This document covers the installation, set up, and use of this theme, and provides answers and solutions to common problems. We encourage you to first read this document thoroughly if you are experiencing any difficulties before contacting our support team.
WordPress Upload
To upload through your Dashboard, select “Appearance” and then “Themes”. Next, select the “Install Themes” tab at the top of the page and then select the “Upload” link, right above the search field. Choose your file and select “Install Now”. Once the theme is fully uploaded and installed, click “Activate” to activate the WordPress theme.
The theme files will be stored on your server in the wp-content/themes location.
When uploading your theme with the installer, please ensure you are uploading the theme .zip file, not the entire package you downloaded. In this case, you will be uploading phone-repair.zip.
FTP Upload
To manually upload your new WordPress theme, login with your credentials to your website and locate the wp-content/themes folder in your WordPress installation directory. Unzip the phone-repair.zip file and upload the un-zipped phone-repair/ folder into the wp-content/themes/ folder on your server.
Once uploaded, activate the theme by heading to the “Themes” menu in the WordPress Dashboard. Locate the Phone Repair theme and hit “Activate”.
To access the live Customizer, you may select the Customize button in the admin bar dropdown or select "Customize" from the Dashboard menu. Note that you must be logged in as a site administrator in order to access the controls.
Theme Options
Following are the options which you can edit in the Customizer.
1. Site Identity
Here you can edit your title and tagline. This is a standard WordPress functionality.
2. Colors
Here you can modify site background color and set text color for the title in the page header.
3. Header Image
Here you can upload and set your header image and choose some options on how to display it.
4. Background Image
Here you can set your site background image.
5. Menus
Here you can add, remove and modify custom menus to use on your site and set menu locations according to the theme.
6. Widgets
Here you can add, remove and modify widgets in the sidebar or footer.
7. Static Front Page
Here you can choose whether to display a static “Home” page or your latest blog posts on the front page of your site.
8. Phone Repair: Page Title
Here you can the default settings for displaying page title.
9. Phone Repair: Top Bar
Here you can add and edit the content which should be displayed in the top bar above header.
10. Phone Repair: Logo
Here you can upload the logo image which will be displayed in the header of the pages. You can also upload the "Light" version of the logo.
11. Phone Repair: Footer Copyright
Here you can set copyright text displayed in the footer of the page.
12. Phone Repair: 404 page
Here you can set background image for the "404 Page Not Found" error page.
You can manage your testimonials from Testimonials section in the Dashboard. This functionality is very similar to managing your Posts in WordPress.
You can manage your services in the Services section of the Dashboard. This functionality is very similar to managing your Posts in WordPress. You can list your items on the "All Services" page. You can add a new item on the "Add New" page. You can also manage your service categories on the "Service Tags" page.
Each service item has a title, text, featured image and categories associated with it.
FTP Updating
If you have not customized the original theme files then you may simply drop the updated theme folder contents into the theme folder on your server – which is located in wp-content/themes/phone-repair/.
If you wish to upload the entire updated theme as a separate theme, ensure you:
- Rename the updated theme’s folder (different from the current theme)
- Drop the renamed theme folder into wp-content/themes
- Switch to the new theme via your WordPress Dashboard
If you choose to upload the whole theme and switch to it, you may lose your Theme Customizer data and will have to add those back in.
FTP Selective Updating
On the other hand, if you have customized some files in the core theme contents, you should consider selective updating, which simply means updating only the files that are pointed out in the theme’s changelog.
There are a couple programs out there that will allow you to compare versions of files, in order to catch customizations you may not remember. Some recommended programs are WinMerge (Windows), Kaleidoscope (OSX), and handy GitHub (OSX) & (Windows).
Recommended
Overall, the safest and cleanest way to update your theme is to leave your currently modified theme on your server/site as is, rename the folder of the newly updated theme, upload the new theme, and modify that to match your original custom work. In this way, if something has gone wrong with the new version, you’re just a few clicks away from getting things back to how they originally were.
Please note that BrothersTheme is not responsible for content loss, database errors and such, which may happen to your WordPress install upon an incorrectly applied theme update.
A child theme is a theme that inherits the functionality and styling of another theme, called the parent theme. Child themes are the recommended way of modifying an existing theme.
Why use a Child Theme?
There are one main reason why you would want to use a child theme: If you modify a theme directly and it is updated, then your modifications WILL be lost. By using a child theme you will ensure that your modifications are preserved.
Installing the Child theme
Log in to your site's administration panel, and go to Administration Panels > Appearance > Themes. Click "Add New" and follow the directions to upload the phone-repair-child.zip file, which can be found inside the downloaded archive.
Next simply click "Activate" and both the Phone Repair theme and Phone Repair child theme will be active on your WordPress site. Now you're ready to customize away.
Note that this is the same exact method we referred to in the Getting Started section of this guide. You should see your child theme listed and ready for activation.
Customizing Template Files
If you want to change more than just the stylesheet, your child theme can override any file in the parent theme: simply include a file of the same name in the child theme directory, and it will override the equivalent file in the parent theme directory when your site loads.
For instance, if you want to change the PHP code for the site header, you can include a header.php in your child theme's directory, and that file will be used instead of the parent theme's header.php.
Child Theme Functions.php
Unlike style.css, the functions.php of a child theme does not override its counterpart from the parent. Instead, it is loaded in addition to the parent’s functions.php. (Specifically, it is loaded right before the parent’s file.)
In that way, the functions.php of a child theme provides a smart, trouble-free method of modifying the functionality of a parent theme.
Adding PHP Functions
Say that you want to add a PHP function to your theme. The fastest way would be to open the phone-repair/functions.php file and put the function there... But that’s not smart: The next time Phone Repair is updated, your function will disappear (as the entire contents of the /phone-repair/ folder are replaced upon an update.
However, there is an alternative way which is the smart way: you can create a child theme, add a functions.php file in it, and add your function to that file. The function will do the exact same job from there too, with the advantage that it will not be affected by future updates of the parent theme.
DO NOT copy the full content of functions.php of the parent theme into functions.php in the child theme. It's not a good practice by any means.
To learn more, read the this article on the WordPress Codex →
