Created: 27/06/2012
By: Hakan
Email: hakan.links@gmail.com
Thank you for purchasing my theme. If you have any questions that are beyond the scope of this help file, please feel free to email via my user page contact form here. Thanks so much!
To get the best result while using the Novus Theme, we suggest you to install some plugins
First of all you need to unzip the files that you downloaded from ThemeForest. The unzipped file containers many things like documentation, psd files, licence etc. so you just need to upload the novus.zip
Once you have uploaded the files succesfully, you need to activate the theme on your Wordpress Admin Panel. Appearance --> Themes
When you open the homepage, you will see just the default slider and an empty content, to add some content to the homepage you can use Appearance --> Widgets and drag-and-drop widgets to the Widget Areas associated with the Homepage.
Homepage above content area sidebar is the content will be showed in the beginning of the page, keep in mind that html codes are supported in text widget so you have more flexibility.
Since our homepage's sidebar and the content is syncronized, if you are going to create some different content than the sample homepage, then I suggest you to use slider template and slider shortcodes, actually any page on Wordpress would be assigned as homepage.
To be able to take advantage of the above shown widget areas make sure you have the Home Page setup in the following way: Settings → Reading → Front page displays and select "Your latest posts" Note: The above configuration should be like this by default, so you wouldn't have to do anything.
Novus comes with Novus slider, that supports many transition types, for your desired transition effect you just need to copy it from the list under the box, and paste it into the box. Not only on homepage, but also you can use the slider with the other pages assigning slider template.
You can easily add slides by clicking the add slide tab. Keep in mind that the slide text area supports html.
Under the appearance you will see Theme Options tab, through those options you are able to customize your theme for your needs. Under generic tab you will see 6 different sections including; Logo, Sidebar, Common Settings, Custom Color Settings, Footer and Statics.
The sidebar section is created for selecting the sidebar position for each page templates. I know you will ask that why we have created so many page templates since they are all same, yes they are all same but the corresponding sidebars are all different, you can see the sidebars on widget secton (Appearance ---> Widgets) so this is for your different type of sidebar needs. and this is the answer why we created so many page templates.
On Custom Color Settings section you have numerous options for different areas.
Once you decide to set up a portfolio page, first thing you need to do is to add a new page and select the template "Portolio" for this page. Secondly, you need to add a category and name it whatever you want. Ok now you have completed the first two steps of installing your portfolio page. But how Wordpress will know what category belongs to your portfolio items?
Let's go to the portfolio tab on the Theme Options and assing the category you have created as portfolio category. Now you are ready to post portfolio items, but now new questions come up: A portfolio item has thumbnail and a preview you see once you click to the thumbnail, how to manage these images and also what if the portfolio item you want to show is a video? .
Yes, we have multiple custom field solutions for these, but first of let's activate the custom fields if it is not not activated to be shown yet. Click to screen options, which is located to up right side of the page. Select the custom fields.
You will notice "Add new custom field" below the page, click to "Enter new" and fill the custom fields.
I know a new question comes up: "I added custom fields and working fine, but what is the function of the post content area?", Answer: This area is for detailed information for your portfolio items and it comes up once the portfolio item title is clicked.
To setup a Blog or News Section, create a Page called Blog or News or whatever you would like to call it, give it just a title and no content, and assign the template "Blog page" to it like so:
To add a post image to your blog post, click to the "Set featured image" after uploading or using one of the library images click to "Use as featured image"
You can also change the sidebar position for the Blog pages to be either left or right. You can do that from the Novus --> Blog Section To customize the Blog pages' sidebar, go to Appearance -> Widgets and drag-and-drop widgets you'd like to use into the "BlogSidebar" widget area, here's an example:
To setup a Contact page, create a Page called Contact and assign the template to it called "Contact page":
To use the contact form efficiently you can create a form using Contact Form 7, for further information you can check the plugin website.
You can edit CSS files, through the direction Novus ----> stylesheets ----> main.css
Once again, thank you so much for purchasing this theme. As I said at the beginning, I'd be glad to help you if you have any questions relating to this theme. No guarantees, but I'll do my best to assist. If you have a more general question relating to the themes on ThemeForest, you might consider visiting the forums and asking your question in the "Item Discussion" section.
ThemeSmack Team