WP-Jazz - Premium Wordpress Theme from Solostream » set-up

How to Install and Set Up the WP-Jazz Premium WordPress Theme

solostream — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:15:40 +0000

It doesn’t take a lot to install and set up your new WP-Jazz WordPress theme. Read on, and you’ll have it knocked out in a snap.

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 named either wp-jazz-basic, wp-jazz-prem or wp-jazz-dev, depending upon which license you purchased. Within it are all the theme files along with the end user license agreement (please take a moment to read over the license agreement).

Step 2 – Upload the Theme Files to Your WordPress Site

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-Jazz

Login into your WordPress control panel, and click the Design tab. On the next page you’ll see all your available themes. Simply click on the WP-Jazz screenshot, then click the Activate link in the upper right-hand corner of the pop-up screen.

Step 4 – Set Up Your Featured Articles Section

If you don’t already have a “Featured” category, you’ll need to create one. Click the Post tab, then Categories on the sub-menu. Create a new category named “Featured.” Also, be sure the category slug is “featured.”

For the Featured Articles function to work correctly, you may also need to modify your permalink structure. To do that, click the Settings tab, then Permalinks on the sub-menu. Just be sure that any option other than the default permalink structure is selected.

Finally, the only thing left to do is to place some of your posts/articles in the Featured category. By default, the theme is set up to display your 5 most recent Featured Articles in the featured article box on your home page. You can change that number on the WP-Jazz Theme Settings page if you like.

Step 5 – Install and Activate Plugins Supported by WP-Jazz

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

Popularity Contest (updated version for WP 2.7) – Your Most Popular Posts will appear at the top of the right sidebar in the tabbed navigation box as seen on this site.

Get the Image – This is a sweet, little plugin from the very brilliant Justin Tadlock. It will make it easier for you to include post thumbnails and featured photos for all your posts without using custom fields. More on that in another tutorial. Again, if you decide not to use it, the theme will function fine without it.

Be sure you download the latest version of each plugin and upload them to your wp-content/plugins folder. Then activate them. The theme will do the rest.

Step 6 – Add Some Content to Your Sidebars

Click the Appearance tab, then Widgets, and drag some content into your sidebars. Be sure to click the “Save Changes” button when you’re done.

Step 7 – Be Sure To Visit the WP-Jazz Theme Settings Page

The link for this page is available under the Appearance tab. We’ve given you a whole slew of 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.

Optional Step 8 – Make Your Featured Articles Scroll Automatically

If you want to turn on auto-scroll, open the features.php file and find this code at the bottom:

Then replace it with this:

Then, to turn off the active post highlighting, open your Stylesheet (style.css), and find this code about half way down:

#my-glider .controls a.active {
  color:#fff;
  background: #222;
  }

Then, comment it out like this:

/*---- #my-glider .controls a.active {
  color:#fff;
  background: #222;
  } ---- */

How to Add 125×125 Banner Ads to Your Right Sidebar

solostream — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:01:36 +0000

Many people like to display 125×125 banner ads in their sidebar. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to add them to your own site.

Step 1 – Upload a Generic 125×125 Banner

The image to the right is already located in the /images folder found in your WP-Jazz theme folder, so you can use that if you like. The file name is banner125.gif.

Alternatively, you can use your own generic 125×125 banner; just be sure to name it banner125.gif and upload it to the /images folder within your theme folder (or change the file name used below to reflect the name of your own file).

Step 2 – Create a New Text Widget in Your Right Sidebar for the Banner Ads

Add a new text widget to your top right sidebar, give it a title if you like. Then copy and paste the following code into the widget box:

Note 1: In the above code, you’ll need to change mysite.com to your own site domain name.

Note 2: In the img src code above, you may need to change the /wp-jazz-basic/ part to reflect the actual name of your theme folder.

For WP-Jazz Basic version, the img src would be:

For WP-Jazz Premium version, the img src would be:

For WP-Jazz Developer version, the img src would be:

Step 3 – Replace the Generic Banners and Links With Real Ads

All you need to do is upload your 125×125 banner image(s) to the /images folder, and change the code above to reflect that.

For example, if you upload a new banner called ad125.gif, and you want to link that banner to www.solostream.com, you would simply change the code to this:

And that’s it. The Stylesheet is already set up to display the ads correctly.

How to Create a Site Map Page

solostream — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:09:05 +0000

You may have noticed the Site Map page on this site. That’s done with the built-in Site Map template, and it’s easy for you to create a site map for your own WP-Jazz driven site.

Step 1 – Write a New Page

Just click the “Add New” link under the Pages tab in your WordPress control panel. Be sure to give your page a page title by filling in the Title field. Other than that, you don’t need to write any content in the post editor box.

Step 2 – Assign the Site Map Page Template to your Page

To the right of the Write Page console, you’ll see a blue box title “Attributes.” From the Template drop-down list, select “Site Map,” and click the Publish button.