How do I get started customizing my new theme?
Customizing the look of your blog is all done inside the PPP Platinum Control Panel, located in the Appearance menu.
So, I just tell you I like a font on this blog, a gallery on this other blog, and the colors on this one blog, and the layout on some other blog, and you do it all?
No. We don't currently offer a customization service. You are responsible for customizing the look of the blog; including colors, fonts, and layout. With the Works package, we'll set up the software, but customization is still your responsibility. That's why we built the PPP Control Panel, to allow you to easily customize your theme without touching any code. You'll just need to crop your slideshow images to 984 pixels wide and choose your height, and upload the images directly to the PPP control panel. You choose your colors and fonts in the control panel, and you can even upload custom font files. Of course, we can help you with any questions about customizing your theme. If you really want us to customize the blog for you, email us for an estimate.
Can I still edit the code if I want to?
Absolutely! If you just want to enter some custom CSS code, create a file called "my.css" in the theme directory, and add your CSS to that. PPP will automatically recognize it and apply the code after all the settings in the control panel are loaded. In other words, you can use the my.css file to override anything that you can't seem to get just right by using the control panel. PhotoPressPro-Tip: If you don't have the Firebug plugin for Firefox yet, we highly recommend it. It allows you to click on elements of the page to see all the CSS code that is affecting that element. Then you can copy the code and paste it in your my.css file and edit away.
If you need to use custom PHP code for some reason, you can create a file called "my.php" and add it there.
However, if you want to change any of the other files, be aware: we update PhotoPressPro quite often, so any changes you make to the code may possibly break future versions of PPP. All theme customizations should be done through the PPP Control Panel… if you find yourself needing to edit some code, send us an email first and hopefully we can accommodate your needs in a future update.
Are there any shortcuts to formatting the text on my blog?
Sometimes a wide, single column layout isn't the best option for your text. Starting with Platinum2, we've included some CSS classes to help you format your text in a readable way. You'll need to edit your post or page in HTML mode to use these classes.
Wrap your text in <div> tags like this:
<div class="alignright">Your Text Here</div>
Use the classes alignleft and alignright to float boxes.
To create columns, use the classes half-1, half-2, third-1, third-2, third-3, third-1-2, and third-2-3 to format your boxes.
How can I add a favicon to my blog?
First, you need a “favicon.ico” file. If you don’t have one yet, you can create one in Photoshop by following this tutorial, or you can use an online generator like favicon.cc and upload your image. Once you have the “favicon.ico” file already, you just need to upload it.
In the newest version of PhotoPressPro Platinum (2.0), you can upload the favicon using the Control Panel. It's the last tab under Images.
In the Classic theme, you can FTP to your web host and drop the favicon in your /public_html directory (or your blog's main directory if different).
Why is my Categories menu not showing any categories?
The Categories menu will only show categories that have posts assigned to them. If all of your posts are Uncategorized, nothing will show up in the menu.
If I add a widget to my menu, everything goes away but the one widget. If I remove it again, I end up having a menu full of stuff I don't want, but don't know how to change. What's going on?
When you add the first widget to your Dropdown menu, everything on the default menu goes away. You can add all the default menus back by using these widgets: Pages, Categories, Calendar, Links, and Meta.
How do I add a Feedburner email subscription form to my blog?
First, go to Feedburner.com and go to the Publicize tab. Highlight and copy the code in the first box. Go to your WordPress admin, to Appearance > Widgets. Drag a Text widget from the left to the Dropdown Menu box on the right. Enter a title for your menu, and paste the code in the body. Click Save.
The links in my drop-down menu are not aligned with the headings of the menu. Can I fix that?
This is probably happening because the Fonts for the menu are set to "Center", under Fonts > Menu. If you set the alignment to Left, the links should line up nicely.
How do I add a "Subscribe" link to my menu?
Platinum2 has a built-in RSS Subscribe link for the right side of your menu. It can be customized and turned on/off on the PPP Control Panel under Layout > Menu. If you want a link elsewhere, you can add a PPP Simple Link widget called "Subscribe" and enter the URL for your RSS feed. If you're looking for a dropdown menu, you can try an service like AddToAny.com or Feedburner.com that will give you some HTML code. That code can be pasted into a "Text" widget on your menu. Also, you can search under Plugins > Add New for "subscribe widget" for many options.
Is there a way to show some pages and hide others appearing on the menu bar?
You'll need to use a Pages widget on your menu, instead of the default menus. But first, you need to make a note of the numeric page ID's of the pages you want to hide. You can get the numeric page ID's in the Edit Pages section of your WP admin, by rolling your mouse over the "Edit" link on each page. The page ID is the number at the end of the URL for each page.
On the Widgets page in the WP admin, drag a Pages widget to your Dropdown Menu area. Click the arrow at the top-right of the Pages widget. In the Exclude box, enter the numeric page Id's for every page you don’t want to see, separated by commas. Save your changes.
I would like to have a dropdown menu with several pages. One of the pages needs to have several other pages below it, in their own menu. How can I set this up?
First, you need to create your main pages, and then create each of the "child" pages. Then you can use a "Pages" widget in your dropdown menu.
We'll pretend that you want an "About Me" page, and a "Clients" page. And underneath the "Clients" page, you want a "Pricing" page and a "What to Expect" page. Create the "About Me" and "Clients" pages first. You don't have to put anything in the pages yet.. we'll just build up the menu and you can edit the pages later.
Now, start a new page called "Pricing". Look to the "Attributes" box on the right for the field called "Parent". Select "Clients" from that list and publish the page. Repeat the procedure for the "What to Expect" page. Now go to Appearance > Widgets in your WP admin and drag a Pages widget to your dropdown menu.
I have the Classic theme, and after updating to WordPress 3.1, my menu bar disappeared!
The menu bar is actually there, but you can't see it if you are also showing the new "admin bar" in WP 3.1. Your visitors can still use your menu, but when you are logged in and the admin bar is displayed, it is pushing the header down just enough to cover up the menu. You can turn off the admin bar when viewing your site, on your user profile. You can get to your profile by clicking your user name on the top right of the WP admin.
How can I disable comments for my entire site?
First, you'll need to disable comments for any new pages or posts you add in the future. Go to Settings > Discussion and find the option "Allow people to post comments on new articles". Un-check it, and save your settings.
Then, you'll need to disable comments on every post and page you've added thus far. Fortunately, there's a quick way to do that. On the Posts > All Posts pages, check the check-box on the top-left to select all posts. In the "Bulk Actions" dropdown, select "Edit", and click Apply. This will bring up the "Bulk Edit" box. On the right side there is a dropdown box labeled "Comments". Choose "Do Not Allow", and click Update. This will turn off comments for all the selected posts. If you have more than one page of posts, you'll need to go to each page of posts and repeat the process. That should hide all comments on existing posts. Repeat for your Pages.
What are my options for changing the comments?
You can change the layout and colors for comments in the PPP control panel. Click the "Colors" link and then on the the "Comments" tab. You can set the background and text colors for your comment box and individual comments, and then set different colors for alternating comments if you wish.
To change the layout, click the "Layout" link and then the "Comments" tab. You can set the height of your comment box and comment form, change to a side-by-side layout, and choose whether to show or hide your comments by default.
The "Show Name" and "Show Email" boxes in Layout > Comments and Comment Form will not let me check them. Why is that?
By default, WordPress requires a name and email for comments. You’ll see this if you log out and go to your blog and add a comment... it should show the name and email fields with the required marker (*) beside them.
If you don’t want to force your readers to leave a name or email when they comment, you can change this in the WordPress admin under Settings > Discussion. Then you can go back to the PPP control panel and turn the Name and email fields on or off, whichever you want.
When I upload photos on a post and go to my Gallery tab, I have to select each image, one-by-one, press "Show" to fill out the info, then "Insert into post". Is there a faster method of getting each image into the post?
Starting with Platinum3, 2 very useful buttons are located next to the "Insert Gallery" button. The "Insert All Images" button will insert all uploaded images using their current settings. The "Insert Slideshow" button inserts the slideshow shortcode with no typing required.
The images I upload for my posts are sized at 4x6 inch at 300 ppi, but they seem to be slightly blurry.
The images are not as sharp as they should be because they are being resized in the browser.. meaning, they are too large to fit in the body of the blog, so the CSS is shrinking them to fit. This will usually cause a loss of clarity.
There are a couple of things you can do to get around this. One would be to resize your images before uploading, to 960 pixels wide or less. 72 to 96 dpi (or ppi) is fine for the web, 300 dpi is print quality). A 4x6" image @300 dpi, when shown full-screen using the light box, is actually 1200 pixels by 1800 pixels.
Another option is to edit the setting for "large" images under Settings > Media to 960 pixels. When posting the image, always post the "large" version instead of the full version.
I can’t upload any images to the header, the header slideshow or the background. They are all properly sized but when I go to view them they do not display or a 404 error appears.
It sounds like the permissions for the wp-content/uploads/photopresspro folder are too restrictive. You can fix this by connecting to your site with FTP, or by using your web host’ File Manager.
From your main directory, open the wp-content directory, then the uploads directory. There should be a folder called "photopresspro". If not, create the folder. There should be a button or right-click command that allows you to update "permissions", or perhaps "chmod". What you want is the "chmod" level to be 755 or 777, or writable to the server.
I have an image to use for the background, but it is too big. What should I resize the image to?
If it helps, the width of the blog including the dropshadow border on the sides is 998 pixels. However, the size of your background image is pretty much a judgment call, and it really depends on how you want to place the image. If you want the background to be fixed (not scroll with the page) then you probably want it as big as possible. A lot of widescreen monitors have 1920 horizontal pixels... so if your image is fixed and centered, for example, and less than 1920 pixels wide, then the background color will show through on the sides. Which might be ok, depending on the image.
If you want a repeating background, you might need to play with different sizes and placements to see what looks right.
Can I have a proofing section with PhotoPressPro?
Sorry, no. There may be some plugins available, but WordPress does support password-protected posts and pages, so it's possible to create proofing pages using functions built-in to WordPress. Make a new page or post for each client, and set the password for the page in the Publish box on the top right of the editor - the "Visibility" link. Post the proofs to the page with a number before each (or add the proof # to the actual image). Somewhere on the post or page, ask your client to enter their order info in the comments. Or, you could create a custom contact form using one of many contact form plugins.
Does PhotoPressPro have built-in post galleries and slideshows?
PhotoPressPro Platinum2 version 3 and later includes a built-in Post Slideshow. You can customize the slideshow on the PPP Platinum2 Control Panel, on the "Slideshow" page. Post a slideshow by entering the [ppp_slideshow] shortcode in your post. Upload images to your post as usual; but instead of inserting them into the post, click Save and type the shortcode into the post body just like this: [ppp_slideshow].
Many options can be changed on each slideshow, by editing the shortcode attributes as follows.
Slideshow width / height:
[ppp_slideshow w=640 h=480]
Display time for each image: (0 to turn off autoplay)
[ppp_slideshow timeout=5]
Show thumbnails (true or false)
[ppp_slideshow thumbs=true]
Include or exclude images by attachment ID.
[ppp_slideshow include="1,2,3,4"]
[ppp_slideshow exclude="1,2,3,4"]
(You can get the attachment ID by hovering your mouse over the image on the media library page. Images must be attached to the current post or page.)
I have the option to disable right-click turned on, but if I left-click on the image it opens in a new window and then that image can be saved. Help?
That's happening because your images are linked to the .jpg files themselves. No copy protection can defeat that, since it's just giving the image to the browser. This is an option that's set when you post the images.
You have a few options to stop that from happening... first, you can edit each post and manually change the link URL of each image. Click the Add an Image button above the post editor and click the Gallery tab to see the images on that post. On each image's info, there is a "Link URL" box. You can click the "None" or "Post URL".
Instead of going through all that, you might consider installing the "Lightbox Plus" plugin. It ONLY works with images that are linked to the .jpg files, so don't edit any posts if you want to try it. Once it's installed and activated, clicking on a post image will open it in a "lightbox" overlay window in the middle of the screen, and the right-click protection still works for it.
I'm having trouble uploading images. I changed the permissions of the uploads folder to 777, but images still can't be uploaded. I have tried changing the permission in the themes folder, the uploads folder, the image folder, etc. but I still get the same message?
You might try deleting the photopresspro folder in your uploads directory and re-creating it with your FTP program. Sometimes the "owner" of a folder can get in the way. Some web hosts are very protective of WordPress installations, and we can’t fault them for that. Usually, you can log in via FTP and delete the existing photopresspro folder in your uploads directory, and re-create it with 777 permissions. When logged in as yourself, the folder is created with yourself as the owner, and this seems to be the key to upload happiness.
Some hosts, such as GoDaddy, use different terms on their hosting control panel. On these hosts, the "Execute(Directory)" permissions as well as the read/write permissions should be selected for the uploads/photopresspro folder.
How do I replace the default header image?
You can update the header and/or slideshow images on the PPP Platinum Control Panel, under Layout > Header.
What are the exact measurements for my header image(s)?
Your header and slideshow images need to be 984 pixels wide, but you can set the height yourself in the Header Slideshow section, above where you upload the images. By default, they are both 250 pixels high.
However, if you choose the "Image on Left" or "Image on Right" option under Layout > Header, your header image should be 328 pixels wide, and your slideshow images 656 pixels wide.
I have a colored bar above my blog header... how can I change or remove that?
You can change the top or bottom border color on the PPP Platinum Control Panel, on the Layout > Body page.
How can I change what shows up in the Footer?
The footer comes with some default content, but you can change all of it on your Appearance > Widgets screen. Open up the boxes on the right labeled "Footer left", "Footer center", and "Footer right". Drag some widgets from the "Available Widgets" box on the left side, to these boxes on the right.
How do I hide the Footer completely?
You can hide the footer under Layout > Footer on your PPP Platinum Control Panel. This feature was added for Platinum2.
I entered my website address in a PPP Simple Link widget, but when I click it, I get a "Page Not Found" error on my blog.
Check to make sure the link is posted correctly, and that it starts with "http://", and then the web address.
How can I add Facebook, Twitter, or Subscribe icons to my blog?
You might want to check out our Floating Icons feature. You’ll need to edit some code, but if you’re up for it, here’s how to do it. Make sure you have a backup copy of your theme on your computer before editing any code.
On the PPP Platinum3 Control Panel, go to the Other > Floating Icons page and click the button to enable the icons. At this point, you can go to your browser and refresh the blog to see a bunch of floating icons on the right side. You’re going to want to edit those links and probably remove a few, so the next step is editing the code.
Go to Appearance > Editor in your WP admin. Towards the bottom right, click the my.php link. You’ll see a bunch of lines starting with <a href and ending with </a>. Delete the lines you don’t want, and edit the href values to point to your own profile pages.
Can I add a Facebook "Like" button to my blog posts?
There are quite a few plugins out there that accomplish this. The easiest one we found that just works is simply called "Like", by Bottomless. It can be very hard to find in the plugin directory, but if you search for "Open Graph", it will be one of those listed. By default, it puts a button before and after your post, but you can change that under Settings > Like. There are probably several other plugins that will do it for you, but you may need to edit the settings if the plugin has a settings page.
I added a plug in called Sexy Bookmarks, but it doesn’t seem to be showing up for some reason.
The plugin may need to be configured. Go to settings > Sexy Bookmarks and look for the Menu Placement box. The "Posts, Pages, or the Whole Shebang" setting should be set to Posts, Pages, and Index ("Index" refers to the home page and archive/calendar pages).
How can I show my Twitter feed in my blog?
It really depends on how you want to show your Twitter feed. If you get one of the widgets from http://twitter.com/goodies/widgets (or HTML code from anywhere), you can paste it into your About Me section, which you can then place below your header under Layout > About Me. Or, if you’d like a widget as a drop-down menu, you can drag a Text widget to your Dropdown Menu area under Appearance > Widgets, and paste the HTML code in the body.
If you want a more uniform look, go to your Twitter page and look at the bottom right for an RSS feed URL. Copy/paste that, and then drag an RSS widget to your dropdown menu. Paste the RSS feed URL in the appropriate place, set your options, and your Twitter feed will look like another dropdown menu.
If neither of those is really what you’re looking for, try searching for “twitter” or “twitter feed” in Plugins > Add New for a lot of other options.
Why is the font that I uploaded not working?
Some fonts don't seem to be fully compatible with CSS. As long as the font is legally eligible for web embedding, we've had great success using the @font-face generator at FontSquirrel.com. If you have a TTF file, try making an OTF file, or vice-versa. You can also generate the EOT file required for Internet Explorer. Please consider clicking their Donate button if you find the service valuable.
I see PhotoPressPro has some SEO features, but will I need to install a separate SEO plugin?
PhotoPressPro’s control panel allows you to enter a site-wide meta description and keywords, and a box underneath each post to give a more descriptive title to the search engines. The SEO plugins handle much more. For example, many SEO plugins are the meta descriptions and keywords you can set for each post, as you can’t do that with just the theme.
I'd like to hide the title on all pages, but not on posts. Can I do that with PhotoPressPro?
Yep! It's not a control panel option, but you can paste the following code in the Custom Code box on your Platinum control panel.
.page-title {display:none}
We see many photographers adding keywords to their posts, like "Post Title | San Diego Baby Photographer". Is this a good idea for SEO? Can’t you use tags and categories to accomplish the same thing?
Yes, and yes. Tags and categories are both great places for keywords. The post title is also a good spot, but blogs can quickly get crowded with a lot of repetitive text. For this purpose, we included a box underneath each post where you enter the title that the search engines index, which can be different from the actual post title. This still gets the SEO benefits, but can clean up the look.
So, which do I use? Tags, Categories, or both?
The consensus around the web is that Google puts more emphasis on Categories than Tags, but that’s probably not much more than hearsay. For usability, if you plan on having a lot of categories, it’s usually best to set up a heirarchy with categories and sub-categories. With your Permalinks set properly, that creates URLs such as "blog/com/category/subcategory/". In addition to the natural navigational benefits, this should also help with SEO. Tags only have 1 level, so use them to include keywords that aren’t necessarily in the post title or categories, but have relevance to the individual post.
My blog title shows up in the nav bar and I don’t want it there. Is there any way to retain my blog title for SEO purposes, but prevent it from showing in the navigation bar?
You can change the menu alignment under Layout > Menu to something other than right-aligned with blog title, to remove the link on the left. It's hard to tell if it will damage your ranking with search engines. If you want to keep a link to the blog home page on your menu, but not with your blog title as the text, you can add a PPP Simple Link widget and use something short for the text, like Home or Blog.
If I remove the categories & tags on my posts under Layout > Timestamp, will that hurt my SEO?
That’s a good question – if they aren’t linked anywhere on your blog, that will definitely hurt SEO. You could put a Tags widget in your footer or menu along with Categories and that should minimize SEO issues, as they will still show up on every page and single post pages as far as the search engines can tell. Then again, it’s tough to know exactly how the search engines will behave, so it’s definitely worth setting up a Google webmaster tools account to track your search position with your keywords.
Can I make a blogsite with a custom front page (home page) with PhotoPressPro?
You can easily set any page as your "home page" using the Settings > Reading page of your WP admin.
Before doing that, you'll need to create 2 pages; one called Home for your home page, and the other called Blog for your blog. Then on the Settings > Reading page, you can choose the Home page as the "static front page", and choose the Blog page as the posts page.
How do I add a contact form?
We recommend installing the "Contact Form 7" plugin from Plugins > Add New in your WP admin. Once it is activated, it will add a section to your WP admin area at the bottom right called "Contact". Click on that and there will be some text at the top of the page that looks something like "[Contact form 1]". That text can be copied and pasted into a post, page, or widget.
To add the contact form to your dropdown menu, go to Appearance > Widgets and drag a "Text" widget from the left side to the Dropdown Menu area. Enter "Contact Me" as the title and paste the contact form text in the body. Click Save and refresh your blog in a new window.. you should now have a dropdown contact form. Be sure to test it to make sure you get the email.
How do I add a sticky post to my blog?
When you're editing a post, look in the "Publish" box on the top right and find the "Visibility" control. Click Edit, and tick the checkbox next to "Stick this post to the front page". You can also set this in the Quick Edit mode on the Posts > Edit page. Roll your mouse over the post title and click Quick Edit, and the "Make this post sticky" checkbox is on the far right.