Actually, this post is a reminder of how I setup the Modernize theme. When I first activated the theme, I was surprised! Where’re the blog post titles? There’s no title, no sidebar! Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy with this theme purchase. It is just that Modernize is a powerful theme with lots of features, it’s not a turnkey theme. A little adjustment here and there would make it work perfectly. The theme comes with a help file, but I still need to get the theme running by trial and error. And I have really bad memory, so I better jot it down, lol.
1. This theme requires you to upload your own logo. If you don’t have one, download Gimp, create a simple one, remove the background layer and save as a .png file. Upload and replace the file default-logo.png.
2. If you want a blog with a right sidebar, you need to first “create” a sidebar and name it, maybe “Right Sidebar”? Then your “Right Sidebar” will appear in the widget section.
3. Basically you can do anything with your front page, put a slider, gallery, portfolio, anything you like. If you just want it to look like a blog, add a “blog item”. First create a page, name it, maybe “Home”? In Settings, Reading, set front page displays “A static page”, i.e. your “Home”. Edit the “Home” page, add the “blog item”, make it 1/1, edit the item, you can set how many blog posts to display, length of excerpt, etc…
4. I use a plugin called Auto SEO Tags, which auto-generates tags from visitors’ search queries. The default tag area only has a height of 16px, which is only good for a few tags. So I adjust the height by modifying div.single-thumbnail-tag in the style.css file or simply remove the height attribute. Actually, I even moved that blog post info part to the bottom, edit single.php, cut line 49-61, paste it after line 116. Next, I want to remove tags in the Archives/Categories page, so I remove line 215 (the_tags…) in \include\plugin\blog-item.php.
5. This theme comes with captcha, contact template, pagination, and social shares, so I deactivated some previously installed plugins. Somehow Shareaholic placed useless space between the post title and content, so I had to remove it.
6. Archives/Categories pages use its own sidebar. Stuff that you put in your blog’s “Right Sidebar” would not appear in Archives/Categories’ sidebar automatically, you have to re-add everything in widget section.
3-2-13: Few days ago, I tried to upgrade my theme to version 3.01, I encountered a little problem. Everything worked fine, except the header background was in a red colour of some sort! So I emailed GoodLayers for help, and I received a prompt reply within hours. To solve this problem, you need to visit the theme’s admin panel and “Save Changes”. 🙂
Hey,
I also bought one of the themes and have problem with the ‘right sidebar’.
How do you Create a sidebar ?
2. If you want a blog with a right sidebar, you need to first “create” a sidebar and name it, maybe “Right Sidebar”? Then your “Right Sidebar” will appear in the widget section.
Hello Stijn,
Click the “Modernize” admin panel, click Sidebar, type a sidebar name, e.g. “Right Sidebar”, click the “+” sign, click “Save Changes”. Now you have a “Right Sidebar”, put widgets in there. When you write a post, you can select which sidebar to use. Basically you can have many sidebars with different layouts.
Hey Thanks,
I found the solution also yesterday 🙂 after some research.
i am using the bangkok press template, but it has the same possibilities.
🙂 playing around a little with the theme before I am publishing the site 🙂
Nice website for the rest
You are welcome! Yea, that Bangkok theme looks cool, looking forward to visit your site some day.
THANK YOU! I am very new to this and have been trying to figure out how to add a sidebar ALL DAY! Woo-Hoo! Now, if I can only figure out how to keep my images from being distorted when added to pages, I’ll be thrilled!
just bought this theme and didn’t realize you HAD to have a logo on the top of the page, that’s weird. Is it possible to replace the logo with some text instead? My client doesn’t have a logo and doesn’t want one.
So how did you fix the issue with the post title not showing up? This theme has a ton of features but not very easy to figure it all out. I too, am taking careful notes should I ever have to go through the setup process again. Thanks in advance for your help!
Hi, are you talking about the “Homepage”? Just create a page, name it, e.g. “homepage”, and add a “blog item”. In Settings, Reading, set front page displays “A static page”, select “homepage”. Now your blog post titles will show up…
Does anyone know if you can add a captcha field to the contact form? Or do I need to add a separate 3rd party form (contact form 7 or Ninja Forms)?
My client is saying he is receiving a lot of spam from this contact form.
Many thanks!
C
Yea, I have a similar problem. I just installed the “Are You a Human” plugin today, I hope that helps a bit.
Hey guys,
I need help! I currently have the “modernize” theme installed on my word press site. I am trying to go back in and make changes such as a new background color, and changing the color of my navigation bar. I notice that when I go in and make changes to the theme, they are not visible (even when I refresh the page). I am saving my changes and still nothing shows. Am I doing something wrong? Why is this happening?
I need some help. Have a website that is designed in wordpress using modernize theme. After the site was uploaded to the hosting server and was turned over to us, I wanted to make an minor change to the home page. Apparently when the design company uploaded the site they did not include the editing tools for modifying the main page. If I purchased the modernize theme is there a way I can use it to replace the theme that wordpress is now using to be able to have the main page editing tools? If it can be replaced, will replacing it have any negative affect on the post content that is already loaded into the site? If replacing the theme can be accomplished, and if there will not be any negative effects on the existing site content, how is the best way to replace it?