First Steps↑ Back to Top

A quick introduction to WordPress

WordPress is free web software you can use to create a web site, blog, or app. Using themes and plugins, you can transform it into almost anything you can imagine. Being easy to learn and use, but also powerful and extensible, it suits both basic and advanced needs of millions of users all around the world.

Start out

Yey, you now have your theme! You’re about seconds ahead of having a beautiful site running.

A WordPress theme is a collection of files that work together to provide a graphical interface with an underlying unifying design for a WordPress-based website. In simpler words, it defines the look and presentation of the material published in it.

Remember that you must have a working version of WordPress already installed in your web server in order to install this (or any) WordPress theme. If you don’t, it’s not a problem at all. You can easily install WordPress in about five minutes.

Installing your theme

As with any other theme, you can install Flatbase automatically from your WordPress Dashboard, or you can upload its files manually.

First time installing a theme? Follow our tutorial and you’ll be up and running in no time.

Nice Theme Options↑ Back to Top

The theme comes with a comprehensive but simple-to-use administration panel, which you can use to adjust many aspects of the theme in order to suit your specific needs.

Can’t find the theme options? Take a look at this article to learn where and how to configure them.

Widgets↑ Back to Top

Overview

Using WordPress widgets you can add custom content and features to different areas of your site with no code experience or expertise. It’s a powerful and easy way to control and extend your theme.

Unfamiliar with widgets? Follow our tutorial and learn about them while you set them up.

Widgetized areas

Flatbase has many areas where you can add widgets:

  • Primary
  • Page
  • FAQ
  • Knowledge Base (Articles)
  • Pre Footer 1
  • Pre Footer 2
  • Pre Footer 3
  • Footer 1
  • Footer 2
  • Footer 3

Nice Widgets

Flatbase comes bundled with its own custom widgets. You will be able to find them because they are prefixed with “(NiceThemes)”

Page Templates↑ Back to Top

Overview

Using WordPress page templates you can change the default layout and functionality of your pages. This way, every section of your site will look and behave exactly like you need it to.

Unfamiliar with page templates? Follow our tutorial to configure them very easily.

Nice Page Templates

Smart comes bundled with its own custom page templates:

  • Home (template-home.php) — The exact home page you’ll see on the theme demo.
  • Full Width (template-full-width.php) — A full width page template without the sidebar.
  • Blog (template-blog.php) — A page with your posts, organized as a blog section.
  • Blog Masonry (template-blog-masonry.php) — A page with your posts, organized as a blog section displayed in masonry mode.
  • FAQ (template-faq.php) — A page with your FAQs.
  • FAQ Scroll (template-faq-scroll.php) — A page with your FAQs, with automatic scrolling locally.
  • Gallery (template-gallery.php) — A page to display WordPress galleries.
  • Knowledge Base (template-knowledgebase.php) — A page with your articles, organized as a knowledgebase.
  • Sitemap (template-sitemap.php) — A sitemap page.

Setting up your home page

Your home page is the main page of your website, usually the first one a visitor will see. The Home page template, which comes bundled with the theme, is perfect for it.

Don’t know how to set up your home page? Follow our tutorial and replace the default posts list.

Setting up a gallery page

Sometimes you need to show a lot of images in a simple and intuitive way. In that case, you can use the Gallery page template, which also comes bundled with the theme.

Don’t know how to create a gallery page? Check this article and learn everything about it.

Home Page↑ Back to Top

The home page you see in the demo is basically what you get when you use the home page template. If you don’t know how to set a homepage, and use page templates you can follow the links to check each article.

The Home Page template has different sections that can be easily determined by checking the image below.

 

  1. Live Search
  2. Info Boxes
  3. Knowledge Base Articles
  4. Videos Section
  5. Pre Footer Widgets
  6. Call To Action
  7. Footer Widgets

Live Search

The live search section can be enabled or disabled via theme options. You can do that by going to the “Home Options” in your Theme Options panel and check the “Display Live Search” option. You can also change the Tagline and the Extended Tagline.

Info Boxes

You can enable or disable info boxes, and change their order by going to the “Home Options” section in the Theme Options panel. Info Boxes, as its name indicates, are boxes that contain information. To create them all you need to do is the following:

  1. In your WordPress Dashboard go to “Infoboxes > Add New”
  2. Insert any title, content, set a featured image (in the case of the demo we have used images containing icons), the “read more” url, text and choose if you want the link to open in the same window or not.
  3. Hit the “Publish” button.

Knowledgebase Articles

This section comes enabled by default. It is populated with the articles you have created for your site. You can choose the number of items to display for each category by going to the “Home Options” section in your Theme Options panel. The name of the option is “Number of Articles Per Category”.

Videos Section

The Videos section can be enabled by going to the “Home Options” section in your Theme Options panel. The name of the option is “Enable Videos”. You can also select the number of videos you would like to display.

If you have enabled this section and you don’t get to see any video, that means that you don’t have articles with the video post format. All you need to do is go to your article editor and check that the article format is set to video. You also need to insert the video embed code to the input.

Pre-Footer Widgets

This section is populated with the widgets you have defined for the different “Pre Footer Widgets” areas. You can learn how to use widgets by following this link.

Call To Action

This section can be configured in your Theme Options panel. The options are in the “General Settings” section. The “Call To Action Text” will populate the call to action text. The “Call To Action Button Link URL” will set the button link URL and the “Call To Action Button Text” will set the button text.

Footer Widgets

This section is populated with the widgets you have defined for the different “Footer Widgets” areas. You can learn how to use widgets by following this link.

Forums↑ Back to Top

The forum functionality is powered by the bbPress plugin. In order to have the forums section enabled you will have to install and configure the plugin.

Images↑ Back to Top

Featured images

Using WordPress featured images (also known as post thumbnails) you can illustrate and represent posts of any type. They are a great way to emphasize your content.

Unfamiliar with featured images? Follow our tutorial and start setting them up.

Nice Image Sizes

For an optimal view, you should know the purpose of an image before uploading it, and make sure it has the proper size. Smaller images will be automatically generated from it.

  • Blog Template: 480x480px
  • Blog Post: 730x40px
  • Blog Masonry: 580x405px

Navigation Menus↑ Back to Top

Overview

Using WordPress navigation menus you can easily offer a direct access to the different sections of your site.

Unfamiliar with navigation menus? Follow our tutorial and learn how to set them up.

Menu locations

Flatbase has many locations where you can add navigation menus:

  • Navigation Menu (The top menu).
  • Footer Menu (A footer menu, aligned to the right).

Permalinks↑ Back to Top

Permalinks are the URLs to the content you publish. They are shown in your browser’s address bar, and they are essential for your visibility in search engines.

Unfamiliar with permalinks? Check this article to choose a SEO-friendly permalink structure.

Customization↑ Back to Top

If you are an advanced user, we recommend you learn how to customize your theme (don’t forget to check the related articles). The only limit is your imagination!

Demo Content↑ Back to Top

If you want your site to look like one of our demos, learn how to import demo content to your theme.

NOTE: Please once you have imported the demo contents, if you assigned your home page as the front page and you see it empty, try going to the Theme Options panel and saving the options again.

Updates↑ Back to Top

To obtain the latest version of the theme:

  1. If you bought the theme on ThemeForest:
    1. Get your ThemeForest purchase code.
    2. With your ThemeForest purchase code, obtain your NiceThemes license key.
  2. If your NiceThemes license key is expired, renew it.
  3. With your active NiceThemes license key, register your theme.
  4. Learn how to update your theme.

Support↑ Back to Top

You’re not alone in this. If you need assistance:

  1. Make sure your issue is related to the theme.
  2. Learn how to get support, and follow the steps we suggest.
  3. Try a search in our support center.
  4. Ask for help at Flatbase’s support forum.

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