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UoL Professional Services Theme Features and functions

Front page settings

To navigate to these settings, you must first have a front-page setup, which can be done by going to the dashboard as an admin, hovering over the settings tab and going to reading.

Then once in Reading set your homepage display to a static page. From there you can select a home page and a blog page from any blank pages you have already created.

Then you must navigate back to your home page, done by going to the dashboard, once again go to the tabs on the left of the page and select the pages tab. All the settings that are below the content editing area of the front page.

The main content editor will be disabled when a page is set to be the front page.

Example of front page editor

Slider options

The homepage slider displays both Featured pages and Featured posts.

The toggle homepage slider checkbox appears first underneath the front page content, this checkbox will be checked by default. If you uncheck the box it will disable the home page slider, and the slider will no longer be shown.

Slider toggle checkbox

The slider, if left on, will feature any Featured post or page and will cycle through them in a loop.

To add a Featured page or post, use the above button which can be found in the editor of all pages/posts.

Example of the slider - no featured image
Front Page example with the slider enabled
Front Page Example with the slider disabled

Front Page Introductory Content

The following box is the Toggle Slider option is the Front Page title and introductory content editing boxes. These are two text areas; the first changes the title on the front page and has a 40 character limit, the second is a text area that has a very similar format to the standard WordPress content area and will affect the introductory message that appears below the title. The front page greeting message has no character limit, however it is not recommended to write a lot as it will look incredibly strange to have a large amount of text.

Example of the Front Page Introductory content settings
Example of editable content on the website

This is what NOT to do

An example of edited content with far too much introduction text

Front page featured Image

The featured image on the front page will appear smaller than other pages and will display next to the introductory text.

Extended Navigation

The extended navigation controls the extended navigation area, which enables the user to add and remove posts and pages to an internal navigation menu. Each post or page will have a description that can be edited in each individual page. Each extended navigation has a limit of 9 elements maximum.

To add a page you can search for it using the search bar, or you can specify by changing the post type to page type. Then you highlight the page to be added in and then click on it and it will add it to the right side. To remove a page from the extended navigation highlight the page to be removed and click on the minus sign to remove it.

Example of the extended navigation settings area
Example of the result of the settings on the front end
Example of removing a navigation element from the extended navigation

Post/Page description

The post page description simply is a few lines of text that will appear underneath the link in the extended navigation, which adds some context to the link. The description has a maximum length of 120 characters, so that it doesn’t extend too far.

Example of the settings area

Latest news option

The latest news option toggles the visibility of the latest news area on the front page, it will be turned off by default, and the content will not be visible on the front page. However if checked and enabled, the latest 3 posts will be pulled onto the front page.

Example of the settings on the front page
Example of the output when latest news is enabled

Social Media Text

The social media text ACF adds a customizable message to the front end content, and the checkbox below it toggles it’s visibility, by default the social media will be off. However if the user wants they will be able to check the box and enable the social media area. It relies on the social media icons that you have enabled within the social media settings. The text must be set by or else the page will not show.

Example of the settings on the front page
Example of the front page output of the settings

Featured Image

The featured image on all pages must have a width larger or equal to 1280px otherwise it will not be of high enough quality to be resized properly. In which case it will not be displayed on the slider (a default gradient will be displayed), in the case of a page or a post the image will not be displayed at all and all the user will see is a title. The image will not be scaled or resized to fit the area, if it does not innately fit WordPress will not make an attempt to make it any better.

Example of page with an appropriate featured image size
Example of a post without a featured image / an inappropriate image size

Theme Settings

The themes settings are found when the user is an admin and they access the dashboard, by going down the tabs on the left and hovering over Theme Settings the user can find the following sub tabs

Within the Theme Settings tab inside the theme settings you can find the settings for the Google maps API and it’s visibility. By default the maps will be disabled so the user will have to check the box to enable it and provide an API key for site to use. Without the API key the area will be generated however there will be no map displayed.

The maximum title length is simply a counter measure to incredibly long titles, by default the value will be set to 120 which is more than enough, it is not recommended that it gets lowered, however if necessary it can be increased for longer titles.

Social Media

The social settings allow you to add social media networks, the user simply has to click on add social media, select which social media type they want from the social media type drop down and enter the link to the social media (instead of Link goes here). To remove one of the social media links the user must hover over the media link and a minus sign will appear next to it, then by pressing the minus sign the social media will be removed.

Example of the social media settings
Example front end result of adding social media links

Contact us

Within the main Theme Settings Tab there is a sub tab called Contact Us and inside there are several input areas, by filling out the input boxes within this area, you populate the widget area within the footer that goes beneath the Contact Us heading. This is Universal so once you type it out then it will be that name and the address on all other pages.

Example of the input area and possible content you can enter
Example of the front page output

Credits:

Created with an image by Ari He - "untitled image"