Welcome to SiteBox Documentation!

Thanks for Buying

First of all, thank you for buying this theme. To make your experience pleasant, we've added as much info as needed in this documentation. If you're stuck with anything, please refer to support forums.

Installation

There are two methods to install the theme. If the normal installation method (a) is not supported by your web host, you will have to use the alternate option (b).

a. Normal Installation

  1. Log into your WordPress admin panel and go to Appearance » Themes
  2. Click the Add New button at the top.
  3. Click the Upload Theme button at the top.
  4. Click the Choose File button and navigate to the location of the theme zip file.
  5. Click Install Now to begin the installation.
  6. Wait for the success message, then click Activate.

b. FTP Installation (alternate method)

  1. Unzip the theme zip file.
  2. Using an FTP client to access your host web server. Go to /wp-content/themes/ and place the theme folder inside it.
  3. Log in to your WordPress admin panel and go to Appearance » Themes
  4. Locate the theme thumbnail and click the Activate link.

Child Theme

WordPress child theme allows you change the functionality of the theme without having to edit the original/parent theme template files. If you plan to making any customization, we recommend to create a child theme instead of editing the theme template files. Since the child theme is stored separately, you don't need to redo the changes next time you upgrade the theme.

Creating a Child Theme

There's a plugin you can use that will create a child theme from within the WordPress dashboard: http://wordpress.org/plugins/child-theme-configurator/ or you can download SiteBox blank child theme.

Download it here.

More About Child Theme

You can read more about Child theme on WordPress Codex →

One-Click Demo Import

We have included Sitebox with one-click demo importer feature. You can easily to import content from our demo then you can edit it with your content. But first please install the One-Click Demo Import plugin. Please take a look the Installing Recommended Plugins section to read how to install the plugin.

After that please go to Appearance → Import Demo Data, then click the Import Demo Data button. Depending upon the number of content, images and server speed, the process may take long to complete.

ImportantIn some themes you need to install some of the recommended plugins before importing the demo content such as Jetpack, TJ Team Content, Advanced Custom Fields Pro, WooCommerce, etc.

Regenerate Thumbnail

If you use this theme for existing website, we recommended you to install Force Regenerate Thumbnails plugin to fix the image sizes. Every theme has different image dimensions, so this is important step to do.

How To Use It?

  1. After you install it, go to Tools > Force Regenerate Thumbnails
  2. Click the Regenerate All Thumbnails button
  3. The process depends on how many images on your website. If you only have 10-30 images then process only takes a few minues.
  4. After the process done, you can deactivate and delete the plugin.

Image Size

Recommended or minimum image size for SiteBox is

800px x 480px

This to ensure you don't have any pixelated images especially for Featured Images in posts.

Please make sure any images you upload to the site meet the required minimum size above.

Install Recommended Plugins

There are several plugins we recommend you to install. Some of this plugins will extend the theme so you'll get the maximum feature in this theme.

Recommended Plugins

1. Theme Junkie Shortcodes

If you need some custom content like columns, button or tabbed content, please install this plugin.

2. Theme Junkie Custom CSS

If you need to add custom styles to your website, you can use this plugin.

3. Theme Junkie Team Content

Add custom post type 'Team' to display your site members.

4. Simple Page Sidebars

You can add custom sidebar for your Post/Page using this plugin.

5. Ninja Forms

This plugin allows you to create a custom contact form.

6. Jetpack

Supercharge your website with cool Jetpack modules.

7. Polylang

Powerful plugin to make SiteBox as a multilanguage site/theme.

8. bbPress

Useful plugin if you'd like to add Forum support to your site.

9. One-Click Demo Import

To import content from our demo!

How to Install the Plugins

  1. Log into your Dashboard page.
  2. Go to Appearance » Install Plugins.
  3. Click install link below the plugin you want to install.

Translation & Internalization

All of our themes include a language file to make translating to a different language easy. Inside the theme folder /wp-content/themes/themename/languages, you'll find a language file named themename.pot. Or in this theme file named sitebox.pot

Configure WordPress

Before translating the theme, you'll need to make sure WordPress is setup correctly with your locale. Open wp-config.php and modify the line below.

 
/**
* WordPress Localized Language, defaults to English.
*
* Change this to localize WordPress. A corresponding MO file for the chosen
* language must be installed to wp-content/languages. For example, install
* de_DE.mo to wp-content/languages and set WPLANG to "de_DE" to enable German
* language support.
*/
define("WPLANG", "");

Translating the Theme

  1. Download and install Poedit.
  2. Open sitebox.pot in Poedit. Translate as needed.
  3. Save the file with the locale. For example, if you translate the theme to German language then you would save your files as de_DE.po.
  4. Copy both these files(de_DE.po and de_DE.mo) under the languages folder of sitebox.

Home Page Setup

Creating home page is important part, because SiteBox home page is widgets based which means you can customize the home page using widgets. We provide 9 custom widgets to customize the home page.

You can also choose which layout you want to use for your Home Page.

By default, SiteBox already run on 'Home Page' at first installation. You can skip Step 1 and 2 below for creating Home Page and start choosing Layouts (Step 3) and customizing your Widgets (Step 4) directly.

But for better convenience, and especially if you'd like to use a separate page for Blog Posts, we recommend you to create a dedicated Home Page as described in Step 1 and 2.

1. Create Home Page

  1. Assuming you're at new page screen (Pages > Add New)
  2. Add the title with Home Page or anything.
  3. Under Page Attributes switch the Template to Home Template
  4. Click publish button

2. Setting Up Home Page

Once you have created a page for your homepage, follow these next steps:

  1. Go to Settings > Reading.
  2. Choose "A static page" option for Front page displays.
  3. Next to Front Page, select the page you created to be used as the homepage.
  4. Save Changes.

3. Home Page Layouts

You have five basic options for your Homepage Layout :

  1. Wide Featured Content
  2. Narrow Featured Content
  3. Vertical Menu 1 (with Wide Featured Content)
  4. Vertical Menu 2 (with Narrow Featured Content)
  5. Full Width 4 Columns

But you can combine Wide/Narrow Featured Content with the Archive Layoutoptions:

  • Sidebar / Content / Sidebar
  • Content / Sidebar / Sidebar
  • Content / Sidebar
  • Sidebar / Content

And for Vertical Menu 1/2 you have additional Menu Color options:

  • Blue (default)
  • White

Please check out some of these combinations on the demo.

Note: For Full Width 4 Columns layout, you can only use Home Four Columns widget. See more explanation about this below.

4. Home Page Widgets

Please take a look at the picture above, you can ONLY use them, only 9 widgets like the picture above and please use them on Home Widget Area.

Note that Home Four Columns widget (the one in the red box) should only be used in Home Layout: Full Width 4 Columns. And this also means Home Full Width Layout can only use this widget.

You can actually put any other widgets beside the rules mentioned above, but we can't guarantee your website will not be broken.

SiteBox Home Widgets sample

SiteBox Home Widgets setting sample.

SiteBox Home Widgets Fullwidth sample

SiteBox Home Widgets setting for Home Layout: Full Width 4 Columns sample.

Customizer Setup

Our theme options are powered by WordPress Customizer. WordPress Customizer is a new and exciting feature that combines theme options with the ability to live preview those changes before saving them!

How To Access it?

  • Select Appearance
  • Then Click Customize
  • We provide a lot of options for you to customize your website easily and with live preview!

General Customizer

SiteBox Customizer General

In the General panel you can setup some options like:

  • Change your default RSS feed url to something like feedburner.
  • Hide comments and comment form on all pages.
  • Change published date style between Absolute or Relative one.
  • Choose your Static Front Page.
  • Enter your social links to be displayed on Footer Style 1 and/or Social widget.

Layouts Customizer

SiteBox Customizer Layouts

This customizer is one of the coolest feature of this theme. You can have many options to control the layout of your site.

Couple of things you can do here:

  • Show or hide Featured Content.
    • Choose a specific Tag.
    • Enter how many posts to be displayed.
    • Select how it should be ordered by (date or random).
    SiteBox Customizer Layouts - Featured
  • Change some options for the News Ticker.
    • Show or Hide.
    • Choose a specific Tag. If no tag selected, by default it will show recent posts.
    • Enter how many posts to be displayed.
    • Select how it should be ordered by (date or random).
    • Change News Ticker Title
    • Choose Date Style (Relative or Absolute)
    SiteBox Customizer Layouts - Featured
  • Change some options for Archive pages including:
    • Choose Archive Layout (single or double sidebar, and how it should be positioned).
    • Choose Archive Style
    SiteBox Customizer Layouts - Archive
  • Show/hide post meta, categories, tags, share button, related posts etc. in a Single Post.
  • Show/hide title for Single Page.
  • Choose a global Single Post/Page Layout
    • SiteBox Customizer Layouts - Featured

But please remember, all of those settings are page based which means you have to navigate the customizer preview (the right screen of the page) to the actual page. For example,

  • Featured / News Ticker means you have to be on your homepage or blog page, where the Featured Content and/or News Ticker are displayed.
  • Archive means you have to be on your blog page or click one of your Archive (i.e. Category) link to go to an archive (i.e category) page.
  • Posts / Page / Single Post/Page Layout means you have to click or go to one of your post/page.

Home Customizer

SiteBox Customizer Footer

In the Home panel you can setup some options like:

  • Choose your Home Page Layout
  • Select which Widget Area to be used. Default is 'Home' Widget Area.

Color Customizer

SiteBox Customizer Color

In the Color panel you can change some options like:

  • Change Background color.
  • Upload and use a background image.

Typography Customizer

We package SiteBox with Google Fonts option, you can easily change the font family of the text content and the heading (h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6).

Advertisement Customizer

SiteBox Customizer Advertisement

SiteBox provide 3 spots to place an ads.

  • Header
  • Single post before content
  • Single post after content

The option also come with two method, first you can upload your image and add the url. Or second, you can use the textarea to put the ads code like Adsense. See the picture below.

SiteBox Customizer Header Ads

Rating

SiteBox has an integrated Rating system. Your readers can 'Like' or 'Love' whichever posts they prefer.

'Vote' or 'Like' can be done in the Single Post:

SiteBox Rating in Single

Note: above screenshot is taken from our other theme (PostBoard) but the functionality is similar.

Single Post/Page Layouts

Beside the Global setup you can set for Single Post/Page Layout in the Customizer, you can also setup the layout per post or page. This is done when you add or edit the post or page. There are 3 types layout you can choose:

Layouts Type

  1. Full Width layout : Display the content in a full width mode or without sidebar.
  2. Left Sidebar layout : Display the content with sidebar on the left.
  3. Right Sidebar layout : Display the content with sidebar on the right.

Per Page/Post Basis Layout

Per Page/Post Basis Layout
  1. Assuming you're at the new post or page screen (Posts > Add New) or (Pages > Add New)
  2. After you create the post or page, scroll down and find Layout meta box.
  3. Choose the layout.

Team Page Setup

SiteBox comes with optional Team member page to display your website editor or author. Please check the demo to see it in action.

Page Setup

  1. To display the team data, first you need to install our Team content plugin.
  2. Please download on http://wordpress.org/plugins/theme-junkie-team-content/
  3. Or you can go to Appearance » Install Plugins. Click install under Theme Junkie Team Content.
  4. You will see a new Teams menu on the left.
  5. To add new member data, just go to Teams » Add New.

Displaying The Page

  1. Assuming you're at new page screen (Pages > Add New)
  2. Add the title with Teams or About Us or anything.
  3. Add the description in the Editor.
  4. Under Page Attributes switch the Template to Teams Template
  5. Click publish button.

Shortcodes

You can use these shortcodes by installing our Shortcodes plugin which available for free! You can see the shortcodes in action here.

  1. Please download on http://wordpress.org/plugins/theme-junkie-shortcodes/
  2. Or you can go to Appearance » Install Plugins. Click install under Theme Junkie Shortcodes.
  3. Then go to the post or page editing screen.
  4. You should see Add Shortcode button(see image below) beside the Add Media button.
  5. Click on it, then you will see a selectbox to choose the shortcodes you wish to use.
  6. Finally, click the Insert Shortcode button.

Contact Form

You can use a custom Contact Form by installing Ninja Form plugin from WordPress.org repository for free. Please check the demo to see it in action.

  1. Please download http://wordpress.org/plugins/ninja-forms/
  2. Or you can go to Appearance » Install Plugins. Click install under Ninja Forms.
  3. Then go to the post or page editing screen.
  4. You should see Append A Ninja Form metabox (see image below) under the Featured Image metabox (around your bottom right corner screen).
  5. Select the Form you have created previously. Or use the default one to see how it'll look on your page.
    Note: you should check again and setup the default form to make it works as your preference (i.e. sending it to your Email as Admin)
  6. Alternatively, you can also put a shortcode to your Post/Page content to show the form.
    Sample shortcode: [ninja_forms id=1]
  7. Finally, click the Publish or Update button to update your Post/Page.

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