Created: 05/2010
By: Tim Gieseking
Email: timstl@gmail.com
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!
This process creates several pages and categories. It associates the home page and portfolio pages with the correct templates.
Setting up Complete Package on an existing WordPress install requires you to manually create pages and categories. It is not mandatory that you create these specific pages, but these are the pages that would have been created by setup.xml on a fresh install.
This is not mandatory, but many users will want a static homepage with CP Theme. To do so, go to Settings -> Reading. Set the "Front Page Displays" option to "A static page." From the dropdowns choose Home as your static page, and Blog as your posts page.
Finish the initial setup by adjusting any of the built-in WordPress settings that you like. These settings are outside the scope of the CP Theme. Please consult the WordPress Documentation for assistance.
Next we will cover the many settings unique to the CP Theme that can be found under the "CPackage" menu.
The easiest way to change the logo is to overwrite the existing image file. This file is located in the cpackage theme dir /images/logos/cp.png.
If using the dark version cp.png would be located in images/dark/logos/. With the light version cp.png would be located in images/light/logos/.
This section will not cover every option in the admin panel. Each option contains a description in the admin panel, so the simple, self-explanatory settings are not reiterated here. This section will elaborate on some of the more confusing settings.
These settings are applicable in WordPress 2.9, and in 3.0 if not using a custom menu.
By default CP Theme uses pages for navigation. The order of the pages is controlled by WordPress' "Order" option, which is available on each add/edit page screen.
However, some users may want to use categories for navigation. To do so, simply click the "Use Categories" checkbox. The "Add Home Link" will add a Home link to the beginning of your menu. This option may also be useful if you're not using a static homepage, but instead are displaying blog posts.
To add a "Subscribe" link to the end of your menu, simply enter the text you want to use.
These settings are applicable if using a static homepage, while displaying blog posts on a separate page.
The Byword Text is the large area displayed just below the featured posts. It can be used to display a short message, or a quote. Simply enter the text in this box to display it on the homepage. If using a quote, you may want to cite an author in the "Cite" text box. If not, this option can be left blank.
Column Title Size - The original design of CP called for short, larger titles for each column. It became apparent that some people may want longer titles, so you can decrease the font size here.
The 3 columns on the homepage can display any post or page from your site. Simply select one in each dropdown. You can stop here, or you can customize further with the various title and excerpt options. Leaving these blank will auto-generate them from the post or page you select.
This section controls the featured posts on the homepage. There are 2 sliders available. Both sliders include options for customizing the speed and delay of transitions.
jqFT is the default demo slider. It has 3 built in effects, but the position and direction can be customized to create your own custom effect. You can also control the number of "strips" in the slider directly from the admin panel.
CP Slider was developed specifically for this theme. It is the only slider available in the CP HTML template, and can be seen in action on the HTML demo page.
CP Slider includes options for easing, pause on rollover, and pause when a nav item is clicked.
CP Theme comes with the ability to have a custom sidebar on ANY page or post. You can create unlimited sidebars, and customize the widgets that display on them.
To use, first create sidebars in this section of the admin panel by typing a unique title and clicking Add. You can title your sidebars however you wish (e.g., Portfolio Sidebar).
In the Appearance -> Widgets section set up your Default Sidebar widgets. This is the sidebar that will be used on any post or page that doesn't have a custom sidebar. Next set up your custom sidebars in the same fashion by dragging any widget to that sidebar.
Finally, open the post or page you want to customize, or create a new one. At the bottom of the page is a section titled "Sidebars." The first dropdown should read "Default Sidebar." In the second dropdown choose the custom sidebar you want to use.
Watch a Screencast about Unlimited Sidebars
CP Theme uses WordPress' built-in Featured Image feature. Use the "Set featured image" link on the add/edit screen to upload an image for your post or page. After uploading CP Theme creates 3 versions of your image: Full (600px wide with variable height), Small (300x150px), and Featured (940x380px). You must start with a sufficiently large image. If a post is going to be a featured item, the original image must be 940px wide or lager. Otherwise it's recommended the image is at least 600px wide.
You can auto-insert an image at the top of each blog post by selecting a thumbnail size with the "Auto-Insert Thumbnail" options.
Pages are titled with an H1 tag. If a thumbnail is uploaded for a page it can be displayed either before or after the page title. This option lets you choose that location.
You can enable Subnavigation, which will display at the very top of your sidebar. Subnavigation will only display if the current page has child pages.
The portfolio page uses a different template than your standard pages. If you have your pages set to auto-insert an image at the start, the portfolio page will not do so unless you enable the Auto Insert Thumbnail option here, too. The portfolio page is designed to have a "Featured" item, so auto-inserting a thumbnail usually doesn't look right. However, some people may still want to have a thumbnail associated with the Portfolio page, so they can use it as one of their "3 Columns," so the auto-insert thumbnail is set up as a separate setting than standard pages.
The single portfolio items are technically blog posts, but use a different template. If you would like them to appear as normal blog posts, simply check the "Use Blog Template" option.
The contact form is likely the most confusing part of this theme to setup. These easiest method is to start with the default form, and customize it:
[text* fullname label="Name"]
[text company label="Company"]
[text* email label="EMail"]
[text* phone label="Phone"]
[radio contact-via label="Contact Me Via:" "Phone" "EMail" "No Preference"]
[checkbox interested-in label="I'm Interested In" "Product A" "Product B" "Product C"]
[select select-something label="Select Something:" "This is a long option." "Option 2" "Option 3" "Option 4" "Option 5"]
[textarea* questions-comments label="Questions/Comments"]
[submit submit-button text="Submit Message"]
There are 6 elements you can put on your form: text inputs, radio buttons, checkboxes, select dropdowns, textareas, and a submit button. Each element must contain a type, name, and label. Radios, Checkboxes, and Dropdowns must contain a list of items. Each item must be in quotes.
"name" values should not contain spaces or non-standard characters and must be unique to each form element. These values are not displayed to the visitor. Acceptable name examples: questions-comments, fullname, phone.
The Subject, Recipient, From Address, and From Name should all be specified. These control the email notification that is sent to you. Enter your email address for recipient. From address should usually be something generic such as contact@yourdomainname.com.
It is recommended that you enable Anti-Spam by checking the box. It prevents a bot from pasting several URLs in your form and submitting. HTML Email is also recommended when possible.
You must click "Save Changes" in the admin before the contact form will be usable. You also must have a recipient and from email specified.
To display your contact form, simply create a "Contact" page, and insert the shortcode [cpcontact] into your page.
Having trouble receiving contact mails? Check your spam folder!
CP Theme has the ability to insert links to several social networking sites. You can specify links to your social networking page here.
If using the plugin Twitter Tools you can have CP theme insert your social networking icons into this widget. This is how the demo page for CP theme functions. Choose this option, "Insert into Header", or both.
The Newsletter Signup widget can be placed in any sidebar on the site. Use this area for exporting your subscribers or resetting the database to 0. Warning: Do not click reset unless you're sure you want to erase your subscribers. There's no turning back unless your webhost has a database backup.
Complete Package v1.1+ supports WordPress 3.0's custom menus. This feature is available under Appearance -> Menus.
To activate, add a menu called "Main Nav" then add any pages, categories, or custom links that you wish to have on your menu.
Note: After activating the custom menu your Navigation settings in the CPackage admin panel (discussed above) will no longer be applicable.
Setting up portfolio items is the same as crafting a normal blog post. You must add the portfolio item to the "Portfolio" category. This will tell CP Theme to display the post on the Portfolio page (which you created during the initial setup).
Portfolio items also use the excerpt text on the main portfolio page. If you do not provide an excerpt, one is auto-generated.
To feature a portfolio item you must add it to both the "Portfolio" category, and the "Featured Portfolio" category. 1 item from the Featured Portfolio category will be shown above the other portfolio items.
Both Posts and Pages can be setup as featured items on the CP home page. To do so, follow these steps:
The highlighted block widget is a more advanced version of WordPress' Text widget. It creates a grayish box in your sidebar in order to "highlight" a bit of information or a quote.
Check the "automatically add paragraphs" box if you're not using HTML in your text.
To add an avatar to your highlighted block paste the URL in the "Optional Small Image URL" box. To find the URL, you can upload the image using WordPress' media library. After uploading go to "File URL" (also called "Link URL" in some cases) and copy the URL in the text box.
The newsletter signup widget is best suited for your footer sidebar, but can be used anywhere. This allows people to opt-in to your mailing list, which can be exported in the CPackage Admin Panel.
This theme's demo uses Twitter Tools in the footer. Complete Package and Twitter Tools are not in any way affiliated, but because it is a popular Twitter plugin this theme includes styling for it. It can be downloaded here.
Complete Package Theme utilizes WordPress' Post Thumbnails features to create multiple thumbnails for each post or page. While very useful and easy, this doesn't offer much flexibility to users. The solution to this problem comes from several custom fields that allow you to override thumbnails and thumbnail settings.
There are various settings for Blogs and Pages that allow you to auto-insert thumbnails into your posts. Most people will use the same size auto-inserted thumbnails for each post. However, there may be cases when you would rather use a different sized thumbnail for a particular post. The solution is the force_thumbnail custom field.
Example: If you have single blog posts set to always insert the "full" sized thumbnail, but on one particular post you would rather use the "small" sized thumbnail, add the custom field "force_thumbnail" and give it a value of "small". Possible values include "none", "small", and "full".
The override thumbnail options allow you to override an actual thumbnail file with a URL. This can be useful if WordPress doesn't crop an image in a way that you would like. If this occurs you can upload custom thumbnails that you make yourself into WordPress media library. From there, copy the "File URL". Then use the following custom fields, and specify that file URL as the value.
Watch a Screencast about Overriding Thumbnails
This shortcode allows you to insert one of the auto-generated thumbnails into your post or page at any point.
Syntax: [thumbnail size="full" contentimage="true" caption="Image caption"]
Size can be "full" or "small" (defaults to 'full'). The "contentimage" option can be "true" or "false" (defaults to "false"). This option adds extra styling to the image. Recommended especially if using a caption. The "caption" option can be any text, and is not required.
Note: The override_thumbnail_ custom fields from above are also taken into account when using this shortcode.
This custom field allows you to specify a caption for the default thumbnail of a post or page. It's useful if you're using the "Auto-Insert Thumbnail" features and would like a particular post or page to also have a caption with their auto-inserted thumbnail. Simply add the custom field "thumbnail_caption" with any text for its value.
The alt_title custom field allows you to specify an alternate title that is displayed at the top of a page.
This theme makes use of the following: