Hello Serendipitous Theme

If you plan on importing the demo content and widget file you will want to download these plugins FIRST before doing that. If you download the demo content first and a plugin is missing that the demo uses, it will not import the content for that particular plugin and give you a “failed to import” message. You do not have to use all of these plugins, or any of these plugins. Only activate what you will use.

• Genesis Enews Extended– This is used for the subscribe/newsletter areas.
• Simple Social Icons– This is used for the social media icons in the sidebar.
• Soliloquy Lite– This is for the slider on the home page.
• Genesis Responsive SliderThis is the Post Slider used on the blog page
• Genesis Simple Share– This is used for the social media sharing at the bottom of blog posts.
• Portfolio Post Type – Provides the custom post type for your portfolio
• WooCommerce– This is used for the ecommerce area of the site. If you aren’t using this feature, don’t install this plugin.
• Genesis Connect for WooCommerce– This is used in conjunction with the WooCommerce plugin to work nicely with Genesis.
• Instagram Feed– This is used to show your latest Instagram feed.
• Testimonial Rotator– Displays your testimonials.
• Image Widget– Helps to add images to widget areas if you are uncomfortable with the copy and paste code
• Regenerate Thumbnails– This is used to recrop your images if all your images are oddly sized.
• Widget Importer & Exporter– This is used to import all the widgets from the demo and helps with setting up the theme for the first time.

1. Install the Genesis Framework and make sure it’s activated.
2. Install the Theme and activate it.
3. Install the plugins listed above before proceeding (leave off any you don’t plan to use).
4. If you are using Woocommerce be sure to finish the setup, otherwise your content will not show. Once you have finished the setup go to Settings > Display and set the 3 image sizes to 600×600, 800×800, 600×600. This will ensure that your images being used are large enough to not be stretched and distorted.
5. Reset permalinks. Click “Settings” in your admin menu, then permalinks, and save.
6. Your theme uses a Widgetized homepage. Go to Settings > Reading > Select Front Page Displays > Your Latest Posts
7. Delete old Widgets or Widgets that are located in the wrong section now due to activating a new theme (this applies only if you had an active site, not a new install)
8. Run the regenerate thumbnails plugin. (tools>regenerate thumbnails)
9. Install XML file with demo content (only if you feel you need it). Tools > Import > WordPress
10. Install the Widget demo file (only if you feel you need it), this will set the widgets up just like the homepage. Tools > Widget Importer/Exporter

If you are starting from a new install you should be able to start editing the demo content with your information. If you have an active site and are switching themes, you will need to do some “cleaning up” and re-arranging of the widgets to have your theme display right. Go to Appearance > Widgets and then open each widget area and delete or rearrange the widgets that are in places they shouldn’t be.

Image – To add a header image, click “Appearance > Header” and you’ll be prompted to upload your logo. Your logo is retina ready and fully responsive, the optimal size is 1200×300. The logo is then compressed to half the original size. This keeps the logo from being fuzzy on mobile devices. The easiest way to properly size the logo is with picmonkey.com or other image editor. Start by creating a canvas the correct size, then place your logo on that canvas and adjust it to fit. Don’t worry about the amount of space on the sides of the canvas, focus more on the height and the logo being centered. For more help on placing your logo on the proper size canvas, visit this tutorial How to upload & Size your LogoText – If you prefer to use text, that will automatically appear. You can set your site name by visiting “Settings > General”

• Place your blog name in the ‘Site Title’ field
• Place your tagline in the ‘Tagline’ field

 

To setup your Navigation menu go to Appearance > Menus. Your theme comes with a Primary Navigation which displays above the logo and Secondary navigation that displays above the footer widgets. You can also use any one of the Font Awesome Icons in the Navigation Menu by adding the full icon code before, or after the menu name.

Your theme comes with few options to customize the site. If you go to Appearance > Customize you will open the theme “Customizer” screen. There you can change the background and main colors to match your brand. Here is a preview of what that screen will look like.

To change the default images that show up in each Image Section you would go to Appearance > Customize > Image Sections then select the image you want to change. The best size for an image to be placed here is 1600x1050px.

You can add or remove the blog from the front of the homepage by going to Appearance > Customize > Front Page Content Settings. There you will have the option to show or hide the blog as well as rename what the intro says. To adjust how many are shown per page, you go to Settings > Reading > Blog Pages to Show at Most > Then select the number you would like to show on the homepage.

The footer is optimized for SEO and will pull from your site Title. To change that information you would go to Settings > General > Then adjust what is shown in the Site Title field.