Hello there, first of all, thanks for purchasing Dot.
This is comprehensive and also an easy-to-use help file that allows you setup and use Dot WordPress theme. Dot is designed really user-friendly and if you have been a WordPress user before, you won’t need to read this help file completely and it’s enough to look at the main titles and read what you need. Our themes usually get regular updates including bug-fixes and improvements. So, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter
Some Important Notes:
- Please take the time to read through the documentation, as many support related questions can be answered simply by re-reading these instructions.
- We will be happy to help you tweak the theme but just for small ones. For more advanced customizations, contact us for paid customizations.
You need to extract the dot-blog-pro.zip file. The folder name will be “dot-blog-pro“. You can upload it directly to your host via FTP in /wp-content/themes. Then you can simply activate Dot Blog Pro as you would activate every other WordPress theme at Appearance -> Themes.
Also, you can use “dot-blog-pro.zip” file in WordPress theme uploader section in order to install the theme via WordPress directly.
Dot, has got 3 slider variations which can be set from Appearance > Customize > Home Slider. All of them shows your selected posts in a special format. To set it up, go to Appearance > Customize > Home Slider:
As you see, there are a few options that helps you customize the default settings. First of all, you need to select a category to populate the slider with your desired posts.
Also, you can select your slider design version from “Slideshow Layout” Options.
Slider 1 Category Description
If you choose Slideshow Layout 1, as you see in our demo, there is a fixed bold heading title displayed above slider posts
You can dynamically change this heading because it’s controlled by Posts Category Description
As you choose your slider category, its description will be shown here. So in order to change it, you can go to Posts > Categories > and change the selected category description as shown
Please note that this description only is shown in slideshow layout 1
In this section we will take a look at the general options of the theme. There is no need to explain each section because each section comes with a clear description.
You can find general options in Appearance > Customize > General Options.
Homepage Post Layouts
Here under this option, you can choose your desired post layout for homepage. You have 3 different styles for post box.
Single Page Layout
There are also 2 different single post page layouts which you can choose from here.
There are some options that allow you customize your theme such as: chaning homepage post layout, sidebar alignment, single page layout, single page header background, pagination, coming soon settings, etc.
If you need a coming soon template with a specific launch time counter, Dot offers a template for that. You can use it until your site gets ready to launch.
Create a page and name it whatever you like. From the right sidebar, Page Attributes box, select Coming Soon from available templates. Now publish the page.
Now you need to mark this newly created page as a static front page. Go to Appearance > Customize > Static Front Page and select A static page option. Now from Front Page list, select your coming soon template page.
If you visit your website homepage, you will see the template showing a counter to the launch time. You can change the default date to yours by navigating to Appearance > Customize > General Options > Coming Soon option
Dot Blog uses Contact Form 7 Plugin for the contact page. Once you activated the theme, you will get a notification message for installing/activating contact form 7 plugin. Follow the instruction and make sure you have the plugin activated.
Now we should create a contact form 7 shortcode for our contact page. As our demo contact form has a little different demo, if you want to make your form exactly like our demo, you can use the following HTML code in WordPress > Cotact > Add New in the form text area.
</p
<div class="row">
<div class="col-md-6">
<label>Your Name *</label>
[text* your-name "enter your name here"]
</div>
<div class="col-md-6">
<label>Your Email *</label>
[email* your-email "enter your email here"]
</div>
<div class="col-md-6">
<label>Phone Number (Optional)</label>
[tel tel-32 "phone number"]
</div>
<div class="col-md-6">
<label>Website (Optional)</label>
[url url-701 "http://"]
</div>
<div class="col-md-12">
<label>Subject *</label>
[text* your-subject "subject"]
</div>
<div class="col-md-12">
<label>Message **</label>
[textarea* your-message "write your message here"]
</div>
<div class="col-md-12">
[submit "Send Us Your Message"]
</div>
</div>
Once you saved your form, you will get a shortcode to copy in your contact page. So copy the shortcode, and paste it in a new page which is going to hold your contact form.
You can also get the same resutl by importing the demo content as explained in a separate section.
Dot supports five post formats: Standard, Gallery, Video, Quote, and Audio.
Audio
You can paste the audio file code from soundcloud or other similar sites in the box considered for this post format.
Video
You can embed video from youtube, vime, etch (powered by oEmbed) into the box considered for video post format.
Gallery
If you choose gallery post format, you can use the gallery option to upload multiple images for your post. While creating a new post, scroll down to find Gallery meta box. Click the Add Image(s) button and upload your gallery items.
You can change the main color of the template in Appearance > Customize > Styling
As you see you can change the accent color as well as apply custom css style for your minor css modifications.
To install demo data,
1. First, make sure you have activated the theme
2. Navigate to Tools > Import. Click on WordPress from the given list. If you haven’t installed the WordPress Importer plugin, a window will be shown directing you to install it. Now you will be redirected to the page where you can choose the demo data file. Choose dot_demo_data.xml from the downloaded package under Demo Data and click “Upload File and Import”. If you’ve checked “download and import file attachments”, it will take a few minutes to import the data.
3. Go to appearance > menus > and assign Menus to “Main Navigation” and “Top Navigation”
Importing Widgets
To Import default widgets settings
1. Install Widget Importer & Exporter plugin from WordPress plugin repository.
2. After activating the plugin, go to Tools > Widgets Import and Export > Choose file and select dot_widgets.wie. Now click Import Widgets
