WP-Ellie Premium WordPress Theme

How to Install and Set Up WP-Ellie

Michael — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:35:54 +0000

Step 1 – Unzip the File

The file you downloaded can be unzipped with any standard unzip program. If you don’t have one already installed on your computer, Stuffit Expander is a popular option for PC or MAC users. When you unzip the file, you’ll end up with a folder with one of the following names, depending upon which license you purchased:

wp-ellie-basic
wp-ellie-prem
wp-ellie-dev

Within this folder are all the theme files along with the end user license agreement (please take a moment to read over the license agreement).

Please Note: Depending on which unzip program you use, you may end up with a folder within a folder. Both folders will have the same name. Be sure you upload the second-level folder (the folder within the folder you unzipped).

Step 2 – Upload the Theme Files to Your WordPress Site

Option 1

If you are using WordPress 2.8 and above, you are able to install the ZIP file of the theme directly from the Dashboard. This simplifies things since you don’t need to use FTP:

1. When viewing the WordPress Dashboard, go to Appearance -> Themes
2. Click “Install Themes” (big tab at top)
3. Click “Upload”
4. Click ‘Choose File’ then navigate to where you downloaded the theme ZIP file; click ‘Open’
5. Click ‘Install Now’
6. When done installing, click “Activate”
7. That’s it!

Option 2

For this step, you’ll need an FTP (file transfer protocol) program. An FTP program allows you to transfer files between your computer and your web hosting account. There are several available, but I use SmartFTP. You’ll want to upload your theme folder to the /wp-content/themes/ folder in your WordPress installation.

Step 3 – Activate WP-Ellie

Login to your WordPress control panel, and click the Appearance tab. On the next page you’ll see all your available themes. Find the WP-Ellie screenshot, and click the “Activate” link.

Step 4 – Install and Activate Plugins Supported by WP-Ellie

WP-Ellie has built-in support for the following plugins:

Recently Popular – Your Most Popular Posts will appear in the right sidebar in the tabbed navigation box as seen on this site.

Get the Image – This is plugin, created by Justin Tadlock, is necessary if you want to use post thumbnails and and/or the featured content slider.

WP-PageNavi – This is a great little plugin by Lester Chan that will add page numbers in place of the “Older Posts” and “Newer Posts” links at the bottom of your pages.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – this plugin will place Related Posts at the bottom of the Single Post page (see example). After you activate the plugin, visit the plugin settings page, and uncheck the box that says “Automatically display related posts.”

Yoast Breadcrumbs – This plugin will place breadcrumb navigation at the top of your pages. Simply activate the plugin, and the breadcrumb will appear automatically.

flickrRSS – This plugin will allow you to easily add flickr photos to your sidebar or footer via the widgets panel.

Simply install and activate the latest version of each plugin, and the theme will do the rest.

Step 5 – Visit the WP-Ellie Theme Settings Page

The link for this page is available under the Appearance tab. We’ve given you several optional settings for the theme, so feel free to change a few of them, and see what sort of site you can create for yourself.

In particular, you may want to activate the following features:

Featured Content on Home Page
Activate Footer Widgets
Subscription Form and Sidebar Contact Settings
Advertisement Settings

Step 6 – Add Some Content to Your Sidebar and Footer Widgets

Click the Appearance tab, then Widgets, and place some content in your sidebar and footer (if footer widgets are activated). This is also the page where you can add the “Side Tabs” widget which will display Popular Posts, Categories, Archives and Tags (as seen on the right sidebar on this site). You can also place your Subscribe Box in either your sidebar or footer via the Subscribe Box widget (as seen on the right sidebar on this site).

Step 7 – Be Sure to Change Your Permalink Settings

In your WordPress control panel, click Settings >> Permalinks, and change your permalink structure to anything other than the default. This will help Ellie run smoother, and it’s much better for search engine optimization if your post slugs appear in the site URL.

Step 8 – Custom Menus – Very Important

In WordPress 3.0 and above you are able to take advantage of the custom menu feature. Here is a short screencast to show you how it works.

Please note that you must set up the custom menus as instructed in the video. Otherwise, you will have a duplicate page navigation bar as the category bar (if part of the theme).

WP-Ellie Multiple Home Page Layouts

Michael — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:34:34 +0000

WP-Ellie offers multiple home page layouts, all easily selected via the built-in theme settings page. Click the following thumbnails for a full-size view of each option.

This is a Full-Width Post Without Sidebars

Michael — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:00:00 +0000

To create a post like this, simply use the tag “post-wide” when you write your post.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi quis risus at nisl blandit feugiat. Ut vel orci quis sem dapibus iaculis. Aliquam ut nunc quis nisi tincidunt tincidunt. Pellentesque enim. Sed et leo nec augue mollis pharetra. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi quis risus at nisl blandit feugiat. Ut vel orci quis sem dapibus iaculis. Aliquam ut nunc quis nisi tincidunt tincidunt. Pellentesque enim. Sed et leo nec augue mollis pharetra. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.

This is an example of a WordPress page, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many pages like this one or sub-pages as you like and manage all of your content inside of WordPress. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas tincidunt ultrices diam. Etiam sollicitudin, ligula eu adipiscing faucibus, sapien sapien facilisis mauris, ullamcorper lacinia lacus nulla eget dolor. Mauris neque. Mauris viverra augue in tellus. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos hymenaeos. Morbi pede ligula, mollis in, dignissim sed, iaculis quis, justo. Suspendisse vitae metus. Donec quis lacus.

Integer sollicitudin. Pellentesque hendrerit neque non justo. Donec euismod ornare ipsum. Nulla elementum tempus ante. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Nam mattis. Vivamus placerat justo sit amet quam. Integer arcu purus, interdum id, vestibulum sit amet, faucibus in, risus. Ut imperdiet molestie enim. Nulla laoreet sem nec risus. Ut condimentum suscipit diam.

Suspendisse mollis nisl non enim.
Duis malesuada erat quis neque.
Suspendisse molestie lacinia lorem.

Quisque ligula lacus, ultricies non, scelerisque vel, volutpat eu, nulla.
Aliquam ligula velit, sodales in, feugiat vitae, tempor ut, dolor.

Nunc at magna. Proin neque. Etiam ullamcorper sem ac felis. Cras ultrices volutpat odio. Nulla facilisi. Integer lacus leo, varius vulputate, cursus ac, tristique ut, elit. Ut consequat, mauris eget pharetra elementum, velit metus pulvinar metus, sed consequat elit massa sit amet nibh. Praesent mauris. Mauris consectetuer. Praesent sed erat semper sapien aliquam sollicitudin. Morbi vitae mi. Aliquam ante.

Donec egestas dignissim massa. Phasellus elit elit, congue ut, pretium nec, hendrerit at, tellus. Fusce semper sem at orci. Pellentesque arcu lectus, aliquam ac, viverra congue, ornare eget, mi. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Cras quis tellus. Nullam purus dolor, pretium placerat, porta in, egestas non, nisi. Proin mi nunc, blandit vel, porta sit amet, aliquet ut, tellus. In velit. Aliquam at tellus et felis euismod dignissim. Pellentesque libero ipsum, congue sed, porta in, vehicula eget, nisi. Vestibulum nisl est, pharetra adipiscing, molestie ac, vehicula dictum, odio. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos hymenaeos.

Pellentesque enim. Sed et leo nec augue mollis pharetra. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi quis risus at nisl blandit feugiat. Ut vel orci quis sem dapibus iaculis. Aliquam ut nunc quis nisi tincidunt tincidunt. Pellentesque enim. Sed et leo nec augue mollis pharetra.

This is the H1 Heading

This is the H2 Heading

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi quis risus at nisl blandit feugiat. Ut vel orci quis sem dapibus iaculis. Aliquam ut nunc quis nisi tincidunt tincidunt. Pellentesque enim. Sed et leo nec augue mollis pharetra. Etiam non pede quis ante convallis convallis. Cras at tortor euismod leo molestie aliquet. Quisque posuere ornare nulla. Proin scelerisque dignissim erat. Donec dapibus euismod est. Nam molestie consequat lacus. Fusce euismod dignissim libero. Morbi laoreet dolor sed mi. Aenean urna diam, malesuada eu, tempor non, euismod sed, arcu. Nullam egestas nisi non nulla bibendum pharetra. Cras pellentesque nunc nec odio. Aliquam sed eros eu lectus congue rhoncus. Praesent accumsan nisl at leo. Sed enim. Integer nisl.

This is the H3 Heading

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi quis risus at nisl blandit feugiat. Ut vel orci quis sem dapibus iaculis. Aliquam ut nunc quis nisi tincidunt tincidunt. Pellentesque enim. Sed et leo nec augue mollis pharetra. Etiam non pede quis ante convallis convallis. Cras at tortor euismod leo molestie aliquet. Quisque posuere ornare nulla. Proin scelerisque dignissim erat. Donec dapibus euismod est. Nam molestie consequat lacus. Fusce euismod dignissim libero. Morbi laoreet dolor sed mi. Aenean urna diam, malesuada eu, tempor non, euismod sed, arcu. Nullam egestas nisi non nulla bibendum pharetra. Cras pellentesque nunc nec odio. Aliquam sed eros eu lectus congue rhoncus. Praesent accumsan nisl at leo. Sed enim. Integer nisl.

This is the H4 Heading

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi quis risus at nisl blandit feugiat. Ut vel orci quis sem dapibus iaculis. Aliquam ut nunc quis nisi tincidunt tincidunt. Pellentesque enim. Sed et leo nec augue mollis pharetra. Etiam non pede quis ante convallis convallis. Cras at tortor euismod leo molestie aliquet. Quisque posuere ornare nulla. Proin scelerisque dignissim erat. Donec dapibus euismod est. Nam molestie consequat lacus. Fusce euismod dignissim libero. Morbi laoreet dolor sed mi. Aenean urna diam, malesuada eu, tempor non, euismod sed, arcu. Nullam egestas nisi non nulla bibendum pharetra. Cras pellentesque nunc nec odio. Aliquam sed eros eu lectus congue rhoncus. Praesent accumsan nisl at leo. Sed enim. Integer nisl.

This is the H5 Heading

Here’s an unordered list.

Proin lacinia nibh quis massa.
Sed sed justo sodales justo scelerisque ultricies.
Ut sodales pretium augue.
Proin interdum, enim ut ullamcorper hendrerit, felis turpis malesuada risus, ac gravida nulla mauris et odio.

Here’s an ordered list.

Proin lacinia nibh quis massa.
Sed sed justo sodales justo scelerisque ultricies.
Ut sodales pretium augue.
Proin interdum, enim ut ullamcorper hendrerit, felis turpis malesuada risus, ac gravida nulla mauris et odio.

This is a Definition List

WordPress Themes: A WordPress Theme is not a “skin”. Though many young people call it one. The reality is that a WordPress Theme contains many files that come together in various ways to generate a WordPress web page. A “skin” simply changes the look, and rarely the results.
WordPress Plugins: WordPress Plugins add flexibility, features, and capabilities to your WordPress site. There are hundreds to choose from. Some add power and control like monitoring and busting comment spam and enhancing your adminstration features. Others add fun things like random elements and polling and rating systems.

Here’s a blockquote.

Phasellus scelerisque enim at elit. Nam molestie, ipsum et elementum facilisis, mauris elit pretium felis, vitae lobortis sapien neque quis dui. Sed in elit a lectus ullamcorper faucibus. Nullam suscipit massa a felis tempus scelerisque.

Here’s a Table

This is a table heading	And another	last
Some stuff in the table. This is quite a long piece of text	Some stuff in the table. This is quite a long piece of text	Some stuff in the table. This is quite a long piece of text
Some stuff in the table. This is quite a long piece of text	Some stuff in the table. This is quite a long piece of text	Some stuff in the table. This is quite a long piece of text
Some stuff in the table. This is quite a long piece of text	Some stuff in the table. This is quite a long piece of text	Some stuff in the table. This is quite a long piece of text

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi quis risus at nisl blandit feugiat. Ut vel orci quis sem dapibus iaculis. Aliquam ut nunc quis nisi tincidunt tincidunt. Pellentesque enim. Sed et leo nec augue mollis pharetra. Etiam non pede quis ante convallis convallis. Cras at tortor euismod leo molestie aliquet. Quisque posuere ornare nulla. Proin scelerisque dignissim erat. Donec dapibus euismod est. Nam molestie consequat lacus. Fusce euismod dignissim libero. Morbi laoreet dolor sed mi. Aenean urna diam, malesuada eu, tempor non, euismod sed, arcu. Nullam egestas nisi non nulla bibendum pharetra. Cras pellentesque nunc nec odio. Aliquam sed eros eu lectus congue rhoncus. Praesent accumsan nisl at leo. Sed enim. Integer nisl.

Proin lacinia nibh quis massa. Sed sed justo sodales justo scelerisque ultricies. Ut sodales pretium augue. Proin interdum, enim ut ullamcorper hendrerit, felis turpis malesuada risus, ac gravida nulla mauris et odio. Nunc nonummy, quam sodales gravida dictum, turpis mauris egestas tellus, lacinia consectetuer sapien felis quis leo. Duis ligula erat, vehicula et, accumsan nec, aliquet bibendum, justo. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi quis risus at nisl blandit feugiat. Ut vel orci quis sem dapibus iaculis. Aliquam ut nunc quis nisi tincidunt tincidunt. Pellentesque enim. Sed et leo nec augue mollis pharetra.

Testing Font Looks – H3 Heading

You will need to test the looks of the different font styles, too. This is bold and THIS IS BOLD. This is italic and THIS IS ITALIC. This is bold and italic and THIS IS BOLD AND ITALIC.

This is code and THIS IS CODE.

This should be back to the normal paragraph style and we hope you have been paying attention to the margins and paddding around each element, including the paragraph, so you can position things appropriately to the rest of the content.

H3 Heading

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi quis risus at nisl blandit feugiat. Ut vel orci quis sem dapibus iaculis. Aliquam ut nunc quis nisi tincidunt tincidunt. Pellentesque enim. Sed et leo nec augue mollis pharetra. Etiam non pede quis ante convallis convallis. Cras at tortor euismod leo molestie aliquet. Quisque posuere ornare nulla. Proin scelerisque dignissim erat. Donec dapibus euismod est. Nam molestie consequat lacus. Fusce euismod dignissim libero. Morbi laoreet dolor sed mi. Aenean urna diam, malesuada eu, tempor non, euismod sed, arcu. Nullam egestas nisi non nulla bibendum pharetra. Cras pellentesque nunc nec odio. Aliquam sed eros eu lectus congue rhoncus. Praesent accumsan nisl at leo. Sed enim. Integer nisl.

How to Set Up Your Home Page Featured Content Section

Michael — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:47:32 +0000

If you look at the home page of this site, you’ll clearly see the featured content glider at the top. It’s very simple to add the featured content glider to your site. Follow these simple steps, and you’ll have it done in no time.

Activate Featured Content on the WP-Ellie Theme Settings Page

Near the top of the WP-Ellie Theme Settings Page, click the link for “Home Page and Archive Page Layout.” You’ll see a setting titled “Featured Content on Home Page.” By default, this setting is set as “No.” If you’d like to place a Featured Content slider on the home page, simply select “Yes.”

The default setting will display up to 5 featured articles, however, you can change this number to as many or as few as you like.

Select Some Posts to be Displayed in the Featured Content Section

If you want a post to appear in the featured content section, simply tag the post as “featured” (without the quotes). To add a tag, simply find the “Post Tags” box on the right side of the Write Post screen and enter it there. NOTE: The slug for the “featured” tag must be featured for the featured slider to show posts. If this is not possible, you may instead replace “featured” with “featured-2″ (or the current post tag slug) in the features.php template.

Adding Featured Article Images

1. Featured Content Image Size:

The ideal size for the featured article image is 500px wide by 220px height.
If you need to re-size an image, you can now do so through the WordPress 2.9 image uploader. If you’re not sure how that’s done, see this video.

2. Use the Get the Image Plugin – If you haven’t already done so, you’ll need to install and activate this plugin. It will save you a lot of time and energy when it comes to using images on your site.

3. Upload Your Image – Once your image is the proper size, simply upload via the standard WordPress image uploader found on the Write Post page (just under the post title). The theme will do the rest.

4. If you upload multiple images to a single post, the theme will use the #1 image in your post gallery (see thumbnail to right) as the featured article image.

How To Control Autoscroll Feature Glider

Michael — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:14:00 +0000

By default, your featured articles will change automatically each 7 seconds. To change the time period between featured articles, you will need to make one little change within the slideshow.js file, which is found within the /js folder in your theme folder.

When you open this file, you’ll see this code at the top:

$slideshow = {
  context: false,
  tabs: false,
  timeout: 7000,      // time before next slide appears (in ms)
  slideSpeed: 1000,   // time it takes to slide in each slide (in ms)
  tabSpeed: 1000,      // time it takes to slide in each slide (in ms) when clicking through tabs
  fx: 'fade',   // the slide effect to use

You’ll need to change the “7000″ to the timeout length your prefer. 7000 = 7 seconds. If you want to turn off the autoscroll feature completely, change the 7000 to 0.

How to Write a Post

Michael — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:12:22 +0000

If you look at the home page of this demo site, you’ll see that all the posts – including the featured posts at the top – display a post introduction (or excerpt) rather than the full post itself. It’s the same on the category pages, archive pages and search results pages. Then, when you click through to the individual post, you get the full post content along with comments and other information.

There are 2 possible methods to create the post introduction or excerpt …

Set WP-Ellie to Use Post Excerpts, and Use the Excerpt Field

Go to your Theme Settings page, and click “Basic Site Settings.” You’ll see an option to use the Post Excerpts or Post Content (default value is Excerpts). You’ll want to leave it set to Post Excerpts.

Now that the theme is set up for excerpts, the trick is to tell WordPress how to create the excerpt the way you want it rather than it’s own way. Without any other instructions, WordPress will create the excerpt on it’s own. Here’s what it does …

WordPress Codex: “If you do not provide an explicit excerpt to a post (in the post editor’s optional excerpt field), it will display a teaser which refers to the first 55 words of the post’s content. Also in the latter case, HTML tags and graphics are stripped from the excerpt’s content.”

So the solution is simple … Use the Excerpt field on the Write Post screen.

Whatever you place in the Excerpt field is what will be displayed as the post excerpt on your home page. And keep in mind, you will need to add some HTML to the Excerpt field if you want it to be used in the excerpt. Otherwise, WordPress strips out all code including HTML. For example, lets say you want your post excerpt to be displayed just like this:

This is the post intro, and it includes a link to this site.

In that case, here’s exactly what you’d need to place in the Excerpt field:

This is the post intro, and it includes a link to this site.

If you need some help with the HTML code, you can write your excerpt in the normal post editor, then click the HTML view tab, and simply copy the HTML code from there.

That’s all for this option. Lets move on to the second method you can use to create your post introduction/excerpt.

Set WP-Ellie to Use Post Content, and Use the More Tag

With this method, all you have to do is set WP-Ellie to use Content rather than Excerpts. Then, when you write your post, simply use the More tag to cut the post according to your preference. The benefit of using this method over the previous one is simplicity. You don’t have to remember to use the Excerpt field, and any HTML code will still show up in your post introduction/excerpt.

Note: If you use the Post Content option with the tag, you may need to disable the post thumbnail. There’s a checkbox just below the Post Editor that will allow you to do this. Simply check the box named “Suppress Automatic Thumbnail Placement on This Post.” This will prevent you from having double thumbnails appear with the excerpt.

How to Add Post Thumbnails to Your Posts

Michael — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:01:37 +0000

If you look at the home page of this site, you’ll see that each post below the featured articles has a thumbnail image next to it. Adding thumbnail images to your posts is pretty simple, and here’s all you need to do.

Install and Activate the “Get The Image” Plugin

Get the Image Plugin – If you haven’t already done so, you’ll need to install and activate this plugin. It will save you a lot of time and energy when it comes to using images on your site.

What this Plugin Will Do

1. It will look for any images that you’ve uploaded to your post.

2. If it finds one or more images, it will automatically place the 1st image – as a thumbnail – where it belongs on your site.

3. If you have uploaded multiple images to your post, it will use the #1 image as set in the gallery section of your media uploader (click thumbnail to the right).

4. If you don’t want the image to appear in the post content, just don’t insert it into the post. The plugin will still grab the 1st image you’ve uploaded to the post and place it correctly.

5. If you don’t upload any images for the post, a default image will appear (unless you deactivate this feature on your Theme Settings page).

More Photos Here

Michael — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:57:45 +0000

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi quis risus at nisl blandit feugiat. Ut vel orci quis sem dapibus iaculis. Aliquam ut nunc quis nisi tincidunt tincidunt. Pellentesque enim. Sed et leo nec augue mollis pharetra. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi quis risus at nisl blandit feugiat.

What Do You Think of These Photos?

Michael — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:56:17 +0000

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi quis risus at nisl blandit feugiat. Ut vel orci quis sem dapibus iaculis. Aliquam ut nunc quis nisi tincidunt tincidunt. Pellentesque enim. Sed et leo nec augue mollis pharetra. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi quis risus at nisl blandit feugiat.

Taj Mahal in India

Michael — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:14:54 +0000

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi quis risus at nisl blandit feugiat. Ut vel orci quis sem dapibus iaculis. Aliquam ut nunc quis nisi tincidunt tincidunt. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi quis risus at nisl blandit feugiat. Ut vel orci quis sem dapibus iaculis. Aliquam ut nunc quis nisi tincidunt tincidunt. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi quis risus at nisl blandit feugiat. Ut vel orci quis sem dapibus iaculis. Aliquam ut nunc quis nisi tincidunt tincidunt.