Work-a-holic Theme Instructions


Features

This theme is a two/three column theme that can primarily be used to showcase portfolios for designers, illustrators and artists but can be used equally by photobloggers or virtually anyone else who want to showcase their work as well as write up their thoughts separately. Here is a brief list of the major features:

Best Practices

If you want to make changes to how this theme looks and feels, than create a child theme. Never make changes to the original theme files. Why? Because when a new version of this theme is released, all of your changes will be lost when you update. Plus, making a child theme is incredibly easy. Here is how you do it.


  1. Installation

    1. Unzip the folder contained in the archive to your computer.
    2. Upload the folder and its contents to the themes directory of your blog, located in "wp-content/themes" where WordPress is installed.
    3. Click on Appearance -> Themes menu from the WP admin panel, then select the theme to activate.
    4. Go to Appearance -> Theme Options and put in the details. Save Changes.
    5. Go to Settings -> Media and set your thumbnails to 284 x 150, medium max width to 600 and large to 940. You can leave the field for height blank for medium and large just to fit portrait images as well.
    6. Go to Settings -> Reading and set your Blog pages show at most to 9 (or multiples of 3). This is used to show number of posts in the blog and in the archive page.
    7. Click on View Site at the top of the page. Bam. Hot site!
  2. Setting up Portfolio Slider

    When you post a new post, click the Add an Image button (small icon on the top of the post textarea). You will get the Add an Image window. Click Select Files and select your images / screenshots. Once you upload an image or a set of images, click Save Changes. Don't click Insert into Post button. Then close the Add an Image window. You will not get any text / images on the post textarea but these images has been added to the database. You can write up any additional text about the portfolio item.

    Below your post textarea, you should see the area called Excerpt. Add any one line excerpt that describes the portfolio item. This excerpt will be used in the sidebar (under Similar Projects). The sidebar on each Portfolio item shows 10 other items from the same category randomly.

  3. Widgets

    There are a total of three widgetized areas on this theme in addition to the default sidebar. The bottom area on the homepage three-column area is 100% widgetized. You can add and delete widgets by clicking Design - Widgets, from within your Wordpress admin panel.

  4. Recommended Plugins

    WP-Post-Thumbnail

    This is extremely useful if you do not want wordpress to auto thumb your images, which looks pretty bad most of the times. With WP-Post-Thumbnail, you can select the area in your image you want to show as a thumbnail. Download and after unzipping put the wp-post-thumbnail folder in the wp-content/plugins folder. Activate the plugin from Plugins menu. Once its activated you should see the WP Post Thumbnail option at the end of the Add New Post page. You can then upload an image and select the area you prefer for a thumbnail.

    Make sure to go to Settings -> WP-Post-Thumbnail and Set the "Assign to Custom Key" to "thumbnail-wide".

    jQuery Comment Validation

    Just in case you don't want people to be directed to a blank error page, you can use this plugin. Download and paste it in your wp-content/plugins folder. Go to the Plugins menu and activate the plugin. In addition, open up comment-validation.php and either comment out or delete line 17 through 19 that says:

    echo '<script type="text/javascript" src="';
    bloginfo('wpurl');
    echo '/wp-content/plugins/comment-validation/jquery-1.2.6.pack.js"></script>';
    
    Now the comments will not redirect to the blank page if there is an error.

  5. Common problems

    This theme uses jQuery javascript library to do some fancy stuff. If your theme looks broken, than you likely have a plugin that uses a conflicting javascript library. Deactivate your plugins, one-by-one, to determine which plugin is conflicting with jQuery.

    Still having trouble? Consider becoming a member of Graph Paper Press so you can get access to our private, well-groomed support forum, tutorials, and additional themes.