Getting Started with Beckett

Do you need help installing or updating Beckett?

Sample Content

If you’d like to start with some example content, here’s the content from the demo. Download and unzip the file. Then use the Tools → Import tool in your WordPress admin. Need step by step directions?

Download Demo Content

Upload Your Own Logo

You can upload your own logo image by opening up the Customizer under Appearance → Customize. Then click the Site Title & Tagline tab. There you will find the “Logo” image upload field.

Under this tab you will also find the Header Text field. This is a good place to display your company phone number or social links as seen in the demo.

Creating the Main Menu

In your WordPress admin, click on “Menus”, which is located under the “Appearance” tab on the left. Start by creating a new menu in the panel on the right. Once the new menu is created you can add pages, categories, and custom links from the panels on the left. You can then re-order and create submenus by dragging the menu items. When you’re finished, click the “Save Menu” button.

Setting Up the Home Page

Beckett comes with a versatile homepage template that is designed to highlight your important content. To set up the homepage, first create a new page and name it something like “Home”. As you’re creating this page, select the “Home” page template in the Page Attributes box found in the right column. After you publish your page, go to Settings → Reading. For “Front page displays”, choose a static page and select your newly created “Home” page, then save your settings.

home_page_template

The content of the homepage template is broken into sections. Below is an explanation of how you can customize each section.

Homepage Slideshow: You can add and manage slides under the “Slides” tab in the main WordPress admin menu. Each slide will display the content of that slide and the featured image as a background. The recommended image size for the featured image is: 1300px x 700px. These are not exact image size requirements, so feel free to experiment with different dimensions.

Widget Area: In this section you can add widgets. Goto Appearance → Widgets and drag your desired widgets to the Home Template widget area. The custom Service widget works nicely in this area as you can see in the demo. Lean more about it below.

Recent Projects: Here you can show off your recent portfolio projects. You can change the heading of this section under Appearance → Customize → Homepage. Creating portfolio projects is explained below.

Recent Posts: This section highlights your latest blog posts. You can change the heading of this section under Appearance → Customize → Homepage → Recent Posts.

Testimonials: Here is where your Testimonials will be displayed. You can set a background image for this section under Appearance → Customize → Homepage → Testimonials. Creating testimonials is explained below.

Featured Content: This section shows the featured image, title, and excerpt for each page you choose to feature. You can feature a page by giving it the tag: featured. You can edit the heading for this section under Appearance → Customize → Homepage → Featured Content.

Static Content: Here the static content of the homepage will be displayed. To add or edit this, open up your “Home” page for editing and add text, images, etc. to the content editor.

Setting Up a Blog

If you’ve followed the steps above to set up your home page, you’ll probably want to display your posts on a different page. You can easily do this by creating a new page and giving it a name like “Blog”, “News”, or whatever you’d like to call it. After you publish your page, go to Settings → Reading. For “Front page displays”, choose your newly created “Blog” page for Posts page. Save your settings.

Then in your theme options under the Blog tab, choose your blog page, and save.

Building your Portfolio

This theme uses a custom post type called “Projects” to help you manage your portfolio. To set up your portfolio page, create a new page and select the “Portfolio” page template. To add a new portfolio piece, select “Add New” under “Projects” in the left hand menu. Use the main text editor on the Project edit page to insert the main images or video for your project. Ideal image width is 900px, but if your images are larger they will be sized with the fluid layout.

Skills

When creating a project, it’s important to assign it to a skill. Skills are categories for your projects and they are used to form the project filter navigation. You can find the “Skills” box in the right column.

Thumbnail Image

To create the thumbnail for your project, use the “Featured Image” box found at the bottom of the right column. Use the popup window to upload an image, and then click “Use as featured image”. The image that you upload should be large since it will also be used as the background for the header on the single project page. The recommended image width is: 1700px. These are not exact image size requirements, so feel free to experiment with different dimensions.

Adding Testimonials

To create a new testimonial, go to Testimonials → Add New. Testimonials are composed of a Featured Image, title (the person’s name), and their quote, which is added to the content editor. Recent testimonials will be displayed on the homepage in the “Testimonials” section.

Social Links

You can easily create social links by adding a couple of special classes to an HTML a tag. Here’s an example of a Twitter link:

<a href="your-url-goes-here" class="fa fa-twitter"></a>

Create multiple links like this:

<a href="your-url-goes-here" class="fa fa-twitter"></a>
<a href="your-url-goes-here" class="fa fa-dribbble"></a>
<a href="your-url-goes-here" class="fa fa-instagram"></a>

An ideal place to add social links is in a text widget or in the Right Footer Area, which can be edited under Appearance → Customize → Footer.

Buttons

Adding buttons to your content is easy. First, add a link. Then switch over to the Text tab so you can edit the HTML. To turn your link into a button, simply add the button class like this:

<a href="your-url-goes-here" class="button">This is a Button</a>


Service Widget

Beckett comes with a custom widget called Service. This widget is designed to highlight services that your company might offer. The widget comes with Font Awesome icons built-in. To set an icon, simply enter the Font Awesome icon name in the Font Awesome field. For example: fa-desktop. You can see a full list of the icons here.