Monolit – Creative Responsive Architecture Wordpress Theme

• created: 16/3/2016
• latest update: 16/3/2016
• by: Cththemes
• email: cththemes@gmail.com

Welcome to  Monolit – Creative Responsive Architecture Wordpress Theme

Monolit – Creative Responsive Architecture Wordpress Theme is perfect if you like a clean and modern design. This theme is ideal for architects, furniture designers, photographers, and those who need an easy, attractive and effective way to share their work with clients.

Finally thanks for selecting Monolit

This documentation is briefly describe all of sections and themes options. I wish it is help you to customize your site what you want.

Get an overview of versions, file modifications and potential issues in Monolit theme.

Version:

You have to use Wordpress version 3.9+ .

System Check:

The system check shows you all critical files or potential problems.

File permission: Check out the WordPress documentation for more information on file permissions.

PHP Version: Checks, if your theme runs on an unsupported/deprecated PHP version.

PHP Extensions: Checks, if these necessary PHP extensions are installed (JSON, DOM XML, Multibyte String).

Setting up a Monolit theme follows the standard WordPress installation procedure and works like with any other theme.

1. Download WordPress from the WordPress website.
2. Setup a new WordPress install.
3. Install and activate your theme.

For more information in regard to installing the WordPress platform, please see the WordPress Codex WordPress documentation.

When you are ready to install a theme, you must first upload the theme files and then activate the theme itself. The theme files can be uploaded in three ways:

Install Monolit theme using the Administration Panels

1. Log in to the WordPress Administration Panels.
2. Select the Appearance panel, then Themes.
3. Select Add New.
4. Use the Upload link in the top links row to upload Monolit theme zipped file (monolit.zip file in the downloaded package) that you have previously downloaded to your machine.

Install Monolit theme by using cPanel

If your host offers the cPanel control panel.

1. Download the Theme to your local machine and extract it then you will find monolit.zip file in the extracted folder.
2. In cPanel File Manager, navigate to your Themes folder. If your WordPress is installed in the document root folder of your web server you would navigate to "public_html/wp-content/themes" and if you have WordPress installed in a sub-folder called wordpress, you would navigate to "public_html/wordpress/wp-content/themes".
3. Once you've navigated to the Themes folder in cPanel File Manager, click on Upload file(s) and upload that .zip file you saved in Step 1.
4. Once the .zip file is uploaded, click on the name of that file in cPanel, then in the panel to the right, click on "Extract File Contents", and that .zip file will be uncompressed.
5. Follow the instructions below for selecting the new Theme.

Install Monolit theme Manually (FTP)

To add Monolit theme to your WordPress installation, follow these steps:

1. Download the Theme to your local machine and extract it then you will find monolit folder in the extracted folder.
2. Using an FTP client to access your host web server.
3. Upload the Theme folder to the wp-content/themes directory provided by WordPress on your host server.
4. Follow the instructions below for selecting the new Theme.

We recommand using the first method to prevent file permission issue.

Selecting the Active Theme

To select Monolit theme for your site:

1. Log in to the WordPress Administration Panels.
2. Select the Appearance panel, then Themes.
3. From the Themes panel, roll over the Theme thumbnail image for the Monolit you are interested in to see options for that theme.
4. You can view more information about any theme by clicking Theme Details.
5. A live preview of any Theme (using your blog's content) can be seen by clicking Live Preview.
6. To activate the Theme click the Activate button.

For more detail on install and using a Wordpress Theme please read this tutorial: Codex - Using Themes

Install Required and Recommanded Plugins

After activating the theme you will see a submenu in your admin Appearance > Install Plugins. Click to checkbox and select to install then install and active all required plugins.

Before you can get started with your Monolit theme and have it look like our demo, you first need to add content to WordPress. There are two way to import demo data for the theme.

Notice: please make sure that all theme required plugins are installed and activated.

Method 1: - Using One Click Demo Import plugin intergrated in Appearance menu.

When installed and activated the theme and its required plugin named One Click Demo Import you can import demo data by follow these steps:

1. Log into your site as an administrator.
2. Go to Appearance -> Import Demo Data admin menu.
3. On Import Demo Data screen select data you want to import to your site then click to Import Demo Data button and wait until you get the success message.

With Full Demo Content (widgets included) demo data selected you don't need to follow Import Demo Widgets tutorial from Sidebars and Widgets section.

Method 2: - Using Wordpress Importer plugin.

In your downloaded theme package folder there is a file name /Demo Content/monolit.wordpress.2016-03-16-all-content.xml, it is the demo data xml file that was exported from our demo. It will be used in Wordpress Importer plugin to import demo data to your site.

There are also separated content files for each post type from the demo, was exported there if you only want import one of them. They are in \Post Types .XMLs/post_type.xml format.

1. Log into that blog as an administrator.
2. Go to Tools > Import (or Manage > Import in 2.7 or older) in the blog's admin panels.
3. Choose WordPress from the list. (You need install the plugin for the first time)
4. Upload the file using the form provided on that page.
5. You will first be asked to map the authors in this export file to users on the blog. For each author, you may choose to map to an existing user on the blog or to create a new user
6. WordPress will then import each of the demo pages, posts, portfolios, media, comments, categories and contact froms contained in this file into your blog.

After imported the demo content let setup your blog like our demo

Setting up your front page

1. Go to Settings > Reading in the blog's admin panels
2. In Front page displays option you will have two options
   • Your latest posts - If select this your front page will look like our blog demo page (listing posts from your blog)
   • A static page (select bellow) - Select one (Home page) of our demo pages that imported to your site before - Then your front page will look like our home demo page.
3. Click Save Changes button

Theme Setup Tutorial Video

When done your font page will look like this:

Or this for Your Latest posts option

For more details you can check this article:Creating a Static Front Page

Many of features has in our theme. Please take a look in total features.

1. Visual Composer: Drag and Drop page builder (save $34)
2. Woocommerce Compatible
3. Contact Form 7
4. WPML Compatible
5. Touch and swipe
6. Filterable Portfolios
7. 7 different style portfolio page (horizontal , vertical or parallax )
8. Limitless Options with Metabox Fields
9. Unlimited Color
10. Sidebar and full width page
11. Right or Left sidebar position
12. Fully Responsive
13. Awesome Icons font
14. Bootstrap 3.3.4
15. Much More ...

All our themes have support for Custom Navigation Menu, and here are quick instructions on how you can create menus for your site. http://codex.wordpress.org/Appearance_Menus_SubPanel

Building the Main Navigation menu

You must define a menu before you can add items to it.

1. Login to the WordPress Dashboard.
2. From the 'Appearance' menu on the left-hand side of the Dashboard, select the 'Menus' option to bring up the Menu Editor.
3. Select Create a new menu at the top of the page
4. Enter a name for your new menu in the Menu Name box
5. Click the Create Menu button.

Your new custom menu has now been defined.

Adding Items to a Menu

You can add different link types into your menu, these are split between panes left of the menu you're currently editing.

1. Locate the pane entitled Pages.
2. Within this pane, select the View All link to bring up a list of all the currently published Pages on your site.
3. Select the Pages that you want to add by clicking the checkbox next to each Page's title.
4. Click the Add to Menu button located at the bottom of this pane to add your selection(s) to the menu that you created in the previous step.
5. Click the Save Menu button once you've added all the menu items you want.

Your custom menu has now been saved.

Note The Screen Options allow you to choose which items you can use to add to a menu. Certain items, like Tags are hidden by default.

Customising Menu Items

Navigation Label 

This field specifies the title of the item on your custom menu. This is what your visitors will see when they visit your site/blog.

Title Attribute 

This field specifies the Alternative ('Alt') text for the menu item. This text will be displayed when a user's mouse hovers over a menu item.

Link Target 

Select "Same window or tab" or "New window or tab" from the pulldown.

CSS Classes 

Optional CSS Classes for this menu item
- Use menu-scroll-link class for on-page scrolling menu on Primary Menu (Main Navigation) location.
- Use external class for external link menu on One Page Menu (with Scrolling Effect) location.

Creating Multi-level Menus

When planning the structure of your menu, it helps to think of each menu item as a heading in a formal report document. In a formal report, main section headings (Level 1 headings) are the nearest to the left of the page; sub-section headings (Level 2 headings) are indented slightly further to the right; any other subordinate headings (Level 3, 4, etc) within the same section are indented even further to the right.

The WordPress menu editor allows you to create multi-level menus using a simple 'drag and drop' interface. Drag menu items up or down to change their order of appearance in the menu. Drag menu items left or right in order to create sub-levels within your menu.

To make one menu item a subordinate of another, you need to position the 'child' underneath its 'parent' and then drag it slightly to the right.

1. Position the mouse over the 'child' menu item.
2. Whilst holding the left mouse button, drag it to the right.
3. Release the mouse button.
4. Repeat these steps for each sub-menu item.
5. Click the Save Menu button in the Menu Editor to save your changes.

Adding Menu to Your Site

Monolit theme supports custom menus, you will be able to add your new menu to one of two Theme Locations: Primary Menu (Main Navigation) and One Page Menu (with Scrolling Effect).

1. Scroll to the bottom of the menu editor window.
2. In the section titled Theme locations, click the check box for the location where you want your menu to appear.
3. Click Save menu once you've made your selection.

Monolit Navigation Menus structure

This menu will display on most of your pages except pages with Home - One Page template, like this our demo page: Monolit - Home Image

One Page Navigation Menus structure

This menu will display pages with Home - One Page template only, like this our demo page: Monolit - One Page Image

You can also add new theme locations to your site on Monolit Options menu -> General tab and Multi Menu Locations field.

Then assign it to page, post, portfolio using Scroll Navigation Menu metabox field.

And On-Page scrolling menu will look like this.

For more detail in creating wordpress menu please read this guide: WordPress Menu User Guide

To add a widget in your theme’s Monolit, navigate to Appearance > Widgets. The big panel on the left side shows all available widgets. The small panels on the right are the widgetized areas. Total 4 widgets are available.

1. Main Sidebar
2. Page Sidebar: This sidebar only is available in page templates
3. Member Sidebar: This sidebar only is available in member pages
4. Footer Columns Widget
5. Social Share

Screenshot:

Import Demo Widgets

Search in Theme Downloaded Package (extract zip file first) > Demo Content you will find monolit-widgets.wie file, is our demo widgets content exported and included in the package.

To use the exported file you must install new plugin call Widget Importer & Exporter

1. Go to Tools > Widget Importer & Exporter submenu.
2. Use Choose File button under Import Widgets section select the file then click to Import Widgets button.
3. When done you will have blog sidebar like our demo.

Sidebar Widgets Configuration

To make Main Sidebar and Page Sidebar widgets available you need change Blog Layout option in Monolit Options panel to Left or Right Sidebar. Or change layout for individual post or page using Single Layout option when editing post and page template (Page Right Sidebar, Page Left Sidebar template).

For more details in creating wordpress widgets please read this guide: WordPress Widgets

Visual Composer for WordPress by WP Bakery will save you tons of time working on the site content. Now you’ll be able to create complex layouts within minutes! It’s build on top of the modern technologies – get the best for your lovely website!

Have you ever noticed how much time you spend fighting with [shortcodes]? No more trial and errors with “shortcodes magic” – Visual Composer will take care of that.

Add columns/elements with single click, then use your mouse to drag elements around to re-arrange them.

“Visual Composer″ comes as a part of Monolit.

Please visit CodeCanyon and Plugin Website for more details.

Monolit come with 7 homepage variants, 2 about pages, 2 contact styles, 5 portfolio layouts and 20+ portfolio items. They all were built with Visual Composer plugin. In this section we will help you build a page step by step.

Notice that if you use One Click Import Demo Data button or Wordpress Importer to import exported xml demo data file your don't need follow this section.

Build A New Page with Visual Composer

1. Go to Pages > New Page
2. Click on Publish

See a screenshot for add new page

In visual backend editor mode you can edit everything with the edit icon

There are also some general options in metabox panel to config your page look as desire.

You can find shortcode content for demo pages from downloaded package then Demo Content > Page Shortcode Content folder.

Please open them in code or text editor the copy its content to your page editor.

Create new page using demo shortcode content

For more info about the Visual Composer plugin please read its documentation from \Documentation - Visual Composer/0 - README FIRST.html file

Create Portfolio pages:

1. By default your portfolios list page is your_domain.com/?post_type=portfolio (as in our demo: http://demowp.cththemes.net/monolit/?post_type=portfolio )

Or your_domain.com/portfolio/ (as in our demo: http://demowp.cththemes.net/monolit/portfolio/ ) if Post name option was checked on wordpress Permalinks setting screen.

And to change layout for this portfolio archive type you show go to Monolit Options -> Portfolio tab:

The options will be used in portfolio category page also http://demowp.cththemes.net/monolit/portfolio_cat/design/

2. Create portfolios list page using portfolio page templates.

There are three types of portfolio page template:

1. Portfolio Horizontal - for horizontal layout: http://demowp.cththemes.net/monolit/portfolio-horizontal/
2. Portfolio Vertical - for vertical layout: http://demowp.cththemes.net/monolit/vertical-3-columns/
3. Portfolio Parallax - for parallax layout: http://demowp.cththemes.net/monolit/portfolio-parallax/

all these portfolio pages will use options from page metabox options panel.

Portfolio Item Settings

All Visual Composer shortcode content for portfolio style can be found from Demo Content > Portfolio Shortcode Content

Enable Visual Composer for Portfolio item

Create new Portfolio item using demo shortcode content

We are using a Redux Framework to make Advanced Options for the theme. Total 13 sections.

1. Import Demo Data tab:

When installed and activated the theme just click the button on this tab to import Demo Data (posts, page, custom posttype and media library) to your site.

2. General Options Tab:

In general setting you can change favicon icon, admin logo, SEO info on your site.

3. Footer options tab:

Your copyright info content.

4. Media options tab:

In this tab you can change your image sizes. After change these options you should regenerate your thumbnail to make it works.

5. Social Share options tab:

6. Colors options tab:

This tab contain options that controls your site color. You may need use font color on the option tab bellow to get desire result.

7. Fonts options tab:

8. Portfolio options tab:

In this tab have some general options that used for your portfolio page layout.

Options on Parallax Layout sub tab used if Parallax option was selected for Layout on the Portfolio tab.

9. Password Protected options tab:

This options tab is for post page which has Visibility option (in the right-top Publish metabox panel ) was set to Password Protected

10. Member options tab:

These options are for monolit_member pages only.

11. Blog options tab

Options for blog posts index, archive and single post pages.

12. 404 Page options tab

Additional message for 404 error page.

13. Custom CSS options tab:

Allow you add custom style to your site using Ace editor.

When uploaded and activated the theme you will receive a message that tell you need to install required plugins, just check to boxes under Monolit Add-on plugin and the others in the list then click install button.

The plugin will register two new admin menus.

• Monolit Portfolios: From this menu you can create, edit or delete your portfolio items. The portfolio can be listed as a horizontal grid, vertical grid or parallax layout depend on template selected for the page. And on Portfolio Settings tab for portfolio archive pages.
• Monolit Testimonials.
• Monolit Timelines.
• Monolit Services.
• Monolit Members.

The theme and its plugins come localization ready out of the box – all that’s needed is your translation, if the theme does not come bundled with one for your language.

There are several methods to create a translation, most of which are outlined in the WordPress Codex. However, we find the easiest method is to use a plugin called Loco Translate. More advanced users can use PoEdit. Both methods are covered in this doc.

Before you begin

The theme includes a language file (.po or .pot file) which contains all of the English text. You can find this language file inside the theme folder in \Root/wp-content/themes/monolit/languages/.

Set up Wordpress

WordPress needs to be told which language it should run under.

1. Go to: Dashboard > Settings > General and change the Site language.

Once this has been done, the theme will be displayed in your locale if the language file exists. Otherwise you need to create the language files (process explained below).

Translating with Loco Translate

Loco Translate is a free plugin that you can download here. You can also add directly from the WordPress administration, in Plugins > Add New.

Once you downloaded and installed Loco Translate, a new “Loco Translate” menu item is created with two sub-sections. By default the “Manage Translations” section will list all your themes and plugins and will display all available translations for each of them:

Loco Translate Listings

You can easily add new languages to a theme or a plugin using the Add New Language link:

Loco Translate: add new language

Then choose the language to add in the list, or enter the language ISO code (ex: fr_FR, en_US etc…), and select the folder to add the translation files to, and hit Start Translating:

Loco Translate: create new language

Finally start translating, and save when you finish:

Loco Translate: Start translating!

Translate theme and plugins using Loco Translate plugin

Change Portfolio path using Loco Translate plugin

Translating with PoEdit

PoEdit is a more advanced alternative to Loco Translate. Only advanced users should attempt this method.

Monolit comes with a POT file which can be imported into PoEdit to translate

To get started open PoEdit and go to File > New catalog from POT file. Once you have done this, choose monolit.pot and PoEdit will show the catalog properties window:

Enter your name etc so other translators know who you are and click ‘ok’. After this you will be prompted to save your .po file – name it based on what you are translating to, for example, a GB translation would be saved as en_GB.po . Now the strings will be listed.

After translating all strings you can save – the .mo file will also be generated automatically.

Translate the strings

Update your translation

After updates, you can update your po file by opening it and then going to Catalog > Update from POT file. Choose the file and it will be updated accordingly.

Envato Market plugin was integrated with this theme to help you update it automatically when a new version release.

To use this plugin you should install it as required plugin for Monolit theme. Navigate to Appearance -> Install Plugins submenu and check to Envato Market plugin to install and active it.

Envato Market plugin screen:

You will need to generate a personal token, and then insert it to Token field:

You can also use Envato Wordpress Toolkit plugin for this purpose.

API Key

You will need to generate an API key to link your WordPress site to your Themeforest account.

Login to Themeforest, go to your dashboard and click on “My Settings.” The API Keys screen allows you to generate a free API key.

Install Envato WordPress Toolkit Plugin

When install and active the theme you will see a message on the top area that recommand install Envato Wordpress Toolkit plugin, just click to Begin Installing plugin to install and active it.

A new menu item, Envato Toolkit will appear in the admin sidebar. Click on the sidebar link and enter your marketplace username and secret API key. Click Save Settings.

All of your theme purchases will now appear on this page after it refreshes.

Theme Updates

The plugin will now alert you to theme updates – so long as you check the toolkit settings regularly.

Click on install automatically beside each of your themes to automatically update them.

Auto Update theme using Envato Wordpress Toolkit plugin

If you like our work, Please rate it 5 stars on Themeforest by Visiting your Downloads Page: http://themeforest.net/downloads We appreciate your help :)

Thanks all of you who stay with us, your co-operation is our inspiration.