[JayTea]

Hi there,

I’m trying to figure out how to set up the food menu for my client and I’m dumbfounded by the options. Nothing is making any sense in regards to the template options. I’m seeing an option for FOOD MENU where you can add a new menu item. I’m also seeing a MENU CATEGORIES page. I’ve fooled around with each of these trying all sorts of combinations and ended up surprised with the results each time. I’ve read the forum posts to see if I could find the answer. I’m still confused. I’m sure it must be simple – I only wish the “how-to” was more explicit in the instructions because I’m still lost. – Also, I cannot figure out how to toggle between the list view and the block view (or whatever it is called, I forget) for layout style options .

Here’s the hierarchy I’m looking to maintain/create:

Main Menu: “MENU” (part of the primary navigation – in site header)

Sub Menu 1: “Tea”
– Under “Tea” I will be placing copy and hopefully some images to illustrate some of the copy points.
Sub Menu 2: “Food Menu”

Under Sub Menu 2: “Food Menu” I have three categories:
Category 1: “Tea Snacks”
Category 2: “Light Meals”
Category 3: “Desserts”

Each of those categories will contain a list of food items, a brief description and a price.

How do you recommend I set this up? Again, I’m totally lost.

Thank you,
JT

[Juanfra Aldasoro]

Hello JT,

Thanks for writing.

First of all, I want to mention that the navigation menu has nothing to do with food menus. The navigation menu is part of WordPress. The food menus are part of the theme.

When you log in into the WP admin dashboard you’ll see that on the left part, you have the “Food Items”.

You can add as Menu Categories ( i.e. Starters, Main Dish, Dessert) and then add Food Items and assign them for each one of those categories ( i.e. Soup al onion for the category Starters, here you can include the price, the description and some more details ).

Finally, all you have to do is create a page, using any of the menu templates included in the theme (http://nicethemes.com/support/theme-docs/bbq/#setting-up-page-templates)

If you want to include your menu categories in the navigation menu, all you have to do is go to the “Appearance > Menus” section in your WP admin and then pick from the item from the box “Menu Categories” that you find in the left part. If you don’t get to see this box, please check the “Screen Options” in the right top corner. When you click over “Screen Options” a panel will toggle and you’ll be able to select the “Menu Categories” box.

Best,
Juan.

[JayTea]

Hi Juan,

On the left column of my WP admin dashboard I’m seeing a category titled “Food Menu” with a fork and knife icon (not “Food items”). I assume this is what you’re talking about?

I went into “Menu Categories” and added the following categories: Tea Snacks, Light Fare, Desserts. What I’ve come to realize through trial and error is that “Menu Categories” really means “Menu Subtitles or Subsections” and “Food Items” refers to the “Main Sections or Categories of the Menu”.

The problem I’m now facing is that the “Food Items” are showing up on the home page and not under my “MENU” page in the primary nav. Strangely, the “Menu Categories (Tea Snacks, Light Fare, Desserts) are listed under my “MENU” page in the primary nav.

I need the following to happen:

Click on MENU in the primary nav and a “menu” page appears showing the following main sections or titles:

Introduction
Tea Menu
Food Menu

Under “Introduction” there will be copy and an image.

Under “Tea Menu” there will be subheads for Menu Categories (Green Tea, Black Tea, Tisanes, etc.) and a list of available items with photos, descriptions and prices under each of those Menu Categories.

Under “Food Menu” there will be subheads for the Menu Categories (Tea Snacks, Light Fare, Desserts) and a list of items with photos, descriptions and prices under each of those Menu Categories.

I’ve created the Menu Categories for my Food Menu (not to be confused with your “Food Menu” dashboard menu item). I tried creating an Introduction page and a Tea Menu page and they both ended up on the HOME page somehow (first the Introduction page was there and then when I created the Tea Menu page it also appeared on the HOME page replacing the Introduction title and copy. Weird.

Perhaps the “Menu” creation from the standpoint of nice themes seems easy and logical and it very well could be once users like me understand how it works to set it up. However, I’m finding it difficult to understand the necessary steps to create my categories, subheads, titles, etc. and have them all play nice with one another and show up on the page they should be on in the primary nav and not some on the home page and others in the menu page in the primary nav.

If I could show you a focused site map, to identify the hierarchy would that help?

Still bewildered but determined,

JT

[JayTea]

So, I tried adding the Menu Categories to the Nav Menu and indented them so they appear as a dropdown menu. I then added one of the titles: Food Menu to this menu and indented that. I double indented those subcategories and that is all well and good when you hover over MENU in the primary nav. The problem I’m having now is that when you simply click on MENU in the primary nav you get an equal list or grouping of every category rather than a hierarchy as the dropdown suggests.

If you log into the site you’ll see what I’ve done and maybe you’ll see what I need to do to correct these actions and get me on track?

Thank you,
JT

[Juanfra Aldasoro]

Hello JT,

Yes, I meant “Food items” when I mentioned “Food Menu”.

It’s pretty straightforward, for example:

Menu Category:
Pasta

Food items for the Menu Category Pasta:
Ravioli
Lasagna
Spaghetti
Linguini
etc.

—

In the menu template, menu categories may seem to be titles/subtitles because the intention of the menu template is to create something similar as you’ll get when you ask a menu card to a waiter in any restaurant.

I’m a bit blind regarding all the changes you mention. Would you please send me your WordPress access details so I can look at your site? This way it’ll be easier to guide you in the process of building your site.

Best,
Juan.

[JayTea]

Hi Juan,

Since my last two posts I’ve gone in and tried sorting out the menus differently by breaking them into different primary nav options (Tea Menu and Food Menu) with subsections under each. I will send you my WP access details in an email so you can take a look around at what I have so far (much more content to add – none of the food descriptions, photos or prices are in yet).

I’m also having no luck seeing the slides on the home page. My host is BlueHost so I see there may be a problem with that.

The footer setup is nowhere to be found except in the editor area? I’m not sure how to go about configuring the footer. That remains a mystery.

As for adding a photo gallery, is there a gallery within the bounds of the BBQ theme that I can access for this or would I have to pull in a separate gallery plugin to handle that?

When all said and done, it’s a well-designed theme and your customer support is top notch. I just wish the set-up was a bit more intuitive where all of the menu info was on one page where you could designate the hierarchy on the page with different levels of subcategories, etc. drilling down to the actual food and drink items, descriptions, prices. (I realize you have these things in different spots but not everything menu related in one spot – you have to piece things together from different areas and hope it works out). Something where you can get an idea of how it will look as you’re building it rather than clicking on the View Site button and seeing what happened. The way it is now seems somewhat clunky and disconnected. Maybe there’s no other way? Anyway, enough dreaming of what could be. The bottom line is, if there’s a way to make what I’m looking for work with the way the theme is currently set up, I’ll have to make the best of the situation and learn it this way. Are there any video tutorials available showing how to set-up the theme? There’s an idea. The time you spend fielding questions, reviewing sites and providing answers about the theme would probably cut in half if you had video tutorials walking people through different scenarios.

Anyway. Looking forward to resolving this and getting the rest of the site viewable and populated with content.

Thank you for your continued help and patience, you’re a saint.
JT

[Juanfra Aldasoro]

Hello JT,

Thanks for sharing your site details with us. I’ve been through your site and I’m not sure if I’m understanding the way you’re trying to use the menu categories.

I want to be sure that you understand that the menu categories are something completely different from the navigation menus. You don’t need to set a particular order in the menu categories for them to be in the navigation menu, they’re independent. The hierarchy you set for the menu categories it’s not related to the hierarchy you set on the navigation menu. They’re completely independent.

The idea is: In the Food Menu section, you can manage the food menu items and the menu categories. Following your site’s products, a good example would be:

Menu category: TEA

Food items for the category Green Tea: Lipton Green Tea, Cranberry Pomenade green tea, Honey Green Tea.

Then, when setting up the navigation menu you can include any of those. So, please understand that the navigation menu is not related with the menu categories. I’ve seen you’ve created a category named “Introduction”. I don’t understand why you’ve done this. That should be a page.

I would recommend you to create two main menu categories: Tea and Food. Then for each one of those, create sub categories. Then for each subcategory you add the food menus(food items).

That’s it. When you set up these, you can set your navigation menu as you need.

With regards to the slider. The slider use the featured image as the slide image. Whenever you create a slide you should use the featured image to set the slide image.

Finally, regarding the footer. The footer use widgets. There are three widgetized spaces for the footer (Three different columns). On each one of those you can configure a Widget.

Best,
Juan

[JayTea]

Hi Juan,

Thanks for the detailed explanation of how to set up the Food Menu section. I’ll follow your advice and see what happens. The “Introduction” page you mentioned I had added as a category is just copy and you’re correct, it should be a page. This is something the client suggested including in the menu area but I’ve explained that it’s not the right place for it.

Slider: I’ll take another look at the featured image designation and see if that solves it.

Footer: I’m a bit in the dark still with what to do with those widgetized spaces for the footer (I’ve seen the three different columns). I’m not exactly sure how to “configure a widget” for those. I’ll look at the tutorial info and hopefully I’ll find the answer. But, something tells me one needs to fully understand widgets and have had experience with using them in WP in order to get it. Therein lies my learning curve.

Gallery: I have implemented your advice in a trial run and it worked. Thank you! Now I need to wait for the client to give me captions and descriptions for each image. Is there a suggested maximum pixel dimension size for these?

Background (Browser): I like the minimalist look of the white but the client wants an image back there so it looks like I’ll have to see about adding custom css to get it to work.

Thank you for everything. Hopefully I won’t have any other questions for you.

Best regards,
JT

[Juanfra Aldasoro]

Hi JT,

With regards to the widgets, that’s a wordpress functionality. You may want to check this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmPidMnzxUo

Background: You can use some css to style your body class with a background image.

body{ background: url(http://yoursite.com/yourimage.jpg); }

Best,
Juan.