Andromeda Support Documentation

 

Background

This is the documentation page for Andromeda WordPress Theme where you will find out about how to install and modify the theme to suit your needs after you purchase it. This theme is meant for personal blogs and uses several plugins that are easy to install if you want them.

Extract and Activate the Theme

After you purchase and download the theme, make a backup copy of it. Then extract the zip file. Before you do anything else, be sure that you have WordPress all set up and ready. Upload the andromeda_theme folder to your Themes folder. Next, upload the content of the plugins folder (not the entire plugins folder, just its content) into the plugins folder online (which you will find in wp-content).

In your WordPress administration panel, go to Appearance >> Themes to activate the Andromeda theme.

Basic WordPress settings

If you haven’t changed your WordPress name description etc, now you will learn how to do it. Go to WordPress admin -> settings -> Change blog title and tag line, save it. Then click reading also in settings menu and change number of posts (“Blog pages show at most”) to 3 as in demo (of course you can change it to what ever you want but we suggest 3 for this theme). Also good thing to do is to change permanent links to “pretty” ones. Click Permalinks in settings and select the structure you like the most (NOTE: Be sure your .htacces is writable!) Save everything.

Changing Blogroll links
After your WordPress installation you get WordPress links in your blogroll list and to change that and add new go to admin -> Manage -> Links

Activate and setup plugins

Now your theme is ready and you can fill it up with content. Next thing to do is to activate and setup plugins. The list of plugins that Andromeda is using is: Feedcount, Twitter for WP, FlickrRSS and excerpt reloaded. Of course you don’t have to use them all if you don’t want to. Now these plugins should be in your plugin directory (step one) and now you have to activate them all, you can do that from your WordPress admin -> plugins -> activate one by one.

Excerpt Reloaded
This plugin sets your excerpt length to 150 characters for featured post and 120 for rest of posts and gives “more” links at the end of every one. After you activate it you don’t have to do anything else. In case you don’t activate it you’ll have default short WordPress excerpts so i would suggest you use it. The plugin is modified for Andromeda, so if you use original one you’ll get different result.

Feed Count
This plugin is also modified for Andromeda so please use this version instead of original one. It displays your FeedBurner feed count instead of using default button. If you don’t feel like using it you’ll just have “Subscribers – Join Them” text. After you activate it go to Settings -> Feed Count and just fill in feed url with yours (example http://feeds.feedburner.com/stylizedweb) and you’re done.
NOTE: Be sure to have Awareness API for your feedburner account enabled (to enable it log in to your feedburner account, go to the Publicize tab, click on the Awareness API service and enable it).

Flickr RSS
This displays your latest Flickr images, in case you don’t activate it it won’t show Flickr box like in demo. After you have activated it go to Settings -> flickrRSS -> and fill in: ID field (example 44124462494@N01) and number of images (in demo it’s 8, so we suggest that number). Don’t fill anything else, save changes.

Twitter for WordPress
Again if you don’t activate it you won’t have twitter box like on demo. Open sidebar.php and change “stylizedweb” from line 18 to your twitter name and you’re done.

Adding Archive and Site Map page

Archive Page
Go to WordPress admin -> Write new page -> just select Archive for title and “page template” archives page. Save everything, publish the page.

Site Map
Go to WordPress admin -> Write new page -> just select “Site Map” for title and “page template” site map. Save everything, publish the page.

NOTE: You can change all page order in main menu from your admin, go from one page to another and change “page order” field

Change “Advertise Here” image

Andromeda comes with planed advertise space at the top with standard banner size and with 300px width sidebar for you to add for example google ads etc. If you want to change header image go to header.php and change line 32 link url (currently #) and image name (and path if you need to)

Change Excerpts to full posts

Excerpts are like short intros for posts, so you don’t see the full content. If you would like to change that open index.php and row 14 and 15 change with this the_content(‘Read the rest of this entry »’);

** Please note that starting in version 3.1 of WordPress: If WordPress blog administrators are logged into their WordPress Administration Panel, and then visit the home page of that site, a horizontal bar displays the administration panel at the top of the page. If that top bar is not displayed properly, the theme’s footer.php file (accessed through the WordPress administration panel >> Appearance >> Editor >> then clicking on the right column’s footer.php file) must have <?php wp_footer(); ?> added to the line before the </body> tag near the bottom of that file, if the file does not have that code already added.   Remember to save changes.