Madrigal Documentation


Theme Installation

Welcome to Northeme Theme Documentation!

This documentation covers installing and setup your theme and how to use theme features. It assumes that you already have a domain name (E.g. example.com) and web hosting service that WordPress has been installed on it.

If you’ve already installed WordPress, sign in to northeme.com and head to My Account page in order to download your theme.

My Account page lists the themes you’ve purchased. Click Download button to access theme related files and documentation.

Click Download Theme File to download the theme as a zip file. Theme License / Product Key that will be asked during theme setup is also located in Download button menu.

Option 1 : WordPress Theme Installer

The most convenient and easiest way to install your theme is to use WordPress Theme Installer.

  1. Sign in to your WordPress’ admin area and go to Appearance > Themes. You’ll find the list of themes that have already been installed to your WordPress. Click to Add New button which is located right beside the Themes title.
  2. Next page will be listing the free themes that are being provided by WordPress along with Upload button that allows to upload custom themes. Click to upload button and select the theme zip file that you’ve downloaded from My Account page.
  3. Once the installed, you’re supposed to activate it to start using. Go back to Appearance > Themes and you should be able to see your theme in the installed themes list now. Simply click on Activate button to finalize installation.

Option 2 : Installing via FTP

This is less convenient yet another easy way to install your theme.

Some web hosting companies may keep file upload limit as low as 2MB and therefore you may not be able to install theme file via WordPress Theme Installer (You may ask your hosting provider to increase upload limit).

But there is nothing worry, you can still install the theme via FTP.

  1. First thing you need is your web hosting’s FTP credentials to connect FTP. You can ask this to your web hosting provider if you don’t know it yet.
  2. Afterwards, you’re supposed to use a FTP client to access and browse your website’s FTP content. We recommend to install Filezilla which is multiOS supported and free FTP client :
    https://filezilla-project.org/
  3. Connect to your website’s FTP through Filezilla and go to “wp-content/themes” folder. Upload the unzipped theme folder (unzip the downloaded theme zip file) into themes folder.
  4. Once the entire theme folder is uploaded, you’re supposed to activate it. Go back to Appearance > Themes on your WP dashboard. You should be able to see your theme in the installed themes list now. Simply click on Activate button to finalize installation.

Important : Installation via FTP may require to set file permissions to 755 (read / write). Check WordPress Help for more information.

If you need any further information about installing themes please see the following article :
https://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress

Bundle Plugins

Your theme comes with premium plugins bundle that you can install at Northeme > Plugins. These plugins are being offered in order to make easier to build content and are optional.

Your theme also supports Elementor and WordPress Editor. Especially Elementor can be used to build page content instead of WPBakery page builder.

Install, Download, Activate buttons will appear for each plugin depending on its status. Bundle plugins must be downloaded first by Download button then installed and activated.

Whenever there is a new version for a plugin, you’ll be notified with New badge and update it from this page.

Installing Live Demos

Installing a live demo gives you a head start. Live demos are pre-made demos that you can see on northeme.com and can be installed to your WordPress by single click installer.

Please note that installing theme demos and auto update feature requires your web hosting to allow external connections. Certain hosting providers may put your website behind the firewall. Before installing a demo, visit Northeme > Status page to make sure that your hosting allows external connections.

It’s highly recommended to install live demos on a WordPress only once to prevent content duplicates.

Registration & Status

Product Registration

Right after activating your theme, you’ll be redirected to Theme Registration page. Otherwise, head to Northeme > Registration :

Registering your theme is important to install required / recommended plugins and theme live demos.

The product key can be found at My Account page on northeme.com. Click to Download button then Theme License / Product Key to reveal product key. Copy license key and use it with your account e-mail address to register your theme.

Theme Status

It’s important your website meets the theme requirements to avoid issues with registration, installing theme demos and bundle plugins. Visit Northeme > Status page from your dashboard to check the theme requirements and fix the issues by following the instructions.

Certain hosting providers may put your website behind the firewall. If you see any errors on Status page, please contact your web hosting provider to have them fixed.

Theme Updates

You can update your theme at Northeme > Theme Update.

If there is a new update for your theme, you’ll be notified with NEW badge and version number right beside Theme Update menu item.

Change log and the scope of latest update can be seen in Change Log window. The latest version can be installed by clicking Update to the Latest button.

If the latest version is already installed, Theme Update page should display Check for Updates button.

Check for updates allows to look up for newer version in case you cannot see the latest version on your dashboard yet.

Updating Manually

In case of having problems with auto-update due to theme requirements failure or other reasons, you can also update the theme and plugins manually.

In order to update manually, you’re supposed to download the latest version of your theme and bundle plugins (if necessary) from My Account page on northeme.com.

Before installing the latest version, you must remove the theme from Appearance > Themes on your dashboard. Removing theme will NOT cause any data loss since the website content is being stored in MySQL database. Afterwards follow the same steps of Theme Installation to update your theme.

As for bundle plugin updates, go to Plugins on your WP dashboard and install plugins by uploading the plugin files that you’ve downloaded from My Account page on northeme. Uploading the updated version of plugins also requires to delete the plugin first.

Image Quality Tips

Recommended Image Sizes to Upload

Recommended image width is below 2500px wide with any height for posts, pages and Composition (media) section. If you upload any image above 2500px, WordPress will automatically resize the image in order to maintain performance.

Overview

Northeme Options panel is located at Northeme > Theme Options. You can manage the basic and advanced theme settings such as branding, layout, grid layout templates and more.

Even though each page and post offers individual post settings panel, Theme Options panel is where you can manage the global settings.

Although the most options and features are common, each theme has their own exclusive options and features.

Branding & Layout

Probably the first thing you would like to do is adjusting branding and website layout to get started. Go to Northeme > Theme Options to manage these settings.

Branding

Northeme > Theme Options > Branding section is where you can upload the logo image and footer / copyright text. Three separate size options provided as Desktop, Tablet and Mobile for logo image. You can set sizes in pixels for a better look on different viewports.

Theme logo can be an image or plain text according to your needs. Logo text font settings can be managed at Fonts > Font Styling section at Theme Options.

Some of our themes may also provide Tagline that will appear right below the logo image. It can also be set here and font settings can be managed at Fonts > Font Styling.

Mobile Tabs

Mobile Tabs is a feature that allows to build a bottom tab bar for mobile devices. Items are customizable and adding up to five tab item is allowed. Please see the section below for more information.

Tab content can be managed at Northeme > Mobile Tabs section.

Mobile Tab Options

Mobile tabs can be adjusted at Northeme > Mobile Tabs from your WP dashboard.

Please note that although five tab fields provided in options panel, you can use any number of tabs up to five and leave blank the rest.

Following options provided :

  • Activate : Enable this option to display tabs on mobile devices
  • Mobile Tabs : Five tab fields provided. Each field provides icon, title and link option. *Icon and link options are required.

Icons

Font Awesome icon library can be used to insert tab icons. Visit Font Awesome website and pick an icon :
https://fontawesome.com/search?o=r&m=free

All you need to do is to copy font class names (E.g. fa-solid fa-store) and paste it into icon field. Icon should appear in the same field.

For example you may see the icon code as :
<i class=”fa-solid fa-store”></i>

Use only the class names in icon field :
fa-solid fa-store

Please note that Font Awesome also has PRO (paid) version and some icons in their list might be available for paid version only. Only free version icons can be used in tabs.

Title

Title is an optional field. Assign a title to display it beneath the icon. Leave blank if you don’t wish to display a title.

Link

Links is a dropdown built by available pages on your website. Pick one to assign it. This field is required and tab will be ignored if it’s not set.

 

Mobile Tabs Appearance

This section is consisting of several customization options like icon size, title size, BG and text color.

Skins & Colors

Skins & Colors menu in Theme Options panel allows to use one of Light, Gray or Dark pre-defined color sets or switch to Custom tab to build your own.

All color element options will reveal once Custom tab is selected. Additional options such as BG pattern, border type etc. can be found below the color options panel.

Font Types & Styling

Fonts section in Theme Options reveals two sub sections as Font Types and Font Styling.

Font Types

You can select one of the font type options : Google Fonts, HTML Fonts and @fontface. Each section allows to select fonts for Heading and Body separately.

 

Google Fonts

Easiest solution to use a font is choosing a font from a huge library of Google Fonts. It’s constantly updated font library by Google. Visit Google Fonts website, find a font that suits your needs and type in its name into Header and Body font fields. E.g Open Sans

Google Fonts is case-sensitive  and it’s important to enter the font name as is. For example, if you wish to use DM Sans, typing the font name as dm sans will NOT work. Make sure that you entered the exact name.

Separate font names can be used for Header and Body. Additionally you can enter charset to UTF-8 field to expand character set.

 

HTML Fonts / Typekit

While HTML Fonts allows to use plain HTML fonts such as Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif etc. you can also use fonts from Typekit and other 3rd party font providers. All you need to do is to add font embed script provided into the Font Embed Script field and type in font name into Header and Body fields.

 

@fontface

@fontface is the most flexible option for using font files that you have. Click to Upload button to expand font upload panel.

If you have a font file (.ttf or .otf), it’s supposed to be converted to web fonts first. Visit Fontsquirrel Website and convert your font files to @font-face format. Download file should contain four different file formats : ttf, woff, svg, eot. Upload files to corresponding fields and click on add button to upload. Once the font files uploaded click to add font and new font should appear in the lists.

Font Styling

Font Styling section is available for advanced font management options. Mobile Menu, Main Menu, Headers (h1 to h6), Body and Excerpt fonts can managed. Font family, line height, style, weight options provided.

Also responsive font settings provided. You’ll find Desktop, Tablet and Mobile tabs for each font setting. It allows you to set different font size, line height and letter spacing for each viewport separately.

Grid Layout Templates

Grid Layout Templates is a section that you can manage / create your own custom layouts and use them with any post type and gallery grid (including shop / products).

This section is only related to thumbnail sizes and placement in the grid layout. Displaying post titles, excerpt, category and other option can be managed at Portfolio, Blog, Shop sections under Theme Options.

Default grid layout templates offered as Small, Medium, Large, Portrait, Masonry and Square. You can assign them to any post type (Portfolio, Blog, Shop) without making any changes.

Manage / Create New Grid Layout Templates

Each pre-made template can be modified according to your needs by clicking to Manage button. Otherwise, click on Create New Template button for a new one.

  • Name : Type any name as you wish.
  • Layout : Set number of columns in a row. Column type also specifies Width option according to column width automatically.
  • Image Aspect Ratio : Select one of the Masonry or fixed height options. Fixed height options are only guides for calculating the height value and you’re free to adjust.
  • Height : Automatically set by Image Aspect Ratio but you’re free to adjust as you want except Original  – Non Cropped options is selected. It’s specified by percentage. Width 100% and you can set height as you wish. For example 75% is 4:3, 100% is square, 120% is portrait etc.
  • Padding : Adjust padding value between thumbnail in percentage.
  • Heading and Description Font : Each grid layout has its own heading and description font size settings. This provides flexibility to manage grid layout font size per grid layout

Show Layout Preview displays a simple preview of grid layout. If you’re satisfied with the results, click Save & Create Layout Type button to create layout.

Post Settings

Post view settings are listed under POSTS section in theme documentation. Portfolio, Blog, Shop (Woocommerce) view options can be managed here.

Posts page, single post layout, Related Posts (Blog & Portfolio) are located at corresponding post section. Just to add, Related Posts are being listed below a single post page.

Also Slug / Taxonomy tab contains Portfolio and Custom Post Type settings that you can change post slug, post title, category name etc..

One Page Theme

Madrigal offers one page template that you can build a one page website.

In order to build a single page, navigate to Pages from your dashboard and click Add New Page.

How to Build a One Page Website

1 – Set a title for your page

2 – Activate Enable Single Page option from Page Attributes and make sure Default Page template is selected

3 – Once single page activated, Single Page Settings panel will appear. It allows to adjust one page settings such as scrolling type, navigation side etc. (see the image below)

4 – Page content should be created with Visual Composer. Click Backend Mode button right below the title in order to activate Visual Composer.

You can use a pre-built Visual Composer Template. Click to Add Template button and  select Northeme – Single Page Template to use the template.

Page Content

One page template comes with auto-scroll feature. That being said, you can navigate between pages by scrolling down or up.

Each Row element in Visual Composer will become a full height page on your website. 

Example below is consisting of :

  • Heading for category (full page with BG image)
  • Single Page Posts element (a specific category)
  • Heading for another category (full page with BG image)
  • Single Page Posts element (another category)
  • A section for contact info

Elements

Since each row is a page in one page template, you can add anything you wish into rows to build pages.

Custom Header element is being used for headings above. Also parallax scrolling and BG image activated for these posts through posts settings (pen icon on top right).

 

Single Page Posts (element)

Single Page Posts is an exclusive Visual Composer offered by Northeme and it allows to display posts from a post type such as Portfolio, Blog or Products (WooCommerce).

Each post will act like a page on your one page template. Therefore, it’s recommended to use shorter text to display. You can use “Insert More Tag” to limit post’s text content.

Click Plus (+) button in order to add a new element and select Single Page Posts.

After adding a new element, element settings window appears. Single Page Posts offers several options such as one or two columns layout, link to single post page (by clicking title), displaying title, category or date etc.

Most importantly, Build Query button must be clicked and adjustment should be made in order to display posts. Build Query provides comprehensive options to filter your posts.

You can select a post type :

  • post = Blog
  • nor-portfolio = Portfolio
  • product = WooCommerce Products

Additionally, you can change post limit, category / taxonomy to display specific posts only.

Navigation

 

You can use IDs if you wish to use top navigation menu (WP Menus) to navigate between pages other than single navigation dots (appears on right by default).

1 – In order to set an ID for a row, click on edit button

2 – Set an ID from Row Settings (there must no spaces or illegal characters)

3 – Go to Appearance > Menus to add a new menu item (assuming you already have a menu. otherwise create a new one)

4 – Select Custom Link and add your website URL + ID name with hashtag. For example :

https://northeme.com/demo/madrigal-single/#av-performance

#av-performance is an example ID name assigned to a row

Creating a Page

Pages can be created / managed under Pages menu on your dashboard. Pages is one of the primary sections that allows to build your website’s content.

Click to Add New page to create a new page. Although Default Page is the page type that you’re going to use for majority of the content, you may need to use other page templates to build content for specific purposes.

Page Builder Plugins

In order build a page, you can use WordPress Editor which allows to build a page through blocks.

On the other hand, we recommend using Elementor plugin, which is free and your theme comes with exclusive widgets to build content. It’s an easy-to-use solution to create pages and there are many free Elementor extensions you can find to extend its features.

You can find theme exclusive Elementor widgets under Northeme category while creating a page with Elementor editor.

Page Templates

Click to Add New page to create a new page. Some of our themes may offer exclusive page templates other than Default Page.

  • Default Page is a full width page versatile template and it’s the template that you’re supposed to use in most cases. Enable Sidebar option is also provided in order to create a page with sidebar widgets. Page Sidebar can be managed at Appearance > Widgets section.
  • Blog template is blog posts listing page. Select this template if you want to create a page that displays all blog posts. Selecting Blog template will reveal Blog Sidebar option right below. This option allows to activate Blog Sidebar on posts listing page or single blog post page or both. Blog sidebar can be managed at Appearance > Widgets section.
  • Portfolio is also similar to Blog template and allows to create a page that lists all Portfolio posts.

Also theme exclusive templates Cover Page and Background Slider templates are available for Centreal Plus and Reframe Plus respectively. Selecting those templates will reveal new helper panels. You can find more information about these templates at related sections in this documentation.

Page Settings

Page settings panel is consisting of Hero Slider, Page Settings and Custom CSS sections.

 

Hero Slider

Hero slider allows to assign a built-in or Slider Revolution slider to display it right below the main menu.

Page Settings

Override the options have been set at Northeme > Theme Options. You can use a custom logo, BG image, disable page header and more through this section.

Disable Footer Widgets options allows to hide footer widgets if you’ve activated Footer Widgets at Northeme > Theme Options > Layout > Website Layout. 

Custom CSS

Add Custom CSS rules that will be applied to this specific page only.

Building a Page

This section aims to explain building a page content after creating a new page at Pages.

You have three options to build a page content :

Although Blog, Portfolio and other exclusive pages allow to use page builders (Elementor, WPBakery), Default Page template should be selected to build pages for any other purposes.

Using Elementor or WPBakery Page Builder is highly recommended to build a page. But our themes are fully compatible with WordPress’ editor Gutenberg.

(Deprecated) Yet built-in theme shortcodes are available for visual editor and can be added via N Shortcodes button on visual editor panel. For more information about shortcodes, please see Shortcodes section of theme documentation.

*Theme shortcodes have been incorporated into WPBakery Page Builder and don’t require to visual editor use them.

Building a Page with Elementor Page Builder

Elementor is a drag&drop content builder plugin. It’s a free plugin and can be downloaded from wordpress.org or installed directly from Plugins section on your dashboard.

To activate Elementor on a page, click Edit with Elementor button.

Activating Elementor will open Elementor content editor. On the left column, you’ll find Elementor widgets. Theme exclusive widgets can be found under Northeme category and following widgets are being provided :

  • Post Grid
  • Gallery Grid
  • Services
  • Clients
  • Team Members
  • Embed Video
  • Social Sharing buttons
  • Sliders

Building a Page with WPBakery Page Builder

WPBakery Page Builder is an intuitive drag&drop content builder plugin comes with your theme. If it’s not installed and activated yet, please see Bundle Plugins section.

Back-end Editor and Front-end Editor buttons will appear right below the Title field once WPBakery Page Builder activated.

To activate WPBakery Page Builder for your page, click Back-end Editor button.

WPBakery Page Builder is activated only for pages by default. It can also be activated for blog and portfolio posts at WPBakery Page Builder > Role Manager > Post Types section. Select Custom and opt-in for post types that you want to use with WPBakery Page Builder.

WPBakery Page Builder (WPB) welcome screen appears after switching to Back-end Editor mode.

To get started with WPB, you’re supposed to add an element or page template.

Page templates are pre-made page templates that have been made through elements and ready to use by single click. Select any template from the list and click plus (+) button to add it into the content and close page templates window.

Elements are the helpers for building page content. Click Add Element button or big plus button on top left to see elements list. WPB offers 40+ elements and it reaches almost 50 elements in total including Northeme exclusive elements :

Row Element

Adding a Row element is how you should start to build content.

Rows are content wrappers. It specifies the content width and also offers options to divide a row into columns.

WPB has an intuitive and pretty straight-forward interface that makes easier to work with even for beginner level users.

Rows provides a series of buttons that you can see on top left, center and top right of a row element. Small plus icon opens the elements list and adds an element into a row. Edit icon opens row options panel and trash icon deletes a row.

On top left, Column icon displays column types presets along with custom column mode to divide the row into columns. Afterwards you can add new elements into each column and move elements between columns.

Clicking edit button on the top right will reveal Row Settings panel.

Each row comes with several options such as Row Stretch, Full Height, Parallax etc. to modify the row. Design option can be used to assign a BG image.

The most important option is Row Stretch among themThis option allows to determine column width. By default, a row will be stretched to the main website wrapper / container. Narrow can be used o limit the content width and centralize. Some of our themes may also provide Full Width option which allows to strecth the content to the window in order to build full width rows.

Element Styling

Almost every element comes with Design Options tab in edit screen. Design options offer several options such as padding, margin, border, BG color, border color etc. to apply custom styles without using any CSS rules.

Northeme Elements for WPBakery Page Builder

Northeme offers exclusive elements for WPB such as clients, services, gallery grid, posts grid etc. On add elements window, switch to Northeme tab to filter exclusive elements.

Arranging Content

After adding a Row and dividing it into rows if you wish, you’re ready to add elements into each column. Click plus (+) button to open elements list panel and add an element according to your needs.

Each element provides its own exclusive options set to modify element properties.

Examples

Here are a few examples how to use elements :

 

Portfolio / Blog Grid

Click add element, plus, button and select Portfolio / Blog grid to add a new posts grid into content and reveal element options :

Portfolio / Blog Grid element options provide almost the same post type options that you can find at Northeme > Theme Options > Portfolio. You can determine the hover effects, post info alignment and edit the visibility options.

Also a header can be added with category list or simple View All text that you can rename.

The primary option here is Build Query which helps to build a post query. Post limit, category, ordering can be managed here.

Post Types option shows the available post types and gets the posts list from a specific post type. Although VC allows to select multiple post types, we recommend selecting one post type only.

Between those post types, post refers to Blog and nor-portfolio refers to Portfolio. Other post type names will also appear in this list if you have created other post types.

When you’re satisfied with the settings, click Save Changes button then Update button in Publish panel to save the entire changes on this page.

View the page on your website to see the results.

*If you can’t see any posts, make sure that you’ve added posts to Blog and / or Portfolio

Services

Add services that you provide with icons that you can select from an extensive icons list.

Services element also represents a second element type of VC. This element type provides a parent element that allows to modify the layout settings.

The parent Service element comes with Column Type and Alignment while other element types may offer various options.

Clicking the parent element’s plus button will add a new sub element (service in this example).

Element and sub-element re-ordering can be made through simple drag&drop interface.

WPBakery Page Builder Documentation

The features covered in this section are only the fundamental WPB features.

For advanced features, please see the WPB documentation :

https://wpbakery.com/features/support/visual_composer_documentation/

Page Covers & Page Colors

Page Cover

Create full page covers for pages, categories and posts. It’s an optional feature and can be activated for each page individually.

As for single post and category page, Page Cover panel will show up if Post Title Display and/or Category Name Display options activated at Northeme > Theme Options > Portfolio or Blog. It can be activated in the basis of post type and cannot be disabled for individual posts or category pages.

Page Cover Options

 

  • BG color : Choose a color for page cover BG
  • Select a Slider (NEW) : Use a full page Slider Revolution Instead of BG image. BG images and slider settings will be ignored if Slider Revolution selected.
  • BG Image : Use a full page cover image instead of solid BG color
  • Text color : Adjust text color as you wish
  • Title : By default, it’s page / post title. Custom text allowed to override default title. (E.g. page title : About. Page cover title : Who we are)
  • Caption (optional) : Caption will be displayed below title

Page Colors

Madrigal comes with Page Colors panel that makes possible to override the global color settings for pages individually. If activated, you’ll be able to choose colors for BG, text, link and border along with Logo image setting to use an alternate logo for the corresponding page.

Setting up Front Page

Visit Settings > Reading page on your dashboard, switch to A static page at Front Page Displays. Select a page from Front Page select box and click Save Changes to set it as home page / front page.

Please note that in order to set a page as home page it must be present at Pages. That being said, archive, category or single posts cannot be set as homepage.

Blog

Blog posts can be managed under Posts section at dashboard.

Blog also requires a posts listing page. If you haven’t created a blog posts listing page yet, go to Pages and create a page with Blog Template.

Featured Image / Video

Two options provided : Thumbnail and Video

Thumbnail is default option and also provides optional hover image field. If hover image uploaded, it will show up on hover action.

** Animated GIF option has been removed since original images are being used by the recent updates and it has become obsolete

Post Settings

Post Settings tab will reveal in Page Settings panel if you’re editing a post. Post Settings includes a series of options to override the global single post settings adjusted at Northeme > Theme Options > Blog.

You can hide Title, Categories, Tags. Also layout view options can be changed for a specific post (Layout view options may not be available for all themes.)

Blog View Options

Blog View Options can be managed at Northeme > Theme Options > Blog. You can manage posts listing page settings such as post limit, grid layout, pagination type etc. along with related posts settings and single post settings.

(Deprecated) Post Formats

Post formats are one of the WordPress’ earlier features in order to display rich content. However, it’s become obsolete since the new WordPress Editor introduced. It allows to create rich content through blocks and it’s not necessary to use Post Formats. 

Your theme supports Post Formats for blog posts. Post formats can be changed from Format panel at Add / Edit post.

Post Formats offer unique layouts for different needs.

Standard Format

Standard format is the default type and it only shows the visual editor content. Featured image will only be displayed on posts listing page if it’s set.

 

Image Format

Similar to Standard format yet featured image will appear on both posts listing and single post page.

 

Gallery Format
Displays a gallery or slider that has been created with Slider Revolution or Built-in Sliders before visual editor content.

gallery

 

Link Format
Displays an URL over the post thumbnail. If thumbnail is not set, only displays the URL.

link

 

Quote Format
Displays a quote over post thumbnail. If thumbnail is not set, only displays the quote.

quote

 

Video Format
Allows to embed a video through video website URL (Youtube, Vimeo etc.) or WP video player through WP audio, video and playlist shortcodes.

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Portfolio

Portfolio comes with your theme and installed by default. If it hasn’t been installed or you’ve deleted, it can be created at Northeme > Theme Options > Create New Post Type section. For more information, please see Custom Post Types section.

 

Create Portfolio Page

Portfolio page is required to list the Portfolio posts and can be created at Pages. Go to Pages > Add New from your WP dashboard to create a new page. Add a title to this page (E.g. Portfolio, Works etc.) and select Portfolio template from Page Attributes section.

Any projects added to portfolio will appear on this page according to the layout type you can manage at Northeme > Theme Options > Portfolio. Also grid layout templates can be managed at Northeme > Theme Options > Grid Layout Templates.

See Grid Layout Templates section for more information about grid layouts.

If you wish to set portfolio page as homepage, select this page at Settings > Reading > Front Page.

Portfolio and other post types will appear below Posts on your dashboard.

Use Add New Project button to create a new project.

Categories are dedicated taxonomy of Portfolio. Categories name can be changed from Slug / Taxonomy tab at Northeme > Theme Options > Portfolio.

Re-Order menu allows to re-organize category and posts ordering by drag&drop interface.

Add New Project

Add / Edit Project page offers an exclusive meta box called Composition (Media).

Composition section aims to make easier adding, re-ordering and arranging project assets through a series of options (It’s not required to use if you prefer using visual editor with Visual Composer)

  • Insert : This is a dropdown menu includes Image, Video, Text and Slider to add media into the composition. Multiple image upload is allowed.
  • Lightbox : Switching on this option activates lightbox for each image in the composition
  • Layout : This is an alternative method to turn entire composition content into a gallery, slider or masonry grid. Masonry grid layouts created at Northeme > Theme Options > Grid Layout Templates will appear in the list. Only image and videos will be included into gallery and the rest will be ignored.
  • Padding : Allows to change the padding between images.

* Layout and Padding features are not provided for Svea and Regain themes

 

Also each element in the composition has individual options panel :

  • Column : By default images will be displayed in maximum width. If you want to display more than one object in a row, this option allows to display the element in 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 2/3 measures.
  • Lightbox (image) : This option can be activated per image instead of activating global lightbox option for all images in the composition.
  • Image Caption (Image) : Display caption below image
  • URL (Image) : Assign an URL to image

Featured Image / Video

Two options provided for featured image : Thumbnail and Video

Thumbnail image is default and comes with optional hover image field. Video requires video site URL (Youtube, Vimeo etc.).

Recommended thumbnail size is depending on the grid layout preferences and can be seen end of this box. Grid layouts can be managed at Northeme > Theme Options > Grid Layout Templates section.

Post Settings

This section might be different for Svea and Regain themes

Editing a post page reveals Post Settings tab in Page Settings panel. Post Settings allows to override the global single post settings that you can manage at Northeme > Theme Options > Portfolio.

You can hide Title, Categories, Tags. Also layout view options can be changed for a specific post (Layout view options may not be available for all themes.)

Portfolio View Options

Portfolio View Options can be managed at Northeme > Theme Options > Portfolio. You can manage posts listing page settings such as post limit, grid layout, pagination type etc. along with related posts settings and single post settings.

Rename Portfolio Title and Slug

You may want to change Portfolio title, slug or even category name. Slug / Taxonomy tab which is located under Northeme > Theme Options > Portfolio allows to rename Portfolio labels. For example, you can rename Portfolio as Projects or Categories as Creative Fields or whatever you wish.

Shop / Woocommerce

Your theme supports WooCommerce Free E-Commerce Plugin. You can have the benefits of WooCommerce Plugin by installing it at Northeme > Plugins or visiting plugin’s website :
https://wordpress.org/plugins/woocommerce/ 

WooCommerce related pages should automatically be created by the plugin. Plugin settings can be managed at WooCommerce menu on your WP dashboard.

For WooCommerce instructions and support please visit the URL below :
https://support.woothemes.com/hc/en-us

WooCommerce E-Commerce support is an optional feature and is NOT required to use this theme. If WooCommerce Plugin is not installed, any WooCommerce related files or scripts will be excluded from your website.

Theme Related Woocommerce Features

Navigate to Northeme > Theme Options > Shop  section to manage theme related WooCommerce features. Layout types, post display limit, single post appearance and related products settings provided. You’ll see a question mark (?) beside each option that explains its function.

Also Northeme > Theme Options > Layout > Website Layout section offers several options such as shopping cart icon, member page icon and uploading credit card logos.

Featured Image / Video for Product

Two options provided for featured image : Thumbnail, Video

Thumbnail image is default and provides optional hover image field. Video requires video site URL (Youtube, Vimeo etc.).

Grid layouts can be managed at Northeme > Theme Options > Grid Layout Templates.

** Animated GIF option has been removed since original images are being used by the recent updates and it has become obsolete

Post & Category Re-ordering

Portfolio and Blog posts can be reordered at Re-Order page which is located under the corresponding post type menu (E.g. Portfolio > Re-order).

Post re-ordering is not being provided for blog posts and they will be re-ordered by date descending as in default.

Categories and taxonomies can also be re-ordered in this section.

Drag&Drop Ordering

Drag&drop your posts and categories to re-order. Custom Ordering must be selected from drop-down menu to apply custom ordering settings. Otherwise select Order by Title, Order by Date (descending) or Order by Date (ascending).

Blog posts cannot be re-ordered.

Custom Post Types

Please note that this is an advanced feature.

If you don’t intend to build a unique post type such as Articles, News, Books etc., we strongly recommend to use Portfolio categories instead of building a new post type.

For example, creating post types such as Illustrations or Photography is not needed because Portfolio categories already provide this flexibility.


Custom Post Types allow to extend your website. Portfolio is default post type of your theme.  

Custom Post Types can be created at Northeme > Theme Options > Create New Post Type. Maximum 10 custom post types (including Portfolio) allowed. A new posts listing page will be created at Pages automatically whenever a new post type created. 

If you’ve accidentally deleted the listing page at Pages section, you can create a new listing page at Pages by choosing the corresponding post type template from Page Attributes.

New Post Type Form Fields

Northeme > Theme Options > Create New Post Type section displays a form with the following options :

  • Post Title : This is your post title that will appear on dashboard menu. Examples : Portfolio, Books, Inspiration, News etc.
  • Singular Post Name : Singular form of post title. Example : Project, Book, Article etc.
  • Post Slug : Single post slug for the URL. It must be a unique and cannot be same with any page, category or post slug. Example : using “project” as a slug will change single post URL as https://example.com/project/single-post
  • Category Name : Category name for taxonomy. Examples : Categories, Creative Fields etc.
  • Singular Category Name : Singular Form of taxonomy name. Example : Category, Field
  • Category Slug : Single category slug for the URL. It must be a unique and cannot be same with any page, category or post slug. Example : using “field” as a slug will change single category URL as https://example.com/field/single-taxonomy

IMPORTANT : How to Prevent Possible Conflicts

It’s common to have conflicts due to misconfigured slugs. It’s important to set unique Post Slug, Category Slug and Page Slug to prevent conflicts. This is being forced by theme and it will be checked before saving settings if there are any conflicts. However, choosing proper names will prevent such problems in the first place.

Post Slug and Category Slug can be found at Northeme > Create New Post Type and after creating a post type Northeme > POST TYPE > Slugs tab. As for Page Slug, A new posts listing page will be created automatically for each new post type and it can be managed at Pages on your WP dashboard. Edit posts listing page and edit its slug (right below the page title) if it’s necessary.

For example, you’ll create a new post type as Events. Here are the example slugs :

Page Slug : events (https://example.com/events)
Post Slug : event (https://example.com/event/single-post)
Category Slug : event-categories (https://example.com/event-categories/category-name)

As in this example, Post Slug and Posts Listing Page slug should not share the same name. Therefore Posts Listing Page is using “events” while Post Slug is using “event”.

Once it’s all set, go to Settings > Permalinks and click on Save Changes button to reset permalinks.

Post Type Settings

After creating a new post type, it’ll appear at Northeme > Theme Options > POST TYPE. Post type view settings can be managed there along with main post type options such as Post Title, Category Name etc. :

Navigation Menus

To create a navigation menu, go to Appearance > Menus and click Create a New Menu link.

You’ll find accordion menu that contains pages, posts, categories, links (custom URL) helper menus to add items to your menu.

As for menu locations, two location provided : Main Menu, Mobile Menu. Same menu can be assigned to both or separate menus can be used. Once a menu created, opt-in for Main / Mobile menu at Theme Locations to activate it.

IMPORTANT : Multi-level menu items have a different use on mobile menus. Touching the main menu item will expand the sub menu items instead of visiting the menu item URL. Therefore, a separate menu must be created and assigned to Mobile Menu at theme locations if your menu has multi-level items.

Wordpress offers extensive options to add new items to your menu. To expand these options, click on Screen Options button that is located at top right of the screen and opt-in for the sections.

Exclusive for Madrigal

Madrigal offers a center align logo with two separate menus that appears on both sides. If you wish to display a second menu on the right hand side, create a new menu and assign it to Northeme Secondary Menu.

In other words, Northeme Main Menu appears on the left, Secondary Menu appears on the right. You can create a third menu and assign it to mobile with completely custom items (or with both main and secondary menu items)

For more information about custom menus, check out the following link :
https://codex.wordpress.org/Appearance_Menus_SubPanel

Widgets / Sidebars

Sidebars are tools to add widgets to your pages.

Your theme offers specific widgets areas and they can be managed at Appearance > Widgets on dashboard.

Footer Widgets

Footer 1 – 4 are located in footer and they have a difference from other sidebars. Northeme > Theme Options > Website Layout > Footer Widgets section provides an option, Footer Widget Columns, that allows to set number of columns. You may change it to divide footer equally. For example 2 columns will divide footer two columns, and Footer 1 & Footer 2 location widgets will be used only.

Page Settings panel on Add / Edit page offers Hide Footer Widgets option to hide footer widgets only on specific pages.

Widgets and sidebar also can be added through Visual Composer to your pages. Add a Widgetized Sidebar element to your page to incorporate a sidebar to your page.

Setting up Front Page

Visit Settings > Reading page on your dashboard, switch to A static page at Front Page Displays. Select a page from Front Page select box and click Save Changes to set it as home page / front page. Leave Posts Page option unset.

Please note that in order to set a page as home page it must be present at Pages. That being said automatically generated pages such as archive, category or single posts cannot be set as homepage.

Sliders & Galleries

Slider Revolution

Slider revolution is a versatile and the best selling Premium WordPress slider. It’s included into your theme and can be installed at Northeme > Plugins page if it’s not installed yet. Otherwise, you can download it from My Account page on northeme.com to install it manually.

Once Slider Revolution is installed, you can create new sliders at Slider Revolution menu on your WP dashboard. Sliders can be used via shortcodes, Hero Slider panel on pages or Visual Composer element.

Slider Revolution offers an extensive theme documentation. Please visit the URL below for more information about Slider Revolution features :
https://www.themepunch.com/revslider-doc/slider-revolution-documentation/

 Built-in Sliders

Built-in Sliders is lightweight solution to build simple galleries and sliders. Although Slider Revolution offers satisfying results in most cases, you can use Built-in Sliders if you wish to build hassle-free sliders / galleries.

Slider / Gallery Manager is located at Sliders menu on your dashboard. You can create unlimited sliders and use them via shortcodes as well as Hero Sliders :

Create a New Slider / Manage a Slider

Click Add New Slider button or Edit link of a present slider to build a slider.

Slider editing page offers Image and Video buttons to add media to the slider. Embed videos allowed from 3rd party video providers such as YouTube, Vimeo etc. along with WordPress video player for self-hosted videos.

On the right-hand side, Slider and Gallery option provided to display this set as a gallery or slider. Main difference of gallery mode is to display gallery items as thumbnail below the gallery and use a specific height for gallery. It’s recommended if you have differently oriented images in the slider. As for slider mode, it only shows navigation dots and its height specified by the tallest slide.

Slider images will be displayed in a lightbox if an image is clicked. Disable Lightbox option allows to disable this action.

Once a slider created, you can add it to any post or page’s visual editor via shortcode. Corresponding shortcodes can be seen on listing page and slider editing page. E.g.

Hero Sliders

Page Settings panel can be seen on each page and post Add / Edit Page. Both Slider Revolution and Built-in Sliders will be listed and you can choose any sliders to display them as Hero Slider.

Slider / Gallery Settings

Global slider gallery settings can be found at Northeme > Theme Options > Slider / Gallery Settings section. Animation speed, icon speed and various settings can be adjusted.

Lightbox Plugin

Lightgallery which is lightweight and fast lightbox plugin is included into your theme.

Using Lightbox

Select Media file option at Link to option while inserting an image to visual editor. Images that linked to their original file will be opened in a lightbox. As for WP Galleries, each WP gallery thumbnail is automatically set to open in a lightbox. Clicking on a thumbnail opens the original image in a lighbox.

 

Lightbox Settings

Lightbox plugin comes with color and activation options page which is located at Northeme > Theme Options > Lightbox Settings. You can disable lightbox if you’re using any other 3rd party lightbox / gallery plugin such as Jetpack.

SEO Panel & Plugins

(DEPRECATED) Please use Yoast SEO or any other SEO plugin in order to manage SEO features.

Your theme comes with built-in and lightweight SEO solution. Each page, post and category SEO title, keywords and description can be managed through SEO panel :

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Main SEO description and keywords parameters for home or missing pages can be defined at Northeme > Theme Options > General & SEO Settings

On the other hand, built-in SEO is an optional feature and can be disabled at Northeme > Theme Options > General & SEO Settings. SEO optimization is a very important step of building a website and you may wish to use an extensive SEO plugin to track results.

WordPress SEO by Yoast is one of the most popular and free SEO plugins out there. We highly recommend it :
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/

For the instructions and support, please visit Yoast website :
https://kb.yoast.com/category/42-wordpress-seo

Remember, WordPress SEO plugin is recommended yet you’re free to use any other SEO plugin.

Translation / Multi-Language

Your theme is ready to translate. Default language files are located in languages folder inside the theme folder. We highly recommend using a child theme and copy languages folder into child theme directory. Using a child theme is required to maintain your changes after theme updates. See Child Theme & Customizations section of this documentation.

In order to activate the new language, rename language files with WordPress Locale code (E.g fr_FR.po and fr_FR.mo). Then, change Settings > General > Site Language to your language and WP_LANG code to wp-config.php file :

define ('WPLANG', 'fr_FR');

 

To translate default language files, you’re supposed to use a 3rd party editor. POEdit is most popular and free option to edit po / mo files:
https://www.poedit.net

As a on-site solution, Loco Translate WordPress Plugin is a great solution to translate the theme from your dashboard instead of working with language files :
https://wordpress.org/plugins/loco-translate/

 

Multilingual Plugins

Our themes are fully compatible with WPML multilingual plugin.

WPML

WPML is one of most popular WP multi-language plugins can be downloaded from WPML website :
https://wpml.org

By default, all post and pages are available to translate and no action required. As for custom post types and particular fields :

  • Custom Post Types : Portfolio and other post types created from Northeme > Appearance > Custom Post Types must be activated first. Go to WPML > Translation Options and select “Translate” for the post types and taxonomies under Custom Posts and Custom Taxonomies sections.
  • If you wish to translate fields such as Tagline, Footer text that are located under Northeme menu at your WP dashboard, you’re supposed to use shortcodes. Your theme offers WPML translation shortcodes – [wpml_translate] – to add multiple translation into those fields.For example :
    [nor_translate lang=’en’]English Footer Text[/nor_translate][nor_translate lang=’es’]Spanish Footer Text[/nor_translate]

 

 

Child Theme & Customization

IMPORTANT :

  • Never modify theme files directly. Always use a child theme to make modifications on theme files to maintain the changes after theme updates.
  • Unfortunately we cannot offer support for customizations. Theme issues caused due to customizations are out of the scope for theme support.

Northeme Framework offers a section for adding custom CSS and Scripts at Northeme > Theme Options > Custom CSS & Scripts.

You can add custom styling rules into Custom CSS to override default theme stylings. Although we offer extensive modifications features at Northeme > Theme Options, it may help for further modifications. You can use Google Chrome’s Inspect Element feature to find out specific classes.

Also, you can install and use CSS modification plugin, SiteOrigin CSS :
https://wordpress.org/plugins/so-css/

Custom Scripts field is offered in order to add scripts into <head> tag. That allows to include any 3rd party or your own scripts to the page :

/* Typekit import */
<script src="//use.typekit.net/XXXX.js"></script>
<script>try{Typekit.load();}catch(e){}</script>

/* Including your custom JS or CSS files without using a child theme */
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/path/to/my_css_file.css" type="text/css" media="all" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="/path/to/my_js_file.js"></script>

 

Using a Child Theme

Download blank child theme template from My Account section on northeme.com and upload it into wp-content/themes folder. Before activating it, make sure that you’ve made the following changes :

  • Child themes cannot work without a parent theme. For example, if you want to install a child theme for Workality Plus, Workality Plus theme must be located in wp-content/themes folder.
  • Since child themes are dependent to a parent theme, you’re supposed to declare the parent theme folder name in child theme’s style.css file.

 

Check out following example :

Default child theme style.css file content should be looking as follows.
Make sure that Template value points to parent theme folder name (E.g. workality-plus-master or reframe-plus-master etc.)  :

/*

Theme Name: Workality Child Theme
Theme URI: https://northeme.com/
Description: Child Theme for Workality Theme
Author: Northeme.com
Template: workality-plus-master
Version: 0.1.0
*/

Shortcodes

Theme Shortcodes are no longer needed since Elementor and WPBakery incorporated into our themes. You can still use them but it’s highly recommended using Page builders instead.

Please see Building a Page section to learn more about Visual Composer features. Shortcodes are still available for backwards compatibility and can be used with visual editor if Visual Composer is not activated for the current post / page.


 

Shortcodes are helpers to add rich content to visual editor. Your theme comes with button, alerts, icons, tabs, Google Map, columns and contact form shortcode and can be added through Shortcodes button that is located on visual editor panel :

shortc

 

Selecting a shortcode type will open a lightbox that helps you to build its content and settings. Afterwards, simply click on Insert Shortcode button to add it to your content.

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Content Wrapper Shortcode

Content wrapper shortcode is quite easy to use tool for managing content alignment. It only provides width parameter to set maximum width of specific part of content. This feature allows to centralize the wrapped content. Width setting will be ignored on mobile and the width will automatically be set to 100% in order to use maximum space.

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Column Shortcodes

Your theme is built with 16 column grid system and Column Type option allows to choose how many columns will be displayed on a row.

Backup & Transfer

Backup

There are dozens of free backup plugins for WordPress out there yet we recommend UpdraftPlus which is one of the most popular backup plugin for scheduled backups :

https://wordpress.org/plugins/updraftplus/

 

Transfer

As for transferring / cloning your entire website, there are several WordPress backup / transfer plugins to make it. Duplicator is a free and easy-to-use option :
https://wordpress.org/plugins/duplicator/

Once the plugin is activated, go to plugin’s page at your dashboard and create a backup & installer. Afterwards upload installer file (install.php) and backup zip file to the root of your new web hosting and browse install.php with your favorite browser. Simply follow the instructions to complete cloning process. More information can be found at Duplicator’s website.

Please note that Duplicator may fail if you have large files to transfer. Although we suggest using Duplicator since it might be successful in most cases, we cannot offer support for transfer issues.

Maintenance Mode

Maintenance Mode allows to shut down your website temporarily while you’re building your website or making important changes. It’s located under Northeme > Theme Options and offers simple options to build a landing page to display your visitors. Preview option is provided to check how the landing page design looks.

 

Passkey

Passkey option might be very helpful if you need to show your website to someone even if it’s current under maintenance. Define a simple keyword (E.g. come-in) and people can view your website through the URL provided.