Alchemists Documentation

Last updated: November 25th, 2018

Welcome

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Thank you very much for purchasing our theme. We've put a lot of hard work into it, and we hope you love it as much as we do. As far as the documentation is concerned, we have tried to cover as much as possible to help you get your new theme up and running and to help you customise it.

If you have any questions or problems that aren't answered here, please feel free to create a new ticket on our support site.

We love to hear your feedback - if you find any bugs or have suggestions for improvements please get in touch. Nearly all of the time we follow your advice and issue a rapid update to Alchemists.

If you like our work, please rate it. If you’re about to rate it with less than 5 stars, please let us know the reason first and we will do our best to improve the theme. Thanks so much!

WordPress Information

Since WordPress is constantly being updated information about how to install WordPress may become out of date, so you always can read official guide HERE

Below are all the useful links for WordPress information:

Theme Installation

Once you've downloaded the installation file on ThemeForest, extract it and locate a file called alchemists.zip. You can install the theme by using one of two installation methods:

WordPress upload
  1. Login to WordPress admin.
  2. Go to Admin panel > Appearance > Themes > Add New > Upload Theme.
  3. Click on Choose File and select alchemists.zip.
  4. Click on Install Now.
  5. When your theme is successfully installed, click Activate to activate the newly installed theme.
FTP upload
  1. Using FTP client, login to the server where your WordPress website is hosted.
  2. Using FTP client, navigate to the /wp-content/themes/ directory under your WordPress website's root directory.
  3. Using FTP client, upload the Alchemists directory to themes directory on remote server.
  4. Once uploaded, navigate to Dashboard > Appearance > Themes in the WordPress Dashboard and hit Activate below your newly uploaded theme.

When you use first or second method, please make sure that you're uploading the alchemists.zip file, not entire package you downloaded. If you upload the wrong file you will get an error stating “Error: missing style.css stylesheet.”

Once installation is complete, your Alchemists theme will be ready to use. You should now see Alchemists theme as active.

Installing Required Plugins

When you first install the theme you'll see a popup on your dashboard from the theme asking you to install a number of plugins.

Allow the theme to install these for you. The plugins which are installed are dependent of the theme, the images below are for illustrative purposes only.

You can install all plugins at the same time by checking the box at the top of the this list.

Importing Demo Data

We have included the exported files from our demo, this allows you to quickly set up your theme the same way our demo is set up.

Before you begin, make sure all the required plugins are activated.
  1. Log-in to your WordPress backend and navigage to Appearance > Import Demo Data.
  2. Click on Import Demo Data only once.
  3. That's it! :)

You now just need to wait for the importer to finish. This might take a few minutes depending on your hosting server speed.

Theme Customization

Theme Options panel allows you to customize color styling, typography, text etc. of the theme. Go to Dashboard > Theme Options to start customizing the theme.

  • General Settings

    You can set the basic settings here.

  • Header

    The section allows you to setup site Header.

  • Page Heading

    Customize Page Heading in this section.

  • Blog & Posts

    You can setup Blog and Posts settings here.

  • Styling

    Here you can customize theme colors.

  • WooCommerce

    This section allows to change WooCommerce settings.

  • Preloader

    Want to change preloader styling? Jump into this section.

  • Footer

    You can setup Footer settings here.

  • Typography

    Customize theme Typography in this section

  • Social

    Enter your social details here.

  • 404 Page

    This section allows you to setup 404 error page.

  • Custom CSS

    Need to tweak something but can't approciate option? Just add your custom CSS here.

  • Import/Export

    Here you can import/export theme options.

Setting Up a Favicon

  1. Go to Appearance → Customize → Site Identity → Site Icon
  2. Click on Select Image
  3. Upload your favicon or choose from existing.
  4. Crop your image or Skip cropping.
  5. Click on Save & Publish.

Setting Up Top Menu

Starting from v2.1.0 you can setting up menu instead of simple links in the Header Top Bar.

Please make sure that you have installed next plugins: Nav Menu Roles


Creating Top Menu

To create Top Menu please follow next steps:

  1. Go to Appearance → Menus → Edit Menus
  2. Create a new menu by clicking on Create a new menu link
  3. Enter menu name, e.g. Top Menu
  4. To assign the menu to the menu location, click the Manage Locations tab then select Top Menu from the drop-down under Assigned Menu and then click the Save Changes button.


Adding Menu Items
  1. Go to Appearance → Menus → Edit Menus → Top Menu
  2. Add My Account page, change label to Register and enable Display Mode: Logged Out Users, so that the register menu link only shows for logged out user.
  3. Add My Account page, change label to Login and enable Display Mode: Logged Out Users.
  4. Add My Account page and enable Display Mode: Logged In Users, so that the account menu link only shows for logged in user.
  5. Add a custom link using Custom Links menu creation option with url [site-url]/my-account/customer-logout/ and label Logout. Also enable Display Mode: Logged In Users.

  6. As an option you can add nav-account__item--logout CSS class to logout link to make it a little bit different.

In your WordPress backend navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Accounts > My Account Endpoints and you will see what the URL of the edit-address should be, it is often set to "/my-account/customer-logout/"

Changing Colors

To change theme colors navigate to Theme Options > Styling

Here you can control the colors site.

Typography Customization

To customize theme typography navigate to Theme Options → Typography and enable customization options Customize Body font? and Customize Headings?.

Here you can control Typography options such as Font Family, Font Weight, Font Size, Line Height, Font Color.

Widgets

To build your site you can also use Widgets. Navigate to Appearance > Widgets and using drag-and-grop interface place widgets into Widgets Area (Sidebar, Pushy Panel, Footer Area 1 etc.)

Note, all custom widgets have ALC prefix, e.g. ALC: Ad Spot

Get more info about widgets here.

SportsPress

SportsPress plugin created to transform your WordPress site into a fully configurable team, club, or league website. Features a suite of sports tools including fixtures, results, automated standings, players rankings, and individual profiles for clubs, players, and staff.

To get information about using the plugin please visit the official documentation page.

WPBakery Page Builder

Alchemists theme bundled with WPBakery Page Builder plugin. To get information how to work with please visit official documentation page.

All Shortcodes are integrated in WPBakery Page Builder you can find them under ALC tab.

Shop

WooCommerce is a free eCommerce WordPress plugin that allows you to sell anything, beautifully. Built to integrate seamlessly with WordPress, WooCommerce is the world’s favorite eCommerce solution that gives both store owners and developers complete control.

To get more information please check the official documentation.

Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 is our recommended form plugin for WordPress. It is a simple but powerful form creator for WordPress. Here we will show you how to use Contact Form 7 to create and edit a basic form.

After Contact Form 7 is installed, you will find a new menu item in your WordPress admin area called Contact, here is where your forms and created and edited. From the Contact main screen, you will see your first contact form, its usually a default form called Contact Form 1 OR if you have imported the demo data for our theme you may see a few forms that we have made specially for you.

<div class="row">
  <div class="col-md-4">
    <div class="form-group">
      <label for="contact-form-name">Your Name <span class="required">*</span></label>
      [text* input-name id:input-name class:form-control placeholder "Your full name..."]
    </div>
  </div>
  <div class="col-md-4">
    <div class="form-group">
      <label for="contact-form-email">Your Email <span class="required">*</span></label>
      [email* input-email id:input-email class:form-control placeholder "Your email..."]
    </div>
  </div>
  <div class="col-md-4">
    <div class="form-group">
      <label for="contact-form-subject">Subject</label>
      [text input-subject id:input-subject class:form-control placeholder "Your subject..."]
    </div>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
  <label for="contact-form-message">Your Message <span class="required">*</span></label>
  [textarea* textarea id:textarea class:form-control x5 placeholder "Enter your message here.."]
</div>
<div class="form-group form-group--submit">
  [submit id:submit class:btn class:btn-primary-inverse class:btn-lg class:btn-block "Send Your Message"]
</div>

You can add additional input from the right drop down, after setting up your form click Save button from right.

Child Theme

Child themes are separate themes that rely on a parent theme for most of their functionality. If you are using a child theme, WordPress will check your child theme first to see if a specific functionality exists. If it doesn’t, it will use the parent theme. This is great because it allows you to modify only what you need.

Child themes should always be used if you plan on modifying even a single character in your theme.

If you plan to edit the theme files, like style.css, we're suggesting you to install both alchemists.zip and alchemists-child.zip themes, then activate the child theme. Child themes are great because allow you to edit the theme and also lets you update the original theme in the future, without loosing your edited files work.

More about child themes and how to use them you can read here: LINK.

Translate Theme

There are 2 options to translate your theme:

Translation with Loco Translate plugin
  1. Install Loco Translate Plugin LINK
  2. Read more HERE

You can find .POT file in next folder wp-content/themes/alchemists/languages/

Translation with Poedit application
  1. Download and install PoEdit if you haven’t done so already.
  2. Open wp-content/themes/alchemists/languages/alchemists.pot with PoEdit and translate all string in your language.
  3. Go to File → Save as… to save your translations in a .po file. If you do not know how to name it, take a look at this page: http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_in_Your_Language.
  4. Go to File → Compile to .mo and save your .mo file next to the .po file in /wp-content/themes/alchemists/languages/
  5. Or you can set your PoEdit to always compile a .mo file when saving changes by clicking File → Preferences and on the Editor tab check the Automatically compile .mo file on save box.
Updating Translation

After updates, you can update your .po file by opening it and then going to Catalog → Update from POT file. Choose the file and it will be updated accordingly.

Keeping Translation Files Upgrade Safe

You can put your .po/.mo files in the WP_LANG directory which will keep them safe from updates. This is usually the wp-content/languages/ directory.

So for example, you need put your .po/.mo files in wp-content/languages/themes/alchemists-LOCALE.mo, replacing LOCALE with your language code.

How to Update Theme

There are 3 methods to update WordPress themes.

Auto Udates via Envato Purchase Code (recommended)

  1. Navigate to Activation
  2. Enter your purchase code (Find out how to get your purchase code)
  3. Click on Activate button.

More info here.

Once your theme is set up WordPress will periodically check for updates, so keeping your item up to date is as simple as a few clicks.

Update Through WordPress Admin Panel

  1. Download the latest Alchemists file from ThemeForest.
  2. Open Appearance -> Themes
  3. Choose another theme (not Alchemists)
  4. Delete Alchemists
  5. Install updated theme in Appearance -> Themes -> Install Themes -> Upload

FTP Update

  1. Download the latest Alchemists file from ThemeForest.
  2. Extract it and locate alchemists.zip.
  3. Extract alchemists.zip and locate the Alchemists folder.
  4. Replace content of the Alchemists folder to the /wp-content/themes/alchemists folder of your web site.

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