CrowdPress

Before you Install the CrowdPress Theme

To install this theme you must have a working version of WordPress and the IgnitionDeck Crowdfunding plugins already installed, registered, and set up.

Installation

Download the CrowdPress Theme from your IgnitionDeck Dashboard.  There are two ways to install a WordPress theme:

WordPress Upload: Navigate to Appearance > Themes > Add New > Upload Theme. Click the Choose File button, select the crowdpress.zip file from your computer and click the Install Now button.  Once the theme package has been uploaded, WordPress will prompt you to activate the theme.

FTP Upload: Unzip the crowdpress.zip package. Using your FTP program, upload the resulting theme folder to your wedsite’s /wp-content/themes/ directory.  Then log into your WordPress Dashboard, navigate to Appearance > Themes and activate CrowdPress.

For more information on using WordPress themes, see WordPress.org’s Documentation.

Create a Featured Project Type

To make use of CrowdPress’ ‘Staff Picks’ functionality, and the Home Page Flipping Slider, create a Project Type with the slug  ‘featured’ by going to the Projects > Project Types screen. Featured Project Type name and description can be anything you want, as long as the slug is set correctly to ‘featured.’

Create Your Home Page with Proper Page Layout.

Create your Home Page.  This can be called anything you like, but you should select the “HOMEPAGE” Page Layout in Page Settings, below the main content editing area.

Choose Your Home Page’s Featured Campaigns Style/Text and Number of Campaigns to Display

There are a few other settings in the Page Settings area (below your Home Page’s main content editor) that sould also be configured before moving on.

  • Featured Campaigns Style (Shows Up Prominantly Near the Top of Your Home Page): 
    • No Featured Campaigns – This will result in your Home Page not having any of the other following options.
    • Classic Flipping Slider – This is a slider which shows the most recent Featured Project (via Project Type) in each Project Category and rotates through them using a page-turning animation effect.
    • Featured Panels – This is a responsive-ready slider which shows your site’s Featured Project (via Project Type) in order (most recent first), allowing site vistors to easily browse all Featured Projects.
    • Campaign Grid – This shows a clickable mosaic made from all your site’s project featured images chosen randomly.
  • Campaign Grid Text:  If you choose Campaign Grid, a message entered here will float on top of your Campaign Grid image mosaic. You may also leave this blank.
  • The Latest Projects Title: This is the heading that appears below your slider/featured campaigns above the recent projects grid.
  • Number of Latest Projects to display: The number of recent projects shown on your Home Page. The CrowdPress project grid has 3 columns. 
  • Sort the “Latest Projects” by: Random, newest first, or oldest first.
  • Header Image: This is an optional, decorative banner-shapped image which displays behind your Header Text (next step). Recommended dimensions are 219px tall and 2000px wide.  In responsive mode, the smaller the screen, the more of this image will get cropped, both horizontally and vertically.
  • Header Text: This is an optional area for a prominent heading or message which shows up near the top of your Home Page, below your site’s logo and navigation menu, but above the slider/featured projects area.
  • Parallax Effect: When this is turned on, your header text and background image will scroll at slightly different speeds, creating a 3-D effect.

Create a Posts/Blog Page, IgnitionDeck Purchase Page, Contact Page and Others.

At this point, it’s a good idea to set up some of the pages you will want to have on your site. Some of these are optional, but will be used in the steps that follow below for building your site’s Navigation Menu(s), and assigning your Home Page to load at your site’s main Web address.

Create the following pages:

  • Purchase/Pledge Page (Required): This is a checkout page for IgnitionDeck. This can be titled whatever you like. Once published, connect this page to your IgnitionDeck system by going to IDCF > Project Settings and selecting the page in the Default Purchase Page section.
  • Blog/News/Etc (Recommended): This will be used in the next section below.
  • About (Recommended): A place to explain the purpose of your site and/or organization.
  • Contact Page (Recommended): This is where you can have a contact form so your visitors can easily send you messages or enquiries.

NOTE: We recommend using the popular Contact Form 7 Plugin for your form builder, but there are many other options.  For instructions on how to build a contact form with Contact Form 7, see their documentation.

Set Your Home Page in Settings > Reading

Navigate to Settings > Reading.  In the “Front page displays” section, check the box for “a static page.” For “Front page,” select the page “Home” (created in previous step). For “Posts page,” select “Blog.”

Create Your Site Navigation Menus in Appearance > Menus and Assign to CrowdPress Menu Locations

CrowdPress has two Menu Locations: Main Menu (top of site) and Footer Menu (bottom of site).  In addition, CrowdPress will automatically detect that IgnitionDeck Commerce (IDC) is running on your site and insert your IDC Account Links (Login/Register/My  Account/ Log out).  For more information on implementing/customizing IDC Account Links see Default Pages and IDC Account Links.

  • Go to Appearance > Menus. Create your two menus and assign them to the “Main Menu” and “Footer Menu” locations.  Now you can populate your Main and Footer Menus with links to your pages, project categories etc.

NOTE: WordPress’ Menu Screen does not show all available content/link types by default.  For instance, if you wish to add Project Categories to your menus, you may need to use the Screen Options to un-hide Project Categories from your Menus Screen.

For more information on how to use menus in WordPress, please refer to WordPress.org’s documentation.

Customize Your CrowdPress Crowdfunding Site

We’ve included a number of options in the Appearance > Theme Options panel of your WordPress installation that will allow you to make your CrowdPress site unique.

  • General Styling (be sure to click the “Save Options” button near the bottom of your screen when you make changes to these settings):
    • Logo Replacement: Here you can upload your custom logo image. The default size is 300px wide and 109px tall or smaller.
    • Logo Height/Width: If you decide to use a larger logo image, you can set a custom height and width for your logo area here.
    • Custom Color: The color selected here is used in a number of places including links, the titles and stats of crowdfunding projects, and the “Staff Picks” indication that shows up over featured projects’ thumbnail images.
    • Sticky Header: When this is turned on, the site’s logo and navigation will remain visible at the top of the browser window as you you scroll down lower on pages.
    • Image Zoom Effect: When this is turned on, images will have a slight zoom-in animation effect when hovered over.
    • Disable Responsiveness: This turnes off the mobile/tablet mode of the site.  If responsive mode is disabled, all site visitors will see the full-size version of the site.  The width of the site will remain fixed at 1040px wide.
    • Boxed Style: If yes is checked, the site will have visible left and right edges.  The additional options for Body Background Color, Body Background Image, Body Background Repeat, Body Background Position will now take effect and control what appears to the left and right of (or behind) the site if the site is viewed with a browser window wider than 1140px.
    • Favican Replacement: Here you can upload a custom favicon for your site.A favicon is a 16px by 16px icon that web browsers display in various ways.
  • Homepage Slider: If “Yes” is selected under “Auto-cycle the slider,” and your Home Page is set to use the “Classic Flipping Slider” (above), the slider will automatically rotate through the Featured Projects at the interval selected in “Time between slides.”
  • Custom Fonts: Here you can select from a variety of Google Fonts.  Changes made here are site-wide.
  • Comment Disabling: We recommend turning off comments for Pages and Projects, but this is optional.
  • Footer:
    • Default Footer Widget Setting: Here you can select how many widget areas/columns you would like to have in your Footer, or disable them altogether. When activated, these correspond to the widget areas in Appearance > Widgets called “Footer Widgets – Column 1 (2,3,&4)”
    • Footer Background Color: This selects the main color for your Footer (where the bottom logo appears).
    • Footer Logo Replacement: Here you can upload a logo image.  Recomended size is 143px by 32px or smaller. This logo disappears on very small screens in Responsive Mode.
    • Left Text: This is intened to be used as a copyright or other short message.  Some basic HTML is supported here. The current year can be automatically generated and kept current by using the shortcode: [year]. This disappears on smaller screens in Responsive Mode.
    • Right Text: This is an additional short message area that can be used for an address, privacy policy link, or other short message. Some basic HTML is supported here. The current year can be automatically generated and kept current by using the shortcode: [year]. This disappears on smaller screens in Responsive Mode.
    • Disable the Footer Bar: This deactivates the area containing the Left Text and Right Text, but has no effect on the logo area or widget areas.
  • Breadcrumbs: Here you can turn off Breadcrumbs for posts, pages, and search results.  Breadcrumbs show up below the site header and above the content area. They tell the site visitor exactly where they are on the site using a format like this: Home  ›  Blog Category  ›  Blog Post Name
  • Other Options:
    • 404 Page Content: Here you can write a custom message that will appear below the text, “Page Not Found” when a vistor attempts to load an invalid URL.
    • Google Analytics Code: If you use Google Analytics, you can put your tracking code here and CrowdPress will automatically put it in the correct place.
    • Custom CSS Code: Here you can add custom CSS rules.  They will automatically be wrapped in opening and closing <style> tags and will load in the <head> of your site.

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