for the pages, change page template to get full width or sidebar page.

WooCommerce

Theme comes with WooCommerce integration, which allows you to build an online shop. For more information on installing and configuring WooCommerce, please visit this page:

http://docs.woothemes.com/documentation/plugins/woocommerce/getting-started/

In order to setup WooCommerce with our theme, please perform the following steps:

  1. Go to Plugins - Add New from the admin panel.
  2. Type "WooCommerce" in the search field.
  3. Locate "WooCommerce - excelling eCommerce" in the search results and click on "Install Now".
  4. Once installation is complete, click on "Activate Plugin".
  5. You should first set the product image sizes in order to achieve the same look that we did. Go to WooCommerce - Settings and click the "Products" tab, click "Display" link. Under the section Product Image Sizes, enter the same values that we did:

 

Product Tabs

To create a products tabs slider on home page, add new row in Visual Composer, insert a Text Blocks with a heading 3 text for the tab title. Add shortcodes of WooCommerce to show products.

Click on the pencil icon of the row then add extra class: home-tabs layout1

When you want to show 2 tabs, you have to change the extra class of secondary tab to: home-tabs layout2

 

Products Images

When editing a product, we can upload a cover image and over images.

Products Image Zoom

Go to YIT Plugins=>Zoom magnifier to select options for the zoom feature on the product page.

Products Wishlist

Go to YIT Plugins=>Wishlist to change settings for the wishlist, we don't require any settings there but we recommend to change text, select social networks.

Products Compare

Go to YITH Plugins=>Compare then select settings like this

Sliders

Please read the documentation on Revolution Slider first http://www.themepunch.com/revslider-doc/slider-revolution-documentation/

You can import sample sliders, we have some sample slider in the "slider-sample" folder.

Widgets

To change widgets, go to Appearance - Widgets. Read the Getting Started - Import Widgets in this documentation to know how to import widgets.

Newsletter

Use this plugin to make the newsletter sign up form on footer. Navigate to MailPoet. Click on "Thanks! Now take me to MailPoet." to start using this plugin. Click on "settings"link

On "Basics" tab, enter your email in "Email notifications" and choose other options.

Click on "Forms" tab, there is a form named "Subscribe to our Newsletter", move mouse over it and click on  "Edit" link to edit this newsletter sign up form

Move mouse over "Email *" and click on "Edit display" button

Select "Yes" on "Display label within input" then click on "Done" button

Portfolio

Go to Pages - Add New to create a new page for portfolio/projects, only enter page title and click "Publish" button.

Go to Projects - Settings, select "Projects Page" in dropdown and click "Save Changes" button. Click on "Images" tab to set image size like this

Go to Projects - Add New to create a new project. Enter title, description and upload images.

Testimonials

Go to Testimonials - Add New to create a new testimonial. Enter title, description and upload images.

FAQ where to get help, support and additional information

We hope this manual was useful for you and helped you to install, to edit the template and to resolve your issues.

1. Why blank white page and less compiler error?

In this theme, it uses the less compiler function to generate css files from .less file. If your server has small PHP memory, it may show the error. Please try to increase the PHP memory like this:

1. Edit your wp-config.php file and enter something like:

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M');
WordPress memory can be different to the server – you need to set this regardless of server memory settings

http://codex.wordpress.org/Editing_wp-config.php#Increasing_memory_allocated_to_PHP

2. If you have access to your PHP.ini file, change the line in PHP.ini
If your line shows 32M try 256M:

memory_limit = 256M ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (256MB)

3. If you don’t have access to PHP.ini try adding this to an .htaccess file:

php_value memory_limit 256M

4. If none of the above works then talk to your host.

 

2. Why can't I save my menu?

Cause of this problem is small value of the "max_input_vars" option in the configuration of your server (host). You must increase value of the "max_input_vars". You must to set a value that is twice as large of the current value.

  • Most hosts have the opportunity to change this value in the "Host Admin Area".
    Example:
    If currently you have max_input_vars = 1000
    You need to set max_input_vars = 2000 (or more)

  • You can try to change this value using ".htaccess" file in root directory of the your site, adding this lines in ".htaccess". 
    php_value max_input_vars 3000  
    php_value suhosin.post.max_vars 3000  
    php_value suhosin.request.max_vars 3000

  • You can try to change this value using "php.ini". Add this line if you don't find max_input_vars 
    max_input_vars = 3000

  • If that does not help you, ask your host support "How can I increase the value of the max_input_vars for my site?".
3. Why website loads slowly?

In some cases, you uses large images on your page, server run slowly because it's a VPS. Try these methods:

- Reduce images size

- Install cache plugin like W3 Total Cache

- Turn off less compiler in Theme Options=>Less compiler after finished changing colors & fonts.

- Test website with GTMetrix and see its suggestions https://gtmetrix.com/

4. How to translate or rename default theme labels?

Read this guide to know how to translate theme http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/translating-your-theme--wp-25014

Read this guide to know how to translate WooCommerce https://docs.woothemes.com/document/woocommerce-localization/

5. Why do I see a white screen when importing demo content?

If you get a white screen or some other error when trying to import our demo content, this probably happens because of the maximum execution time limit. You need to increase the maximum execution time (upload time) setting of your web server. The default maximum execution time on web servers is 30 seconds. Please increase it to 300 seconds. Possible ways of achieving this are:

  • By wp-config.php changes - set_time_limit(300);
  • In htaccess - php_value max_execution_time 300;
  • In php.ini file - max_execution_time = 300

Ask your hosting provider to take care of this for you.

6. How to insert shortcode?

In this theme, we use Shortcodes Ultimate plugin to make shortcodes. You can go to this page http://gndev.info/kb/ and read the documentation to create your own shortcodes.

 

Credits & sources

I have included these sources with this theme:

jQuery: http://jquery.com/

FlexSlider: http://flexslider.woothemes.com/

Slick: http://plugins.jquery.com/slick/

jQuery Gmap: http://labs.mario.ec/jquery-gmap/

FancyBox: http://fancyapps.com/fancybox/

jQuery Parallax:http://www.ianlunn.co.uk/plugins/jquery-parallax/

jQuery Shuffle: http://vestride.github.io/Shuffle/

Font Awesome: http://fortawesome.github.io/Font-Awesome/

lessphp: http://leafo.net/lessphp

Once again, thank you so much for purchasing this theme. As I said at the beginning, I'd be glad to help you if you have any questions relating to this theme. No guarantees, but I'll do my best to assist. If you have a more general question relating to the themes on ThemeForest, you might consider visiting the forums and asking your question in the "Item Discussion" section.