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Getting started

This is the Accelerate theme instruction page. We have tried our best to keep it as simple as possible. If you think it can be made even simpler let us know we will be glad to change it. Let’s start! On the left side you can see the table of contents of this documentation. Jump to the section you want, or read it all through – your choice. Let’s move on!

Installation

Installing your theme is pretty easy! After downloading you should have a accelerate.zip file. This is a compressed file containing all of the required templates and images required for the theme to function properly.

Upload Theme

  1. Go to Appearance > Themes in the WordPress Dashboard
  2. Click on the Add New button
  3. Click on the Upload link
  4. Select the accelerate.zip file
  5. Click on Install Now button

Activate the theme

Go to Appearance > Themes in the WordPress Dashboard.
Now, hover over the theme thumbnail and press the Activate button

Additional information: WordPress Codex – Using Themes

Custom Menu

By default, the menus will fallback to Pages. That means just after activation of the theme, you will see all the pages as menus. If you want selective menus with combination of links, pages, categories then custom menu is what you should be looking for.

Set up Custom Menu

  1. Go to Appearance > Menus in the WordPress menu
  2. Click on Create a new menu link
  3. Give a name to your menu in Menu Name and click Create Menu button
  4. Now choose the pages, categories, custom links from the leftside of your screen by selecting the checkbox and click on Add Menu
  5. Click Save Menu after adding required pages, categories in the menu
Additional information: Have a look here if you are still confused WordPress Custom Menu

Home Page Slider

This theme supports the home page image slider. To use it follow the steps below.

Steps

  1. Go to Appearance > Customize in the WordPress menu
  2. Now go to the Slider section.
  3. To activate the slider, check the Check to activate slider checkbox
  4. Upload the image # 1 for the first slider. Similarly, add the corresponding slider title, slider description and redirect link. You can link to a link within your site or outside of your site.
  5. Repeat the above step for your other slides.
  6. Now, click on Save & Publish button. That’s it, open your home page and it should be there. 🙂

Site Identity

This theme supports the default Site Identity section provided by the WordPress and we have integrated some options in this theme in this section.

Site Identity

Add Logo

  1. Go to Appearance > Customize > Site Identity > Logo in the WordPress menu
  2. Now, Upload the custom logo from the Select Logo button there.
    Recomanded size of logo is 150 X 150 Pixels.
  3. To show the logo follow instruction in Header Options section

Accelerate instruction header logo

Header Options

All the options related to Header part are available in Appearance-> Customize-> Header

Steps

    1. After uploading logo from Site Identity section, go to Appearance > Customize > Header > Show, the Show logo only or Show both or Disable check-box need to be checked to show/hide the logo in header.
    2. Now, click on Save & Publish button.

Accelerate instruction header logo

Header Image

To set the header image follow below steps.

Steps

  1. Go to Appearance > Customize > Header Image in the WordPress menu
  2. Now, Upload the header image from the Add new image button there.
    Recomanded size of header image is 1100 X 300 Pixels.
  3. Now after selecting the header image, it will ask you to crop. If you like to crop it, then, you can crop else leave it as you want for your site to best suit it.
  4. Now, click on Save & Publish button.

Note

You can choose the header image to be shown above the header text or below it.

  1. In the dashboard, go to Appearance > Customize > Header.
  2. Now, here you will find the section of Header Image Position
  3. Here, choose the required place to display the header image in your site.
  4. Now, click on Save & Publish button.
Additional information: Have a look here if you are still confused WordPress WordPress Header Image

Setup Business Template

The beauty of this theme is that you can add the widgets in the Business sidebar area to showcase your business for the home page.

First Step

  1. In the dashboard, add a new page.
  2. In the Page Attributes option box, choose the Business Template in the Template drop-down option.
  3. Publish the page. Yes, that’s it for the first step.

Second Step

See the image for a better view of Business Sidebar.
business-setup1

  1. Business Sidebar
  2. Business Sidebar Five
  3. Business Sidebar Four
  4. Business Sidebar Three
  5. Business Sidebar Two
  6. Contact Page Sidebar

You just need to add some widgets to these sidebars to setup the business template.

Third Step

Below are some widgets provided by the theme that you could use to make your business template look awesome.

    1. TG: Image Services

Add this widget to Business Sidebar. In this widget, select any of your page in the drop down option. There are six page drop-down options within it. The title, description and featured image of that same pages that you select will be shown.
business-image-services-widget

    1. TG: Call to Action

Add this widget to Business Sidebar. In this widget, add the first and second title line, button text, button redirect link and all is done.
business-CTA-widget

    1. TG: Featured Widget

Add this widget to Business Sidebar. In this widget, add the title and description. select any of your page in the drop down option. There are three page drop-down options within it. The featured image of that same page that you select will be shown.
business-featured-widget

    1. TG: Custom Tag Cloud

This widget display your all tags. Add this widget to Right/Left Sidebar. In this widget, enter the title.
business-custom-tag-widget

    1. TG: Featured Single Page

Add this widget to Business Sidebar and Left/Right Sidebar. In this widget, select any of your page in the drop down option. The title, description and featured image of that same page that you select will be shown.
business-single-page-widget

    1. TG: Testimonials

Add this widget to Business Sidebar. In this widgets, add the title, text, name, byline and all is done.
business-testimonials-widget

    1. TG: Featured Posts

This widget display your latest/featured posts. In this widget, enter the Title and Description. Select the number of posts to display from either the Latest Posts or Posts from the certain Category. If you choose to Show posts from a category than enter the Category from the Drop-down option.
business-featured-posts-widget

    1. TG: Our Clients

Add this widget to Business Sidebar. In this widgets, add the title, image path link, image redirect link and all is done.
business-our-client-widget

Recomanded size of image is 150 X 150 Pixels.

Note: If you want to set this Business Page as the Home page, then follow the instruction below:

  1. In the dashboard, go to Settings->Reading.
  2. Check on the ‘Static Page’ option.
  3. Choose the business page (the page you created following the instruction above) as the front page.
  4. Save the Changes.
If you set up everything right you can make your business template look the same as the one on our demo page. Business Template

How to Setup Blog page?

You can choose to show blog in 4 different ways.

Steps

  1. First go to Settings->Reading->Front Page displays->A static page (select below).
  2. Now from Posts page: dropdown select any page where you like to show blog post.
  3. Click Save Changes.
  4. Now if you want further options then go to Appearance->Customize->Design->Blog Posts display type.
  5. Choose Blog Image Large for large image with excerpt text.
  6. Choose Blog Image Medium for medium image with excerpt text.
  7. Choose Blog Full Content for showing full content without the featured images and readmore
  8. Choose Blog Image Alternate Medium for medium image with excerpt text but images appear in alternate fashion right, left.
  9. Now go to Appearance->Menu and select the blog page you choose in step 2 as menu
  10. See all blog demo here Demo
Also you must upload featured images for each post to show the images on the blog page. For more detail on featured image have a look here Featured Images

Design Options

Design based settings and Custom CSS Box are available in Appearance-> Customize-> Design.

Layout Options

  1. Default Layout
    This layout will be reflected in whole site archives, search etc. The layout for a single post and page can be controlled from below options.
  2. Default layout for pages only
    Select default layout for pages. This layout will be reflected in all pages unless unique layout is set for specific page. To select the unique Layout for any particular page edit that page and Choose the Layout from Layout option box.
  3. Default Layout For Single Posts Only
    Select default layout for single posts. This layout will be reflected in all single posts unless unique layout is set for specific post. To select the unique Layout for any particular post edit that page and Choose the Layout from Layout option box.
If you don’t want any sidebar than select “No Sidebar Full Width” or “No Sidebar Content Centered”

Custom CSS Box

  1. Accelerate have Custom CSS Box which will ease your work if you need to add CSS in your site. Note: It will strip all the tags. Also, we strongly recommend not to edit the code in the theme’s file. All you changes will be lost if you update the theme. Use child theme instead.

Additional Options

Additional options are available in Appearance-> Customize-> Additional.

Other Theme Related options

  1. Excerpt/Full Posts Content

    Display full content or short description/excerpt on your blog and archives page.

  2. Excerpt Length

    Excerpt Length allow user to limit the number of Words you wish to show on excerpt. Default value is 40 words.

  3. Read More

    To change the Read more text in Posts Page: Blog, archive etc.

    Read More in Posts page will not appear if you choose to show Full content in the Posts Page
  4. Footer Copyright Editor

    Edit the Copyright information in your footer. You can also use shortcodes: [the-year] for current year, [site-link] for your site link, [wp-link] for WordPress site link and [tg-link] for ThemeGrill site link.

How to limit the excerpt text

Now if you want to reduce or increase the number of words that appear in services widgets or post. You can easily change that.

Steps

  1. First Go to the service widget page or post in your dashboard.
  2. Just below the page editor you will see the excerpt box
  3. If you don’t see the excerpt box. Scroll to the top and you will see the screen options on the right hand side corner.

screen-options

  1. Click it and check the Excerpt box. Now you should see the excerpt box below the editor.
  2. Fill the excerpt box with the desired amount of text that you want to show.

Contact Us Page

Plugin Installation

  1. Download Contact Form 7 plugin from here Download then install and activate it
  2. Then go to plugin’s page and set it. Here is a detail on that Docs
  3. If you don’t see the excerpt box. Scroll to the top and you will see the screen options on the right hand side corner.

Contact us page template

  1. Go to dashboard, then create a page. Give it a name “Contact” or “Contact us” as you wish.
  2. Now on the right hand side you can see Template Drop-down. Select Contact Page Template
  3. Copy the contact form 7 shortcode and paste it in this page.
  4. Click on Publish.

Supported Plugins

This theme support some Plugins

Plugins Supported

  1. Contact Form 7 plugin
  2. WP-PageNavi plugin
  3. WooCommerce plugin
  4. Polylang plugin
  5. WPML plugin

Theme Hooks

Accelerate provides different hooks to add custom functionalities.

    do_action( 'before' )                              - Hook to add function directly after start of  tag
    do_action( 'accelerate_before_header' )            - Hook to add function before header area
    do_action( 'accelerate_after_header' )             - Hook to add function after header area
    do_action( 'accelerate_before_main' )              - Hook to add function before the main content
    do_action( 'accelerate_before_body_content' )      - Hook to add function before the body content including sidebars
    do_action( 'accelerate_after_body_content' )       - Hook to add function after the body content including sidebars
    do_action( 'accelerate_before_comments_template' ) - Hook to add function before comment template in posts
    do_action( 'accelerate_after_comments_template' )  - Hook to add function after comment template in posts
    do_action( 'accelerate_before_left_sidebar' )      - Hook to add function before left sidebar area
    do_action( 'accelerate_after_left_sidebar' )       - Hook to add function after left sidebar area
    do_action( 'accelerate_before_right_sidebar' )     - Hook to add function before right sidebar area
    do_action( 'accelerate_after_right_sidebar' )      - Hook to add function after right sidebar area
    do_action( 'accelerate_before_footer' )            - Hook to add function for footer content
    do_action( 'accelerate_footer_copyright' )         - Hook to add function for footer copyright area

Recommended Images

Recommended image size (width*height) used in this theme in px.

Recommended Image Size

  1. Recommended image size for Slider – 1100*460
  2. Recommended image size for Featured Post (large) – 720*300
  3. Recommended image size for Featured Post (small) – 230*230
  4. Recommended image size for Featured Service – 600*330
  5. Recommended image size for Recent Work – 365*365
  6. Recommended image size for Team Widget – 270*270
Accelerate