Now We’re Talkin’ Documentation

Installation of Now We’re Talkin’ is fast and straight-forward. Following purchase, several files will be made available to you in your account on DiabloThemes. Among these files is the theme itself, named now-were-talkin.zip. Once you download this file, you can install it in one of two ways (the following assumes you have a working installation of WordPress already set up).

The first and easiest is way to install is through the WordPress Dashboard. Log in to your existing WordPress installation with the admin account or an account with admin privileges, and navigate to Appearance > Themes > Add New > Upload.  Browse your computer for the copy of now-were-talkin.zip that you download from DiabloThemes, and upload it using the form.  Then click Install Now.   In most circumstances, you’ll probably need to know your FTP login information to proceed.   After the theme has been successfully uploaded, go ahead and Activate it.

Note: It must be the zipped file that is uploaded; some operation systems like OSX may automatically unzip the package following download.  If this happens, you will need to recompress the folder back into a zip before uploading.

The second way to install the theme is through FTP.  After downloading the theme from DiabloThemes (once again, now-were-talkin.zip), you must unpack the contents of the zip and upload the folder titled now-were-talkin to your installation of WordPress via the FTP client of your choice (a popular free solution being Filezilla).  The folder you need to upload to is /wp-content/themes.  After uploading, the theme will be available for activation in your WordPress Dashboard at Appearance > Themes.

Your purchase of Now We’re Talkin’ also includes two additional plugins, which are optional, but recommended to get the most out of the theme.  They are available along side the theme files on your DiabloThemes account page and are named: dt-features.zip and dt-testimonials.zip.

Installing these modules is similar to installing the theme: after you’ve downloaded the zip files, log in to your WordPress Dashboard with admin privileges and navigate to Plugins > Add New > Upload.  Browse your computer for the file dt-features.zip and upload it.  Click Install Now.  Once again you may need to provide FTP credentials.   After successfully uploading the plugin, activate it.  Do the same with the dt-testimonials plugin.

Alternatively, you can manually upload the contents of each zip file via FTP to your WordPress installation.  The folder you should upload to is /wp-content/plugins.   After uploading, the plugins will be available for activation in your WordPress Dashboard at Plugins > Installed Plugins.

The DT Features plugin gives you the ability to highlight what your product, service or organization has to offer.  It’s as easy to use as it is to post content in WordPress.  Once the plugin is activated, you will see the section DT Features appear on your Dashboard menu.  Here you can add new Features, just as you would add posts and pages to your site.

Each Feature you create allows for an optional image and link.  If not needed, you can safely omit either.   Now We’re Talkin’ contains special styling and options for the DT Feature plugin to control how Features are pulled and displayed on the homepage of your site.  Once the theme and plugin are installed and activated, you can access these options by navigating to Appearance > Customize.  The options are located under the Features Section, and include:

 Number of features to show:  How many features you want to show on the homepage.  In the demo of Now We’re Talkin’ on DiabloThemes, for example, this is set to 4.

Number of columns: How many columns to display your features in.  On our demo for Now We’re Talkin’, this is also set to 4.  However, you could arrange these in different ways – choose to show 4 features with the above options, and display them in 2 columns, resulting in a two-by-two grid.

Image Size: The size of the image attached to each feature.  It’s set by width in px.  For precise control, you might consider preparing the images before hand with a external program like Photoshop for best results.  On the demo for Now We’re Talkin’, our image size is set to 250.

Feature Group: The DT Features gives you the option to create groups and assign them to specific features (for all intents and purposes, this works the same way as categories on regular posts).  If you have a specific group of features you want to display on the homepage, you can select it here.

Sort By: The sorting order of the features.  The options are No Order, Entry ID, Title, Specified Order (set using the order attribute on each Features edit page) and Random

 Enabled Feature Link Button: If you’ve specified an link and URL for the feature, you can optionally display it as an attached button.  This is disabled on the Now We’re Talkin’ Demo.

Link Image & Title: If you’ve specified an optional URL, you can link it to the image and title of the feature.

Title for section: A title for your homepage’s features section.  On the Now We’re Talkin’ demo, for example, this is “Everything You Need; Nothing that you don’t.”.

Although our themes display DT Features on the homepage, if you’d like to add features elsewhere on your site, we’ve included both a shortcode for adding features to Pages and Posts, and an action for adding a features section directly to a template file.  Styling of these sections may depend on their placement, or may require a div wrapper and unique class for stylized output.

An example shortcode, with default options:

[dt_features limit="3" columns="3" orderby="menu_order" order="ASC" category="0"  link_title="true" enable_button="true" image_size="150"]

An example of the action, with default options:

do_action( 'dt_features', array( 'limit' => 3,  'columns' => 3, 'orderby' => 'menu_order', 'order' => 'ASC', 'category' => 0, 'link_title' => true, 'enable_button' => true, 'image_size' => 250 ) );

DT Features also creates a widget with similar options, should you choose to display some features in a sidebar area.

The DT Testimonials plugin gives you the ability to showcase  some of the things your customers and clients are saying.  Like the DT Features plugin, it’s as easy to use as it is to post content in WordPress.  Once the plugin is activated, you will see the section DT Testimonials appear on your Dashboard menu.  Here you can add new Testimonials, just as you would add posts and pages to your site.

Each Testimonial you create allows for an optional image (usually of the individual or organization providing the testimonial, the client’s position or company’s description, and a link to their site.  If not needed, you can safely omit them..   Now We’re Talkin’ contains special styling and options for how the DT Testimonials plugin displays testimonials on your homepage.   Once the theme and plugin are installed and activated, you can access these options by navigating to Appearance > Customize.  The options are located under the Features Section, and include:

 Number of testimonials to show:  How many testimonials you want to show on the homepage section.  In the demo of Now We’re Talkin’ on DiabloThemes, for example, this is set to 4.

Number of columns: How many columns to display your testimonials in.  On our demo for Now We’re Talkin’, this is also set to 4.  However, you could arrange these in different ways – choose to show 4 features with the above options, and display them in 2 columns, resulting in a two-by-two grid.

Image Size: The size of the image attached to each feature.  It’s set by width in px.  For precise control, you might consider preparing the images before hand with a external program like Photoshop for best results and to perhaps prevent cutting off a client’s head.  On the demo for Now We’re Talkin’, our image size is set to 100.

Testimonial Group: The DT Testimonials gives you the option to create groups and assign them to specific testimonials (for all intents and purposes, this works the same way as categories on regular posts).  If you have a specific group of testimonials you want to display on the homepage, you can select it here.

Title for section: A title for your homepage’s features section.  On the Now We’re Talkin’ demo, for example, this is “Here’s what people are saying about us”!

Although our themes display DT Testimonials on the homepage, as with the DT Feature plugin, if you’d like to add testimonials elsewhere on your site, we’ve included both a shortcode for adding features to Pages and Posts, and an action for adding a testimonials section directly to a template file.  Styling of these sections may depend on their placement, or may require a div wrapper and unique class for stylized output.

An example shortcode, with default options:

[dt_testimonials limit="3" columns="3" category="0"  image_size="100"]

An example of the action, with default options:

do_action( 'dt_testimonials', array( 'limit' => 3,  'columns' => 3, 'category' => 0, 'image_size' => 100 ) );

The Now We’re Talkin’ theme includes some special styling and sections for the homepage.  There’s several homepage specific sections available: Slider, Features, Page, Blog, Testimonials, Promotional.

Any of these can be disabled in the theme’s options by navigating to Appearance > Customize in the WordPress dashboard.  Each section additionally includes it’s own set of options.

The Slider section displays content created with the DT Slider post type.  This post type becomes available once the theme is installed.  Thought the settings are fairly straight forward (ordering, categories, number of slides), one deserves special attention: Darken background photos.  Though we recommend that you prepare your slider images in advance, sometimes this is not ideal.  The slider is styled to display white, shadowed text over a photo background.  Sometimes lighter images or photos will make this text difficult to read.  If you’re find this to be true, you can enabled the Darken background photos option to apply a ‘darkening’ mask to the slideshow images and assist the text in standing out.

All of the sections are enabled by default, except the Page section.  This optional section depends on specific page content be set, from a dropdown of available pages you’ve created, much in the same way you’d set a static page in one of WordPress’s core themes.  This way you can add page content to your homepage without sacrificing the other sections by using WordPress’s default method.

The homepage Blog section displays a selection of your most recent blog posts.  As with the Features and Testimonials sections, detailed above, a number options are made available that give you control over the layout and order of these blog posts.  You can also choose to limit blog posts a specific category.

The Promotional section is a need little section that works best for product and service site and encourages visitors to take a specific action.

For more information on the Features and Testimonials sections, controlled by the DT Features and DT Testimonials modules, see above.

Now We’re Talkin’ provides and number of optional social links that, when set, appear in the header and footer of your site.   These can be set by navigating to Appearance > Customize.   With mobile devices in mind, social icons in the header are reduced to the bare essentials at smaller screen widths: Facebook, Twitter, and RSS.

Now We’re Talkin’ uses the DT Shortcodes module.   For more information on the available Shortcodes, please consult the Now We’re Talkin’ theme demo.

If you’d like to start with a site that looks as close to our demo as possible, you can do so by importing the XML file provided with your purchase.   However, we do recommend proceeding with caution if you’re apply this demo content to a pre-existing site: though it won’t overwrite any content, if will add several new posts, categories, and images to your site.

Before proceeding with the import, ensure that the DT Features and DT Testimonials plugins available in your account have been installed.  The demo content contains several posts made with these post types, and importing without the plugins installed will result in errors.  If may also be wise to ensure your server has the appropriate permissions set, and no low limits set on upload sizes before importing.  Though, if you’re like us, you might prefer to skip that step since it’s not usually a problem, and then regret it later when the images don’t upload properly.

To import:

1. Download the .xml file from your account page
2. Log in to your WordPress installation and navigate to Tools > Import
3. If you have not already done so, install the WordPress importer plugin now (linked at the bottom of the list of Import options).  Once installed, click the Activate Plugin & Run Importer link.
4. Browse your computer and locate the .xml file you just downloaded
5. Click the Upload and Import button.
6. Assign your content to an existing user on your site.

Again, problems with images can usually be attributed to server settings – usually permissions or upload limits.