Welcome
Thank you very much for purchasing my theme. I've put a lot of hard work into it, and I hope you love it as much as I do. As far as the documentation is concerned, I have tried to cover as much as possible to help you get your new theme up and running and to help you customise it.
If you have any questions or problems that aren't answered here, please feel free to email me via my user page contact form here.
I love to hear your feedback - if you find any bugs or have suggestions for improvements please get in touch. Nearly all of the time I follow your advice and issue a rapid update to Melina.
If you like my work, please rate it. If you’re about to rate it with less than 5 stars, please let me know the reason first and I will do my best to improve the theme. Thanks so much!
WordPress Information
Since WordPress is constantly being updated information about how to install WordPress may become out of date, so you always can read official guide HERE.
Below are all the useful links for WordPress information:
- WordPress Codex – general info about WordPress and how to install on your server.
- First Steps With WordPress – general information that covers a wide variety of topics.
- FAQ New To WordPress – the most popular FAQ’s regarding WordPress.
Theme Installation
Once you've downloaded the installation file on ThemeForest, extract it and locate a file called melina.zip
. You can install the theme by using one of two installation methods:
WordPress upload
- Login to WordPress Admin and browse to Appearance > Themes.
- Click on the Add New button and click Upload Theme.
- Click on Choose File and select
melina.zip
file. - Click on Install Now.
- When your theme is successfully installed, click Activate to activate the newly installed theme.
FTP upload
- Using FTP client, login to the server where your WordPress website is hosted.
- Using FTP client, navigate to the
/wp-content/themes/
directory under your WordPress website's root directory. - Using FTP client, upload the melina directory to themes directory on remote server.
- Once uploaded, navigate to Dashboard > Appearance > Themes in the WordPress Dashboard and hit Activate below your newly uploaded theme.
When you use first or second method, please make sure that you're uploading the melina.zip
file, not entire package you downloaded. If you upload the wrong file you will get an error stating “Error: missing style.css stylesheet.”
Once installation is complete, your Melina theme will be ready to use. You should now see Melina theme as active.
Note: If you have existing content and featured images, you will have to install Regenerate Thumbnails plugin and run it from Tools > Regenerate Thumbnails.
Regenerate Thumbnails
If you already had images in your Media Library when you installed Melina, you will have to resize your image thumbnails. Follow these instructions:
- Go to Appearance > Install Plugins and install Regenerate Thumbnails plugin.
- Next, go to Tools > Regenerate Thumbnails.
- Click the Regenerate All Thumbnails button. It will take some time depending on the number of images you have. DO NOT close your browser.
Installing Required Plugins
When you first install the theme you'll see a popup on your dashboard from the theme asking you to install a number of plugins.
Allow the theme to install these for you.
Importing Demo Data
If it's a fresh site (or a test site) with no content, it's a good idea to import demo content to get you started. You don't need to do it on a live production site as it will import several posts, pages, and images.
I have created a folder labeled Demo_Content which contains an export for the Live Preview.
- Log-in to your WordPress backend and open your WordPress importer Tool > Import > WordPress.
- Click on Choose file and select the
demo-content.xml
. - Check the box Download and import file attachments. This will download attachments for images included in the Live Preview demo.
- Click Upload file and import.
You now just need to wait for the importer to finish. This might take a few minutes depending on your hosting server speed.
Set Up Your Blog
Once you're done with theme installation, it's time to set up your blog. What to do next:
- Add your logo and configure your header.
- Create and configure your Navigation Menus.
- Learn how to set up your homepage.
- Set Up your sidebars and add widgets.
- Configure your footer.
- Customize colors, if you want to.
- Read other sections on the right side of this documentation.
Theme Customizing
Customize area is one of the main feature in my theme. They give you abilities to made a changes to your site without touching a single line of code.
"Customize" give you an ability to live preview changes on the site. In this field you can change a theme's custom featured content, layout, sidebar position, customize menus and widgets and other. You can go to theme customize at Appearance > Customize section from WordPress admin area.
Header and Featured Area
Header Logo Set Up
- Go to Appearance > Customize > Site Identity > Logo.
- Under Logo Image, click Select Image button.
- Select logo from your Media Library or upload new image.
- Click Publish button.
Featured area
In the theme Featured Area you can display your site information (like a header image and tagline) or your featured posts.
To set up Featured Area:
- Go to Appearance > Customize > Featured Area Settings.
- Select what type of content you want to see in featured area.
- Click Publish button.
To set up header image:
- Go to Dashboard > Appearance > Customize > Featured Area Settings and select Tagline and Header Image.
- Then go to Dashboard > Appearance > Customize > Header Image and add header image.
If You want to display featured content:
- When add or edit post, in Display Location field select Featured area option.
- Upload Featured Image (1920×1280px recommended) and save post.
- Then go to Dashboard > Appearance > Customize > Featured Area Settings and select one of the Posts Carousels.
Set Up Your Homepage
The theme contains two variations for displaying the main page: simple blog page and magazine style homepage.
To set up a simle blog page:
- Go to Appearance > Customize > Content Area Settings.
- Select one of content layouts to display.
- And select select sidebar position.
- Click Publish button.
Magazine styled homepage displays sections with latest entries from the selected categories. Therefore, first of all, you have to create any categories for your blog and post any entries in them.
To set up magazine style homepage:
- Go to Appearance > Customize > Homepage Settings.
- Select A static page for Your homepage displays.
- Select any page in Homepage. If you have no any pages, add one.
- Select any page for posts.
- And select Magazine page for Your static page displays.
- Then go to Appearance > Customize > Magazine Page Settings and select the categories from which entries will be displayed on the Magazine Page.
- Click Publish button.
Sidebars
Melina comes equipped with several custom widgets but also styles the default WordPress widgets.
Additional Custom Widgets
- Melina Most Commented Posts - Show most commented posts from your blog.
- Melina Recent Posts - Show latest posts from your blog.
How to use widgets
- Go to Appearance > Widgets.
- Sidebar is the main right sidebar. Expand the box at right, where you would like to place your widget, by clicking on the arrow icon next to it.
- Drag & drop the widget you wish to use, in the expanded area below the box (Sidebar for example).
- Fill in the information necessary and click Save.
The sidebar locations in the theme are referenced below.
- Sidebar: Appears to the right (or left) of the main content.
- Content: Appears before the comments on posts.
- Magazine Page Ads Sidebar 1, 2: It is intended to display advertising on the magazine page.
- Footer 1, 2, 3, 4: Appears in site footer.
Customizing the Colors & Backgrounds
Melina comes with custom color settings for elemets.
- Go to Appearance > Customize > Colors.
- Customize the colors to your liking and click Publish button.
How to Update Theme
You can update your theme by performing the following steps:
- Download the latest Melina file from ThemeForest.
- Extract it and locate
melina.zip
. - Extract
melina.zip
and locate the melina folder. - Replace content of the melina folder to the
/wp-content/themes/melina
folder of your web site.
Also you can use for update Envato Market plugin.
Child Theme
Child themes are separate themes that rely on a parent theme for most of their functionality. If you are using a child theme, WordPress will check your child theme first to see if a specific functionality exists. If it doesn’t, it will use the parent theme. This is great because it allows you to modify only what you need.
Child themes should always be used if you plan on modifying even a single character in your theme.
If you plan to edit the theme files, like style.css, I`m suggesting you to install both melina.zip
and melina-child.zip
themes, then activate the child theme. Child themes are great because allow you to edit the theme and also lets you update the original theme in the future, without loosing your edited files work.
More about child themes and how to use them you can read here: LINK.
Translation Theme
Supported plugins
Theme supports the following plugins:
Gutenberg
Gutenberg is more than an editor. While the editor is the focus right now, the project will ultimately impact the entire publishing experience including customization (the next focus area).
Installing Gutenberg can be done either by searching for Gutenberg via the Plugins > Add New screen in your WordPress dashboard or by using the following steps:
- Download the plugin via WordPress.org.
- Upload the ZIP file through the Plugins > Add New > Upload screen in your WordPress dashboard.
- Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress.
Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup.
Installing Contact Form 7 can be done either by searching for Contact Form 7 via the Plugins > Add New screen in your WordPress dashboard or by using the following steps:
- Download the plugin via WordPress.org.
- Upload the ZIP file through the Plugins > Add New > Upload screen in your WordPress dashboard.
- Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress.
Settings:
- Go to Contact > Contact Forms and edit your contact form.
- Copy your contact form shortcode.
- Go to Pages > Add New, add title for page and insert this shortcode to page text field.
- Press Publish button. Contact form will be displaying on this page.
MailChimp for WordPress
Allowing your visitors to subscribe to your newsletter should be easy. With this plugin, it finally is. This plugin helps you grow your MailChimp lists and write better newsletters through various methods.
Installing MailChimp for WordPress can be done either by searching for MailChimp for WordPress via the Plugins > Add New screen in your WordPress dashboard or by using the following steps:
- Download the plugin via WordPress.org.
- Upload the ZIP file through the Plugins > Add New > Upload screen in your WordPress dashboard.
- Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress.
- Set your API key in the plugin settings.
Settings:
- Go to MailChimp for WP > Forms.
- Insert the code below into the form.
- Show a sign-up form in your sidebar using the MailChimp Sign-Up Form widget.
- Or go to Appearance > Customize > Content Area Settings and enable Top or Bottom MailChimp Form.
Form code:
<div class="subscribe-box"> <div class="subscribe-box__text"> <h4>Subscribe to our Newsletter!</h4> <p>Subscribe to our email newsletter to receive useful articles and special offers.</p> </div> <div class="subscribe-box__form"> <p> <input type="email" name="EMAIL" placeholder="Your email address" required /> </p> <p> <input type="submit" value="Subscribe" /> </p> </div> </div>
WP Instagram Widget
WP Instagram Widget is a no fuss WordPress widget to showcase your latest Instagram pics.
Installing WP Instagram Widget can be done either by searching for WP Instagram widget via the Plugins > Add New screen in your WordPress dashboard or by using the following steps:
- Download the plugin via WordPress.org.
- Upload the ZIP file through the Plugins > Add New > Upload screen in your WordPress dashboard.
- Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress.
Settings:
- Go to Appearance > Widgets and click to expand the Footer Instagram widget area.
- Drag the Instagram widget to the Footer Instagram widget area.
- The Title field can be left empty. Enter your instagram username and set number of photos to 8.
- Set photo size to Small and in Link Text, enter the text you would like to display on hover, such as @yourusername.
- Save your widget.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a free eCommerce plugin that allows you to sell anything, beautifully. Built to integrate seamlessly with WordPress, WooCommerce is the world’s favorite eCommerce solution that gives both store owners and developers complete control.
With WooCommerce you can sell both physical and digital goods in all shapes and sizes, offer product variations, multiple configurations, and instant downloads to shoppers, and even sell affiliate goods from online marketplaces.
Installing WooCommerce can be done either by searching for WooCommerce via the Plugins > Add New screen in your WordPress dashboard or by using the following steps:
- Download the plugin via WordPress.org.
- Upload the ZIP file through the Plugins > Add New > Upload screen in your WordPress dashboard.
- Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress.
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.