Behold

Personal Blog

Behold - Personal Blog

1. Getting Started

Hi, and welcome to the Behold User Guide. The User Guide covers all the information needed to use the Behold theme to build an amazing website, as well as some helpful tips and tricks that will make your experience working with the Behold theme easier and more enjoyable. If you need any additional assistance while using our theme, you can always submit a ticket to our support forum at https://helpcenter.qodeinteractive.com/ and our support team will be glad to help you out.

You can navigate through different sections of the User Guide by clicking on the links in the menu to the left of your screen. You will also notice that we have highlighted certain parts of the text throughout the User Guide, such as important pieces of information, useful tips, and helpful code snippets, with different formatting for an easier overview. Here are some examples of the different formatting we use for Useful Tips, and Code Snippets:

This is a useful tip
<div class="code-snippet">This is a helpful code snippet</div>

In this first section of the Behold User Guide we will go through the essential steps required to start building your website with the Behold theme. We will explain how to install the theme, import the included demo content, as well as how to update the theme. At the end of this section you will also find a set of Frequently Asked Question related to troubleshooting the theme. 

Installing Behold

After downloading the Behold installation file from ThemeForest, extract it and in the extracted folder locate the behold.zip file. You can then install the Behold theme using one of the two following installation methods:

  1. WordPress upload - For most users, this is probably the simplest installation method. To install the Behold theme using this method, please follow these steps:
    1. Login to your WordPress admin panel
    2. Navigate to Appearance > Themes > Add New > Upload Theme
    3. Click on Choose File and select behold.zip
    4. Click on Install Now
  2. FTP upload - If you would like to install the Behold theme via FTP, please follow these steps:
    1. Extract the behold.zip file you previously located. You should now see a folder named behold
    2. Using an FTP client, login to the server where your WordPress website is hosted
    3. Using an FTP client, navigate to the /wp-content/themes/ directory under your WordPress website's root directory
    4. Using an FTP client, upload the previously extracted behold folder to the themes directory on your remote server

Once the installation is complete, your Behold theme will be ready for use. Now all you need to do is navigate to Appearance > Themes and activate the Behold theme. After you have done this, you should see Behold Core Options appear in the left navigation bar of  your WordPress admin panel.

You should also see a notification at the top of the screen that required plugins need to be installed. Please install and activate all of the required plugins, since they are necessary for the theme to function properly.

Make sure to install and activate the "Qode Framework" plugin, since this plugin is of critical importance for proper theme functioning. After you have done so, please proceed with installing and activating the "Behold Core" plugin. This plugin includes core theme functionalities and custom post types that come with the theme (Portfolio, Testimonials, etc.), and without this plugin you will not be able to create any of these custom post types or the elements in the theme that require them. 
If writing permissions aren't set for folders containing CSS and JS files on your server, you will see a warning message at the top of the theme options page. In order to remove that message, you need to change permissions for the wp-content/themes/behold/assets/css and wp-content/themes/behold/assets/js folders and set them to 755. We recommend setting writing permissions in order to optimize your site performance. If you have any issues with this, please contact your hosting service provider. Alternatively, you can submit a ticket to https://helpcenter.qodeinteractive.com with FTP access for your site, and our support team will take a look.

Theme Activation and Registration

In order to activate your copy of Behold, you should input your purchase code and email address, and thus effectively register the theme. To do this, please navigate to Behold Dashboard > Behold Dashboard and input the required information there. 

You can obtain your purchase code by following these steps: 

Note that you are not required to separately register any of the plugins which came bundled with the theme. 

Please note that if you used your purchase code on one installation, you are required to Deregister in order to use the purchase code on a different installation. 

You should also make sure to activate and register your copy of the theme before proceeding to the demo import process. 

It is also a good practice to refer to the System Info section to see if your server resources match the theme requrements. Navigate to Behold Dashboard > System Info and there you will find a general overview of your server configuration, as well as the theme information and an overview of all the active plugins. In System Information any parameters that do not meet the theme requirements will be shown in red, and you can also see the recommended values that you should set next to them. If you are unsure how to adjust the server resources, you can ask your hosting provider to perform this for you. 

Importing Demo Content

With the Behold theme, you have the option to either start creating your site from scratch, or choosing to import one of the included demo sites to use as a starting point, and then modifying it to suit your needs. In this section we will explain how to do the latter.

If you plan on building an online shop with Behold, you should install the WooCommerce plugin before importing the demo content. For more information on how to install WooCommerce, please read the WooCommerce section of this User Guide.
If you plan on using contact forms on your website, you should instal the Contact Form 7 plugin before importing the demo content so you recieve all the contact forms from our demo site. For more information on how to install Contact Form 7, please read the Contact Form 7 section of this User Guide.

Behold comes with a one-click import module. To import one of the included demo sites, please follow these steps:

  1. Login to your WordPress admin panel
  2. Navigate to Behold Dashboard > Import 

  3. From the Import dropdown menu, choose the demo site that you would like to import.
  4. From the Import Type dropdown menu, choose what type of content you'd like to import:
    1. All - imports pages, content, widgets, and settings. We recommend this for users who would like to import a demo site exactly as it appears on our live demo.
    2. Content - imports only pages and their content. This option is recommended for users who would like to see how we've created our page layouts, but who want to keep their own settings in Behold Core Options.
    3. Widgets - imports only widgets. This option is recommended for users who would only like to populate the theme’s widget areas with the widgets from their chosen demo. No other content is imported.
    4. Options - imports settings in Behold Core Options only. This option is recommended for users who would like to achieve the same look and feel of their chosen demo site, but do not want to import any additional content.
  5. If you also wish to import media files (images, videos, sounds), make sure to set the Import attachments option to "Yes".
  6. Click on the Import button and wait for the import process to finish.
Please note that the images we use on our demo sites are copyrighted, and if you'd like to publish them on your site, you would need to purchase them separately. We bought most of our images on Shutterstock.

Updating Behold

You can update your theme by performing the following steps:

  1. Download the latest theme .zip file from ThemeForest
  2. Extract it and locate behold.zip
  3. Extract behold.zip and locate the behold folder
  4. Copy/Replace the contents of the behold folder to the /wp-content/themes/behold folder of your web site.

Troubleshooting FAQ

1. Why can't I save my menu?

WordPress by default has a limited number of menu items. When you import our demo content, which contains a lot of menu items, you might not be able to save changes you make to a menu. You can fix this problem by contacting your hosting and asking them to add the following lines to the php.ini file:

suhosin.post.max_vars = 5000
suhosin.request.max_vars = 5000
2. Why is there a smiley displayed on blank pages?

This problem is most likely related to JetPack and memory settings of your hosting. You can either disable JetPack or read what the JetPack developer wrote: Regarding the memory limit, please refer to the WordPress Codex section concerning this problem. Some sites that load many plugins alongside WordPress ultimately require a higher memory limit than WordPress defaults to, but since this is limited to specific hosts and configurations, it must be dealt with on an individual basis. You'll find the Codex article at: https://codex.wordpress.org/Common_WordPress_Errors#Allowed_memory_size_exhausted

3. How do I optimize my site?

Please use this tool to investigate reasons for slow loading: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?hl=en

4. How to translate or rename default theme labels?

You can use the Poedit software (https://poedit.net/wordpress) to translate/rename all the theme's labels. Another solution is to edit the theme folder/languages/en_US.po file directly in a text editor and manually edit the labels you want to translate.

5. Why do I see a white screen when importing demo content?

If you get a white screen or some other error when trying to import our demo content, this probably happens because of the maximum execution time limit. You need to increase the maximum execution time (upload time) setting of your web server. The default maximum execution time on web servers is 30 seconds. Please increase it to 120 seconds. Possible ways of achieving this are:

You can also ask your hosting provider to take care of this for you.

2. Using Behold

Once you've installed Behold, you can start building your site. In this section of the User Guide we will explain how you can set up your header, upload your logo, create your menu, set up your footer area, customize the general look and feel of your website, and create your first pages.

Setting Up the Header

One of the first things you might want to do after you have installed and activated your Behold theme is to set up your header area. The header contains the logo, menu, search bar, side area icon, and other optional widgets.

 

To set up your header, navigate to Behold Core Options > Header from your WordPress admin panel. The settings you define here will be the default settings for all pages on your site. If you need any help in further understanding any of these options, please refer to the Behold Core Options section of this User Guide.

 

 

Some options, such as the header skin and background color, can be overridden on a page to page basis from a specific page’s backend. For more information on how local page settings work, please refer to the Pages section of this User Guide.

To add your logo to the header, navigate to Behold Core Options > Logo from your WordPress admin panel and click the upload button next to the Logo – Main field. After you upload your image and save the options, you should have a visible logo in your header area. For more information regarding the various logo types that can be uploaded, please refer to the Behold Core Options section of this User Guide.

Menu Creation

To create a new menu, navigate to Appearance > Menus from your WordPress admin panel. Enter a name for your new menu and then click Create Menu.

Every page that you have created will be listed in the section on the left named Pages. Simply check the pages that you would like to add to your menu and click the Add to Menu button. Once you have added pages to your menu, you can click and drag the menu items to rearrange them, or nest them one underneath the other.

In the Menu Settings section (which is located underneath the Menu Structure section), check the checkbox next to Main Navigation and click Save Menu. This will activate the menu you have just created, and you should now see a functional menu in your header.

To set up your footer, navigate to Behold Core Options > Footer from your WordPress admin panel.

The settings you define here will be the default settings for all pages on your site. If you would like both the top and bottom footer areas to be displayed, make sure that both the Enable Footer Top Area and Enable Footer Bottom Area options are enabled. If you need any help understanding any of these options, please refer to the Behold Core Options section of this user guide.

Content is added to your footer via widgets. Navigate to Appearance > Widgets from your WordPress admin panel. On the right side of your page you will see the widget areas for your footer. The widget areas for the top footer are named Footer Top Area - Column 1, Footer Top Area - Column 2, Footer Top Area - Column 3, and Footer Top Area - Column 4. On the left side of the Widgets page you will see the available widgets. To add a widget to one of the Footer widget areas, simply drag the desired widget to one of the Footer Column widget areas on the right.

To add content to the bottom footer, simply add widgets to the Footer Bottom widget areas. 

General Look and Feel

Now let’s set up the general look and feel of your site. If you have imported a demo site and would like to keep its general look and feel, then you do not need to do anything else. Otherwise, you can go to Behold Core Options > Typography and in the General Typography section set a default font family and styles for your site. Next, you can navigate to Behold Core Options > General, and in the Main Color field set a default main color for your site.

Now that you have set up the basic elements for your site, you’re ready to start building your pages.

Building Pages

To create a new page, navigate to Pages > Add New from your WordPress admin panel. In the text field near the top of the screen enter a title for your page. After you have added a title, choose the “Full width” template from the section on the right named Page Attributes. This will allow you to add sections to your page that span across the whole width of the screen.

In the bottom section of your screen you will find local page settings. Any settings that you define here will override the global settings set in Behold Core Options. 

It is generally considered good practice to set up the look and feel of your site on a global level, and override the settings when necessary on a local level. This will save you a lot of time, unlike if you were to set up every page separately.

To start adding elements to your page, first make sure that you are in the Elementor editor view. If the blue button near the top left of the page says EDIT WITH ELEMENTOR, click on it to enable the Elementor Page Builder view.

Once you’re in the Elementor Page Builder view, you can start adding elements to your page. To locate the custom elements that come with the theme, scroll down to the bottom of the Elementor toolbar until you reach the section named Qode - this is where you'll find all our custom-made shortcodes.

You can also type in the name of the desired element in the Search Widget... search field located at the top of the toolbar. Note that you can add the elements of your choosing by drag-and-dropping them on the page, which is displayed on the right side of the screen. You can learn more about individual elements in the Custom Shortcodes section of this user guide.

Finally, click the Publish button in the lower right section of the Elementor toolbar. (If you made some changes on an already published page, you will see an Update button instead).

Useful tip: you have the option to disable specific shortcodes, post types and icon packs, e.g. the ones you will not be using in any way. Doing so may result in improvement of your website's performance. If you wish to disable any of these options, you should navigate to Appearance > Customize > Behold Performance. You can choose which features you wish to disable from there. 

3. Pages

In this section of the User Guide we will discuss page creation in more detail, including the various page templates available in the theme, and all the page specific options.

When creating a new page, one of the first things you will probably want to do is to choose an appropriate template for your page. To this this, visit your page from the backend (or create a new page by going to Pages > Add new), and locate the Page Attributes section on the right side of the screen. Behold comes with a variety of page templates to choose from:

Now that you have chosen an appropriate template, let’s go over the custom fields available for pages.

Please note that any settings you save here will override the global settings you've set in Behold Core Options. It is generally considered good practice to set up the look of your pages on a global level, and then override settings on a local level, if necessary. This will save you a lot of time, unlike if you were to set up every page locally.

Behold Settings

Page Settings
Footer Settings
Footer Area
Header Settings
Centered Header
Divided Header
Minimal Header
Standard Header
Vertical Header
Top Area
Logo Settings
Header Logo Options
Mobile Header Logo Options
Mobile Header Settings
Sidebar Settings
Title Settings
Title Area

4. Blog

In this section of the User Guide we will discuss the creation of blog posts and all the available options for each post, setting up pages to display blog listings, as well as how to change the date format for your posts.

Blog Posts

To create a new blog post, go to Posts > Add New from your WordPress admin panel. First, you need to enter a title for your blog post in the text field near the top of the screen. Then choose a format for your blog post in the Format section on the right side of the screen.

Let's take a look at the available blog post formats:

 

Now it's time to categorize this post:

  1. Beneath the Format section you will see a section named Categories. Here you can select the categories that you would like to add this post to. If you would like to create a new category, click on the + Add New Category link. A text field will appear in which you can enter a category name, and then click Add New Category.
  2. Once you've selected the categories you would like to add your post to, click the Publish button. Congratulations, you've just published your first blog post!
  3. Beneath the Categories section you will see the Tags and Featured Image sections. Here you can add tags to your post, and set a featured image which will be displayed for this post on blog list pages.

Now that we have published our first blog post, let’s go over the available custom fields for blog posts.

Note that most of them are the same custom fields you'll find when creating standard pages.

Blog Single

Behold Settings

Page Settings
Footer Settings
Footer Area
Header Settings
Centered Header
Divided Header
Minimal Header
Standard Header
Vertical Header
Top Area
Logo Settings
Header Logo Options
Mobile Header Logo Options
Mobile Header Settings
Sidebar Settings
Title Settings
Title Area

Blog Lists

After you have created enough posts, you also need to create a blog list where all of these posts will be displayed. To create a blog list, you first need to create a new page on which your blog list will be displayed, and in the page's backend find the Blog List shortcode. You also have the option to create a blog slider using the Blog Slider shortcode. For a more detailed look into the Blog List as well as the Blog Slider elements, refer to the Custom Shortcodes section of this guide. 

Date Format

If you wish to change the date format on blog posts, navigate to Settings > General > Date Format from your WordPress admin, and select your format of choice.

6. Behold Core Options

This section of the User Guide provides a comprehenisve overview of all the settings available in the Behold Core Options section of your WordPress admin panel. The settings found here are applied globally and will affect all pages on your website. However, note that many of these options can be overridden locally by applying settings on individual pages or on shortcode elements.

General

Header Logo Options
Mobile Header Logo Options

Fonts

Typography

Header

Centered Header
Divided Header
Minimal Header
Standard Header
Vertical Header
Top Area
Main Menu
Main Menu Typography

Mobile Header

Minimal Mobile Header
Standard Mobile Header

Fullscreen Menu

Title

Sidebar 

Footer Area
Search Page

Blog

Blog List
Blog Single

Social Share

Maps

WooCommerce

Product List
Product Single

Subscribe Popup

404

7. Custom Shortcodes

In this section of the User Guide we will take a comprehesive look at all the custom shortcodes included in the theme and their repsective options.

Section

The section element is a container element in which you can add other elements (shortcodes) and sort them on your page. Besides the standard Elementor Page Builder options for sections (you can access these options by hovering on a section and clicking the Edit Section button), you also have the custom options which we included with the theme. You can access these options by clicking the Edit Section button on the section of your choice, and then navigating to the Advanced tab located in the Elementor toolbar on the left side of the page. 

Behold Core Parallax
Behold Grid

Blog List

This shortcode allows you to display your blog posts on a page.

General
Query
Layout
Additional

 

Button

Buttons are a widely used element on the web and can be used for a variety of purposes.

General
Style
Typography

Dropcaps

You can use this shortcode to easily create a textual section with drop caps. 

Google Map

You can use this shortcode to display a Google Map anywhere on the page.

Icon

Icons are great for communicating all sorts of information.

Icon List Item

Icon List Items allow you to make lists using icons, rather than numbers or bullets.

General
Icon

You can use the Image Gallery to display a grid or slider gallery of your images.

General
Gallery Settings

Image with Text

You can use this shortcode to create an image with some accompanying text.

General
Content

Section Title

You can use this shortcode to add a title to any section.

General
Title Style
Subtitle Style
Text Style

Separator

Use the separator shortcode to create a visual divider between elements and sections on your pages.

General
Style

Social Share

You can use this shortcode to add social share icons to pages.

Team List

This shortcode alows you to easily create a list of your team members.

General
Query
Layout
Additional

Product List

You can use this shortcode to display a list of your shop products. 

General
Query
Layout
Additional

Custom Font

You can use this shortcode to create a textual section using a custom font.

General
Typography

In the remaining tabs, you can set a font size, line height, and letter spacing for each responsive breakpoint.

Highlight

You can use this shortcode to create a highlighted textual section. 

Instagram List

You can use this shortcode to display a list of your instagram photos.

Twitter List

You can use this shortcode to display a list of your tweets.

General

8. Team

In this section of the User Guide we will discuss the creation of team items, as well as how to add team lists to your website pages.

Team Items

To create a new team item: 

  1. Navigate to Team > Add new from your WordPress admin panel.

  2. Enter a title for your team item in the text field near the top of the page. This will usally be the name of the team member.
  3. On the right side of the screen you will see a section named Team Categories. Here you can select the categories that you would like to add this team item to. If you would like to create a new category, click on the + Add New Category link. A text field will appear in which you can enter a category name, and then click Add New Category.
  4. Once you have checked the categories you would like to add your team item to, click the Publish button.

Beneath the Team Categories section is the Featured Image section. In the Featured Image section, you can upload a picture of your team member.

Now that you have set up your first team item, let’s go over the available custom fields for team items. 

Team Single

Team List

A team list displays a listing of your team items (members), each of which can be clicked on for a detailed overview of the single team item.

A team list is added to pages via the Team List shortcode. To add a team list to a page, navigate to the backend of that page and add the Team List element to the page via Elementor Page Builder (by entering the Elementor Page Builder view, and then dragging the Team List element from the element selection screen). For a comprehensive overview of all the options provided in the Team List element, please see the Custom Shortcodes section of this User Guide.

9. Widgets

In this section of the User Guide we will discuss the available widgets and widget areas in the theme.

Widgets are easy to manage and can be incredibly useful to have on your site.

For Behold, we have developed custom widgets and widget areas in order to provide you with even more functionality. You also have the option of creating your own custom sidebars (custom widget areas).

Widgets

Please note that you need to have the Woocommerce plugin installed in order for the Behold WooCommerce Dropdown Cart widget to appear in the widget selection.

Widget Area

10. WooCommerce

In this section of the User Guide we will discuss how to install and set up the WooCommerce eCommerce plugin with Behold.

Behold comes with WooCommerce integration, which allows you to easily create an online shop. For more information on installing and configuring WooCommerce, please visit this page:

https://docs.woothemes.com/documentation/plugins/woocommerce/getting-started/

In order to set up WooCommerce with the Behold theme, follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to Plugins > Add New from your WordPress admin panel.

  2. Type “WooCommerce” in the search field.
  3. Locate "WooCommerce - excelling eCommerce" in the search results and click on Install Now.

  4. Once the installation has completed, click on Activate Plugin.
  5. You will now see a notice saying “Welcome to WooCommerce – You're almost ready to start selling :)". If you plan on importing demo content, click on Skip Setup. Otherwise, click Install Pages.
  6. If you plan on importing demo content, you should first set the product image sizes in order to achieve the same look as on our demo sites. Navigate to Appearance > Customize and click on WooCommerce, and then the Product Images.  There you will be able to set the main image width and the thumbnail image width. Please note that under the Thumbnail cropping section you should either select Uncropped or Custom â€‹aspect ratio. If you choose to crop the images to a Custom aspect ratio, please make sure that the images are set to identical dimensions for both the product list and the product single.
  7. See Importing Demo Content in the Getting Started section of this user guide and perform the process explained there.
  8. Create a page for your shop. Then navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Products > Display and choose the page you create as your Shop Page (in the "Shop Page" field).

Creating Products

To create a new shop product, please navigate to Products > Add Product. Here you can set up all the standard WooCommerce options for each product, as well as some custom theme options:

Product List

11. Contact Form 7

In this section of the User Guide we will discuss how to install the Contact Form 7 plugin and how to add contact forms to your pages.

Behold comes with Contact Form 7 integration, making it possible to create contact forms for various purposes.
 
In order to setup Contact Form 7, please perform the following steps: 
  1. Navigate to Plugins > Add New from your WordPress admin panel.

  2. Type "Contact Form 7" in the search field.
  3. Locate "Contact Form 7" in the search results and click on Install Now.

  4. Once installation is complete, click on Activate Plugin.

Now when you use Elementor Page Builder while creating your pages, you will see a new shortcode in the list of shortcodes – the Contact Form 7 shortcode.

Click on this shortcode to add a contact form to your page. There are several fields to fill in:

You can read more about the Contact Form 7 plugin at https://wordpress.org/plugins/contact-form-7/.

3rd Party Integration

If you wish to integrate a newsletter sending service, you need to additionally install a plugin called "Forms: 3rd-Party Integration." You can check out the link to their site here: https://wordpress.org/plugins/forms-3rdparty-integration/.

Once you've completed the installation process and activated this plugin, navigate to Contact > Integration from your WordPress admin panel in order to set the options. For more information on setting up this plugin, check out the following link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/forms-3rdparty-integration/screenshots/.