Design Aglow - Chic : intothedarkroom support

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Design Aglow - Chic

Brad Hassett
posted this on July 03, 2012 05:59 pm

Introduction

Setup WordPress
For those that are self-hosted (not on our membership plan) go here to learn how to setup WordPress on your server. If you are on our membership plan then there is no database setup needed.

Using WordPress & quick start videos - Watch Videos
We created a video library to help walk you through how to WordPress and certain things on our template. Take a look at the video library here.

Login to WordPress
To login to the backend of WordPress go to where you installed it and add "/wp-admin" to the end of the URL. So for example, it could be "http://example.com/wp-admin" or if you installed it in the blog directory then it would be "http://example.com/blog/wp-admin".

ITDR Admin - View Example Video
The ITDR Admin is where you can choose colors, fonts, sizes, change settings, and change features, etc. in your template. After you activate your theme it will be located on the bottom of the navigation in the backend of WordPress.

Setup Pages

Setup home & blog page - Watch Video Tutorial
NOTE: If you don’t want a home page and would prefer to just have the blog page as your home page, you don’t need to do these steps.

In the "pages" tab click the "add new" button. Create a page called "Home". Then in the attributes panel on the right, use the Template drop down and select "Homepage". Now publish.

When you make a blog page set the template setting as "Blog".

Next, go to the "Settings" tab and go into the "Reading" section. Select the button that says "static page" and set the front page as "Home" and the posts page as "Blog" if you created a blog page.

NOTE: if you'd like for the blog to appear in the .com/blog area you will need to go to Permalinks then change the url to custom and put in /%postname%/

Setup home page

> Home page - header and header/contact message
Go to WordPress > ITDR Admin > Header tab.

> Home page - welcome and twitter
To setup a welcome message and the twitter message on the home page sidebar go to ITDR Admin > Home Page Sidebar tab.

> Home page - featured post
To add featured post on the home page sidebar go to WordPress > Posts > Click into a post > find the "Intothedarkroom Options" box on the top right and change the "Featured Post" dropdown to "Yes". The image is generated in the order of: featured image > first image in post. To set a featured image go into the post in WordPress and look for the featured image section.

> Home page - recent posts
The recent post section auto generates the image in the same order previous stated. For image sizes refer to the Intothedarkroom message on top of the WordPress panel.

Setup under construction page
You have the ability to add an "Under Construction" page so that visitors to the site see this page no matter what page they are trying to access. If you're logged into Wordpress, however, you will see your site as if there was no "Under Construction" page, giving you the ability to populate and design it without anybody seeing what you're doing. To add the page go to the ITDR Admin > Under Construction tab.

Setup archives page
In the "pages" tab click the "add new" button. Title the page. Then in the attributes panel on the right, use the Template drop down and select "Archives". Now publish.

Setup contact page
In the "pages" tab click the "add new" button, title the page, then in the attributes panel on the right, use the Template drop down and select “Contact”. Now publish.

If you want a sidebar on the contact page where you have the option to include your email, phone, fax, address, and even a Google map, go to the ITDR Admin (bottom of the WordPress navigation) > Setup > Contact and fill in your desired information.

To get a Google Map on the contact page like the demo, go to Google Maps and search your address. Now click "Link" on the top right of the page and copy the HTML embed code. Then go to the "Contact Page" section of the theme admin panel and paste the code in the Google Maps box. You can adjust the size of the map by adjusting the “height” and “width” in the code you just pasted.

Setup a portfolio page (uses BlogShow) - Watch Video Tutorial
Portfolio pages are essentially just a page with a Blogshow embedded in it. You can get detailed information about using Blogshow here. To create a Blogshow:

Create your page and Title it.
Click the ITDR logo on the top bar of the editor (where you type text into your page). Make sure your Blogshow Plugin is activated!
(optional) – To change the design (including height and width) click the “Global Settings” tab.
Click the “Image Sets” tab.
Click “New” and title the set.
Select the set you just created and click the "Image List" tab.
Click “Upload” and upload your desired images.
Click the "Insert" tab and click “Insert into Post!” on the bottom.

Setup Universal Items

Logo
To edit the logo go to the ITDR Admin > Design > Logo. To use the default logo simply add text in the "Logo Text" field.

If you are going to use a different logo you can upload it in the "Logo" field. (Refer to the "Image sizes" section of this document for recommended sizing.)

Setup your navigation - Watch Video Tutorial
NOTE: You need to have WordPress 3 of greater.

Go to the "Menus" tab under "Appearance".
Create a New Menu by giving it a title, then clicking “Create Menu”.
Assign the menu to it's location by selecting it in the dropdown in the top left under the "Theme Location" tab. Click save.
Select the pages, categories, or custom links that you want in this navigation and add them to your menu. To create a sub-navigation item, click and drag an already added menu item and put it under & to the right of the desired parent navigation item.

IMPORTANT: due to the complexity of the navigation this blog can only have navigations 2 levels deep. Anything higher than 2nd level sub-navigations items will not work.
NOTE: To create a "dead" navigation item (one that doesn't link to anything), create a custom link with a link to somewhere fake (example: http://something.com). Then once added find it on the right column, click the dropdown arrow, and delete the link.

Setup a sidebar

Go to the ITDR Admin > Setup. Change “Use Sidebar” to true.
On the WordPress navigation go to Appearance > Widgets.
Click and drag your desired widgets from the left panel to the right panel named "Sidebar".

Image sizes
Refer to the "Intothedarkroom Message" on the top of your WordPress backend for images size for your blogsite (changing settings can change the image sizes).

Learn how to save your images here.

Demo image sizes:

logo: 250 x 50 pixels
header image: 830 x 500 pixels
header sidebar image: 270 x 263 pixels
home page - "recent posts" section image: 320 x 210 pixels (same as blog post featured image)
home page - "featured" section image: 320 x 210 pixels (same as blog post featured image)
blog post - featured image: 320 x 210 pixels
blog post - with sidebar image: 630 pixels wide
blog post - without sidebar image: 1000 pixels wide
page - image: 1000 pixels wide
portfolio page - blogshow images: 1000 x 500 pixels

Blog post feature images
The "feature image" is the image that shows up in the "recent posts" and "featured posts" section on the home page. To upload a "feature image" go into your post in the backend of WordPress and upload an image into the "Featured Image" block. If you don't upload a featured image, it will use the first image in the post.

Fonts - Watch Video Tutorial
The default font in the demo is "Walkway".

To upload a custom font to this template do the following:

Upload a .ttf or a .otf font file to this generator: http://www.fontsquirrel.com/tools/webfont-generator (You can get a font on this site if you don't already have one - http://www.fontsquirrel.com/)
Download the .zip file that it creates.
Upload that .zip file in ITDR Admin > Design tab > Fonts tab > in any of the font upload areas.
Save. That's it!

Comments
There are two types of comments you can use on this template: Wordpress comments and Facebook comments. You can only one OR the other, but you can't use both at the same time because they aren't compatible with each other. More detail on each system is below:

> Comments - WordPress Comments
Facebook comments are turned on by default for this blog, however, you have the ability to use the standard WordPress comment system as well. To do this go to the ITDR Admin > Setup tab > Social Media tab > turn "Use Facebook Comments" to false.

> Comments - Facebook Comments
To moderate facebook comments you have two options: moderating comments with your Facebook username or moderating comments with an app ID. The difference is that with your facebook user ID you can only moderate comments by checking each post to see if there has been a comment. You will be notified of comments and there is no central location to moderate all comments left on your blog. If you use an app ID you can login to one central location to moderate all comments left on your blog.

To moderate with your Facebook user ID:

Go Facebook and login.
Go to your profile page and look at the URL. It should say something like "http://www.facebook.com/joesmith7" or "http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=123456789". Depending on your case your user ID is "joesmith7" or "123456789".
Go to the ITDR Admin panel in WordPress > Setup > Social Media > type in your Facebook ID into the "Facebook Username" field. Save.
Wait a few minutes as it takes some time to kick in.
Now to moderate your comments go the comments in an entry and you will see a "Moderator View".

To moderate with an app ID:

Go Facebook and login.
Go to http://developers.facebook.com/
Click "Apps" in the navigation. Click "Allow" if prompted.
Click "Create a New App".
Title the app, read the terms if you're a reader ;), and click agree, click "Create App".
Fill out the captcha if it comes up.
Locate the section titled "Select how your app integrates with Facebook" near the bottom and type in your "Site URL". (this must be an exact match AND include a trailing slash "/")
Locate and copy the app ID.
Go to the ITDR Admin panel in WordPress > Setup > Social Media > type in your app ID into the "Facebook App ID" field. Save.
Wait a few minutes as it takes some time to kick in.
Now to moderate your comments you can go to http://developers.facebook.com/tools/comments/. It is also worth noting that you can change the settings by click the "Settings" button on the right of this screen.

"To add multiple moderators, separate the uids by comma without spaces."

Using Shortcodes
Shortcodes are just easy ways to enhance a page or post. This theme comes with a bunch of shortcodes that you can find here: http://intothedarkroom.com/demos/en/blogs/anise/?page_id=9.

To implement one of these shortcodes into your page/post just copy and paste the example given under the titles of each shortcode. Then change the content within it to be your desired text.

For example to get a quote in your blog, copy and paste “[quote]your text here[/quote]” into your page/post, then change the text to whatever your quote is.

Forums/Blogsites/Select your template