Created: 07/01/2015
By: Tomas Toman
Web: www.tomastoman.cz
First of all, I would like to thank you for choosing ShootingStar! I firmly believe that you will be satisfied with this theme. In case of any problems or doubts, you can use the ShootingStar Official Support.
Thanks so much!
ShootingStar is an easily customizable WordPress multipurpose theme. It is a fully responsive and Retina ready theme that allows for easy viewing on any device. Using Theme Options panel, you can customize this theme directly to your needs. ShootingStar is fully compatible with the popular WooCommerce plugin.
Compatible Browsers: Internet Explorer 8+, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari
Compatible WordPress Versions: 3.8+
For ShootingStar installation, you must follow these basic steps:
Alternatively, you can install this theme via your WordPress administration. Go to "Appearance > Themes" panel and using "Add New" tool upload the original ZIP file. After uploading, activate the theme.
Once you have purchased the ShootingStar Premium Version, simply upload the extracted folder that you have got by purchasing ShootingStar Premium Version via FTP to "wp-content/themes" directory on your web host server.
Alternatively, you can install the Premium Version via your WordPress administration:
The Theme options are accessible through the panel "Appearance > Customize".
This tab is used for choosing one of the basic color schemes and setting some parts of your website (right sidebar, scroll-top button and background pattern displaying, uploading a favicon).
If you would like to display your custom Logo instead of the Site Title, simply upload or choose your logo image through the option "Header Logo".
In the "Contact Information" section, you can fill out your address, email, phone number and Skype name to be displayed above the Site Title/Logo.
Under this tab, you can set displaying of the author information, featured images, previous/next post links and the post meta data on the individual single posts.
Under this tab, you can set if you would like to display the full Content or only the Excerpts (first 40 words of each post) within the Post Entries and the size of the Featured Images (Large or Small). Using the option "Excerpt Length", you can define the number of words you wish to display in the excerpt (the default value is 40 words).
The option "Infinite Scroll" allows you to enable or disable the infinite scroll effect for the post entries.
This tab is used for selecting Google fonts for the individual headlines and text areas. ShootingStar theme offers more than 200 fonts for choosing. The default fonts are specified in the main stylesheet file (style.css in the main theme folder). The default font used for headlines is "PT Sans". Here you can preview all the available fonts: Google Fonts.
For setting your own main background image or color, go to "Appearance > Background" panel. Upload your own photography and set here all the background-image settings (position, repeating, attachment). For setting one-color background, use the color picker at the bottom of this page. To make the selected color visible, there should not be set any background image.
Note: If you would like to hide the main background pattern (hatches), you can do so in "Appearance > Customize > ShootingStar General Settings > Background Pattern". You also can set there the opacity of the background pattern.
For setting your custom header image, go to "Appearance > Header" panel and upload or select your own image. For properly displaying on wide-screen monitors, the width of your header image should be about 2000 pixels. If the header image width is smaller than the screen width, the image will be displayed in the middle of the browser window with white margins on both sides.
In "Appearance > Customize > Header Image > Display Header Image", you can set the header image to be visible on all pages or only on the homepage.
There are several areas for displaying widgets in the ShootingStar Theme:
The Widget panel is located in "Appearance > Widgets" panel. If you want to place a widget into a widget area, simply drag its panel and drop it to the area where you want to display the widget.
Right Sidebar widget area is displayed on all your pages and posts. Its name in "Appearance > Widgets" panel is "Right Sidebar". You can put here as many widgets as you like.
If you do not want to display the Right Sidebar, you can hide it globally in "Appearance > Customize > ShootingStar General Settings > Display Right Sidebar".
Footer widget area is displayed in the footer as the 3 columns of widgets. In "Appearance > Widgets" panel, you can see 3 areas for the individual columns: "Footer left widget area", "Footer middle widget area" and "Footer right widget area". These areas represent the 3 columns of widgets in footer. You can put as many widgets as you want into each column.
The widget area for copyright and other notices is displayed in the footer, below the main Footer widget area (described above). Its name in "Appearance > Widgets" panel is "Footer notices". Put here one "Text" widget. Into the content field of this widget fill the text (or HTML code) you want to display here. The "Title" field at this Text widget should stay empty.
Note: To display the Footer notices in the middle of the box, check the option "Automatically add paragraphs" at the Text widget inserted into this area.
At first, create a new menu in "Appearance > Menus" panel and assign it to the "Main Header Menu" location. Then, in the left panels choose requested pages/categories or custom links and add them to your new Menu. Then save all changes.
If you would like to create a drop-down submenu, just drag the required menu item and move it more to the right against its parent item. When you drop your sub-item, it should stay with indentation against the parent item. This way you can create unlimited levels of submenus.
Beside Default Template, ShootingStar theme offers 3 other custom Page templates. If you create a new page or edit some existing page, you can choose the Page template in "Page Attributes > Template" right panel.
If you want to display only some pages without the right sidebar, simply use this template for these pages.
This template displays only the page Content without the page Title.
This template displays only the page content without the menus, right sidebar, comments area and the footer widget areas. You can use it for creating a temporary home page before your website will be ready for the public launch.
Some functions of the ShootingStar theme are conditioned by installing some plugins. If some of the recommended plugins are inactive, you can see them in "Appearance > Install Plugins" panel.
List of recommended plugins for the Free version:
If you want to display the breadcrumb navigation just below the main content headlines, the Breadcrumb NavXT plugin has to be installed and activated. This plugin provides many advanced options for displaying breadcrumb navigation. You can set them in "Settings > Breadcrumb NavXT" panel.
ShootingStar theme is ready for translation into any language. The .pot file (shootingstar.pot) is located in the "languages" theme folder. ShootingStar contains integrated Czech (cs_CZ), French (fr_FR), German (de_DE), Russian (ru_RU), Slovak (sk_SK) and Spanish (es_ES) language localizations. The best way how to create a new language localization is by creating your own .po and .mo files and adding them into the "languages" theme folder. If you create them, please let me know, I will add your language localization into the official theme distribution.
If you don't know how to create the .po and .mo files, never mind! Simply install the CodeStyling Localization plugin and create your language localization in "Tools > Localization" panel.
1.) Where could I edit my website title and description?
Go to the "Settings > General" panel and rewrite here the fields "Site Title" and "Tagline".
2.) Where could I allow/disallow comments adding?
Go to the "Settings > Discussion" panel and set the options according to your needs. If you want to disallow adding comments only for one specific page/post, you can do so using the "Quick Edit" link at this page/post in "Posts > All Posts" or "Pages > All Pages".
3.) What are the "Tags"?
Tags are similar to Categories. They are used for better description of posts. We can say that Tags are the keywords which specify the posts in great detail.
4.) How could I set title, description and keywords meta tags for each page and post?
The easiest way is to install some SEO plugin, for example All In One SEO Pack.
5.) Where could I set the number of posts, which display on index/categories/archives/search pages?
Go to the "Settings > Reading" panel and set the options according to your needs.
6.) I do not want to display the latest posts on my home page. Could I set a static page as my home page?
Yes, go to the "Settings > Reading" panel and choose the option "A static page" instead of "Your latest posts".
7.) How could I set the URL addresses of my pages and posts into user-friendly form, instead of "?p=123" displaying?
Go to the "Settings > Permalinks" panel and choose the option "Post name" in section "Common Settings".
8.) Where could I set my time zone and date/time format?
Go to the "Settings > General" panel and set the options according to your needs.
9.) Where could I set the header image?
Go to the "Appearance > Header" panel and upload here your own header image or select one of the already uploaded images.
10.) I have tried to upload a theme through "Appearance > Themes" panel, but I got the following error: "The uploaded file exceeds the upload_max_filesize directive in php.ini". How can I fix it?
This error is caused by a too low memory limit set on your web server. To fix it, please contact your web host provider with the request to increase the memory limit for uploading files. Or, you can install your theme through FTP.
Once again, thank you so much for choosing 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. Best regards and have fun with ShootingStar!
Tomas Toman