Before you Start


Ensure that:


  • You have your own hosting platform running up to date stable versions of Apache/nginx, PHP, MySQL. If you need hosting we recommend Siteground.
  • You have installed the latest version of self hosted WordPress.
  • You have logged in to WordPress and are looking at the WordPress dashboard.



1. Install the Theme

When you are ready to install a theme, you must first upload the theme to your WordPress directory. There are two ways you can install the theme:


Using WordPress: Navigate to Appearance > Themes > Add New. Go to upload and select the zipped theme folder (jefferson-pro.zip) and hit install now and theme will be uploaded and installed. Once you have uploaded the theme, you need to activate it. To activate your new theme, go to Appearance > Themes and activate your chosen theme.


Using FTP: By using any FTP program of your choice you can upload the non-zipped folder to the /wp-content/themes/ folder on your server.




2. Install the Required Plugins

Once you've activated Jefferson Pro, you'll be prompted to install the recommended plugins to get the most out of Jefferson Pro. Kirki is required in order for the theme options to load. You should also install the Mailchimp for WP plugin if you wish to avail of the Newsletter feature.


The message will look like this:




Click the "Begin Installing plugins" option.

Tick the checkbox just under Bulk actions and from the Bulk options dropdown select "Install" and click "Apply".




3. Set the Menu

Go to Appearance > Menus


Next, select the Main Menu to edit at the top.





Tick the 'Main Menu' checkbox at the bottom of the page to assign it.





4. Reading Settings


Go to Settings > Reading and set the Front page to be 'Your latest posts'

Set the Blog pages show at most to be 5 if you wish.



 
5. Setup the Homepage


The is activated within the Customizer. So go to Appearance > Customizer > Homepage.

You'll see four options - 'Centered Hero Section', 'Hero Section' which is the top grid section on our demo. Newsletter (see below) and 'Featured Post' - which is the post with the large image beneath it.




Centered Hero Section



Set this to 'Show' and choose a category to display. You will of course need to have some posts already, assigned to at least one category. We created a category called 'Featured' for this purpose.



You can of course set this to be 'Hide' and display the regular Hero section instead.



Featured Post



Set this to 'Show' and choose a post id to display. How do I find a post's id?





Newsletter


This uses the Mailchimp for WP plugin so first ensure that it is installed and active.


You can set the text to display as well as the color styling within the customizer.



Next, go to Appearance > Widgets > Newsletter


Here we'll drop in a Custom HTML widget into the space.



What's inside is the shortcode to our form. You'll need to follow the instructions for setting up this plugin and connecting it to your Mailchimp account. If you don't have an account, don't worry, it's free.


Once connected - you'll find the shortcode to add via Mailchimp for WP > Forms


At the bottom of the form you'll see a line like this:




6. Resizing Images


If you are migrating to Jefferson Pro from another theme you may wish to resize your images first so that they look better within the new theme. To do this, install and run the Regenerate Thumbnails plugin.


You can search for it within the Plugins section - then install and activate it.


Once the plugin has been installed, go to Tools → Regenerate Thumbnails to redo the sizes of any images already uploaded.




All done!

Next Steps: