Auto WordPress Theme Documentation

Introduction & Installation

Introduction

Auto is a premium WordPress theme, available only on ThemeForest. It is specially designed for mechanics, repair and mechanic workshops, car repairs and handymen, but you can use it for any closely related businesses that will fit in. Auto WordPress theme has everything you need for a perfect website. Moreover, you'll be able to set it up and run with just a few clicks!

Installation

I assume you already have a fresh copy of WordPress installed on your server.

Download the theme zip file
The first thing you will need to do is to download the theme installation zip file.

If you bought the theme on ThemeForest, then you have to download the installable WordPress files only zip file from the ThemeForest download section.

Install the theme
You can install the Auto WP Theme in two different ways:

1. Upload a zip file - preferred method
   When you are logged in your WordPress dashboard go to Appearance » Themes » Add New » Upload Theme and select the theme installation zip file you downloaded from our Shop or from the ThemeForest and click Install Now button.
2. FTP upload
   Unzip the contents of the theme installation zip file and upload the extracted folder to your server to wp-uploads/themes/ folder using a FTP client.

Once your theme is on the server, activate it by clicking the Activate button below the preview image in Appearance » Themes

Congratulations! Now the Auto WP Theme is installed.

Updates

Automatic updates
You can register the theme and receive automatic updates. Go to Appearance » Theme Registration and follow the instructions on that page. This will register your copy of the theme and you will get update notifications in the admin dashboard whenever an update is available.

If you have any issues with the automatic updates, please go to you wp-admin to Dashboard » Updates and click on the Check Again button, to refresh the update data.

Manual update
You can also update the theme manually.

Customize the Appearance

You can fully customize the appearance of the Auto WP Theme. Go to Appearance » Themes and click on the Customize button:

The new window appears and you can now customize the appearance of your theme — upload your custom logo, change the base colors, enable/disable theme features, add custom CSS or JavaScript, etc.

Demo Content

One Click Demo Install

You can import demo content from our demo site (with blurred licensed images) with a single click of a button. Go to Appearance » Import Demo Data and click on the import button.

Import XML File

If you want to import the demo content the old-fashioned way, you can get a fresh copy of the XML file on our server at this URL: https://artifacts.proteusthemes.com/xml-exports/auto-latest.xml. Don't forget to activate all required plugins before importing demo data. To import the demo data go to Tools » Import, click on WordPress (install the WordPress Importer plugin if not already installed) and upload/import the previously saved xml file (don't forget to enable the Download and import file attachments checkbox to also import the images).

Demo Widgets
After you import the demo content, you can also import widgets the old-fashioned way. The file for widget import is also located on our server: https://artifacts.proteusthemes.com/json-widgets/auto.json. Rename this file to auto.wie (mind the file extension) and use it in the plugin Widget Importer & Exporter. Go to Tools » Widget Import/Export and import the file.

After import setup
After you have imported the demo data and widgets, you should also setup these things:

• go to Settings » Reading, set the the Front page displays to a static page and select the front page and the blog page in the appropriate dropdowns,
• go to Appearance » Menus, select the main menu from the dropdown at the top and click on Select. Scroll to the bottom and set the Theme location to Main Menu (if there are more locations you can also assign other menus to those locations),
• go to Appearance » Widgets, and set Custom menu widgets, by selecting the correct menu (in footer and our services sidebars),
• optionally set other things (like logo, colors, ...). These settings can be found in Appearance » Customize.

If for some reason these URLs are not available, then all you need to do is download the All files & documentation zip from ThemeForest and you will find the content.xml and widgets.json file in the extras folder.

Header

Logo

The logo can be changed in our Theme Options - Appearance » Customize » Theme Options » Logo.

Favicon

Since WordPress version 4.3, the favicon setting can be found in Appearance » Customize » Site Identity, where you have to set the Site Icon option.

Header Widgets

You can put a lot of widgets in the Header widget area, but your header will look great with the following widgets:

Icon Box

With widget Icon Box you can put any kind of title with small text and image in the header. In our demo we use this widget for contact information which we think is very important for customers.

In this widget you can choose Title, Text and Icon from Font Awesome. You can also choose a link for the whole box. If you leave that field empty the Icon Box will not be click-able.

We give you few Icons to choose from but you can actually use any icon from 519 Font Awesome icons. Just paste the icon title in the Icon field and that's it. How cool is that?

More than one Icon Box widget can be used in the Header.

Main Menu

Main Menu can be set in wp-admin » Appearance » Menus. Theme locations for Main Menu is called Main Menu.

Navigation Widgets

Area next to the main menu which can be used for Social Icons or other smaller widgets.

Pages

wp-admin » Pages is the area where you will spend most of your time when building a site. We added a few tools in that process so you can create your pages easier and faster.

Page Templates

You can choose between 3 different Templates - Default Template, Front Page with Slider and Front Page With Layer/Revolution Slider.

Default Template: Just a default template for simple layouts and Page Builder. First you must choose the Page Builder option under the title and you are ready to go. You can add our widgets here, choose different visual styles and much more. More about that in the next chapter.

Front Page with Slider: This is a unique template which adds an option for a slider in the page options. It can be used with Page Builder. More about that in the Slider chapter.

Front Page with Layer/Revolution Slider: We don't include these two slider plugins with the theme but we make sure they work nicely, since we know our customers want to use them. When you activate this template there is a new Page Slider meta box in which you can put ID/alias from Layer/Revolution Slider.

Page Builder

Page Builder is a very powerful tool for making pages. Here is one example of how it looks:

You can make any kind of grid with adding new rows and inside them you put widgets. When you are finished with adding widgets you can also move whole rows up and down.

For more information on how to use Page Builder please visit Page Builder by SiteOrigin documentation page.

You should also watch this great short video course: Page Builder Tips.

Page Builder Row Style

Let's take a look at how we can style Page Builder rows.

To start off we have to click on "Edit Row" for the row that we want to style as shown on the image above. An "Edit Row" window will open, and on the right, there are three setting tabs: Attributes, Layout and Design. Here you can customize different things for this particular row.

In the Layout tab you can set the Bottom Margin, Padding and change the Row Layout to Full Width. In the Design tab you can set the Background Color, Background Image and other things.

To achieve the same design for the testimonial widget as on our demo page you have to click on Layout tab and set the Bottom Margin to 60px, Padding to 60px and the Row Layout to Full Width. Then click on the Design tab and set the Background Color to #f2f2f2.

Page Builder Widget Style

In this theme we added 1 new widget style. You can now choose to show bigger heading with line for almost all your widgets. This option can be enabled for all widgets in the page builder under the tab Design.

Page Builder Widgets

You can use almost any widget in the Page Builder. Let's take a look at a few not so straightforward ones.

SiteOrigin Editor Widget

SiteOrigin Editor will create for you the same editor environment as a normal WordPress editor does. You can use this widget if you want normal text editing options. The SiteOrigin Editor Widget is part of Site Origin Widgets Bundle.

Call to Action Widget

How do I add a button? With our custom shortcodes. You can find instructions in the Buttons section.

Featured Page Widget

Featured Page is a really simple widget that we use in Page Builder. All you have to do is to select the page and one of the two layouts we made for you.

But how do I change the image and text on the Front Page?

The image on the Front Page is just the normal Featured Image of the selected page. You can change that in the sidebar of every single page. Text can be changed in the Excerpt field which can be found at the end of the page settings. If the excerpt field is not there, you must click on the Screen Option (at the top of the page) and check Excerpt. For more info please take a look at the screenshot below.

Open Position Widget

Open Position is the perfect widget for listing your Jobs. This widget is very easy to use, with clear fields. If you want to use the collapse option with the widget you will need to insert Read More tag as seen below. This tag will hide everything beneath it and will add a collapsible Read More link.

Twitter Widget

This widget can be included everywhere - in page builder and in a normal sidebar. For that widget we use a normal WordPress Text Widget.

First, go on https://twitter.com/settings/widgets and click Create new.

Now choose your Username, height of the widget, Theme and Link color. When you are happy with your widget click on Create widget button. You will get the code which you copy and paste in the Text Widget in your WordPress site.

Slider

Building a Theme slider has never been easier.
You can create a Theme slider on any page you want. The only thing you must do is choose the page template Front Page With Slider (you can use this template even if it's not for the front page). After you select this page template there will be a new meta box at the bottom of the page which is called Front page slider. Now add your pictures, your text and your slider will be ready to go. This is an example from one of our themes:

Please take a look at this slider dimensions article for the recommended size of the slider images for this theme.

ProteusThemes Options

You can find all Theme Options in the Customizer: Appearance » Customize. This is a live preview editor for your page.

Here you can change:

• Logo
• Header
• Navigation
• Page Header Area
• Theme Layout & Colors
• Shop
• Footer
• Custom Code
• And Much More ...

Shortcodes

Buttons

For adding buttons you must use the button shortcode which looks like this: [button]Your Text[/button]
There are 7 options with different attributes - style, href, target, fa, corners, fullwidth, class and dashed.

Text: You can change the text of the button.
Example: [button]New Text[/button]

Style: You can choose between a few styles - primary, secondary, danger, success, info or default.
Example: [button style="primary"]Your Text[/button]

Href: You can add URL to the button.
Example: [button href="https://www.proteusthemes.com"]Your Text[/button]

Target: You can choose if you want to open the link in the same - "_self" or new - "_blank" window.
Example: [button target="_blank"]Your Text[/button]

Font Awesome icon: You can add a font awesome icon to the button.
Example: [button fa="fa-phone"]Your Text[/button]

Cornes: You can change the corners of your button to be rounded.
Example: [button corners="rounded"]Your Text[/button]

Full width: You can stretch your button to full width.
Example: [button fullwidth="true"]Your Text[/button]

Class: You can add extra custom classes to the button.
Example: [button class="btn-lg extra-custom-class"]Your Text[/button]

Dashed: You can add dashed style around the button.
Example: [button dashed="true"]Your Text[/button]

Icons - Font Awesome

Shortcode for Font Awesome is very similar to the buttons shortcode. It looks like this: [fa]
There are 3 options with different attributes - icon, href, target and color.

Icon: You can use any 519 FontAwesome icon. To set the selected icon, just get the title of the icon, for example "fa-phone".
Example: [fa icon="fa-phone"]

Href: You can add URL to the icon.
Example: [fa href="https://www.proteusthemes.com"]

Target: You can choose if you want to open the link in the same - "_self" or new - "_blank" window.
Example: [fa target="_blank"]

Color: You can set a custom color to your icon.
Example: [fa color="#ff00ff"]

So a Font Awesome icon shortcode with a home icon, linking to a page and opening in a new window/tab would look like this: [fa icon="fa-home" href="https://www.proteusthemes.com" target="_blank"]

Plugins

We also use and support some of the best plugins for WordPress.

Required and Recommended Plugins

You can install and activate these plugins by going to wp-admin » Appearance » Install Plugins.

The list of required and recommended plugins used in this theme:

• Advanced Custom Fields
• ACF Repeater Field (bundled)
• ProteusThemes Shortcodes
• Page Builder by SiteOrigin
• SiteOrigin Widgets Bundle
• One Click Demo Import
• Portfolio Post Type
• Contact Form 7
• WP Featherlight
• Breadcrumb NavXT
• Custom Sidebars
• WooCommerce

Contact Form 7

We use Contact Form 7 for our Contact Us page. This is the code from our demo:

<div class="row">
  <div class="col-xs-12  col-lg-6">
    [text* your-name class:form-control placeholder "First & Last Name *"]
  </div>
  <div class="col-xs-12  col-lg-6">
    [email* your-email class:form-control placeholder "E-mail *"]
  </div>
</div>
<div class="row">
  <div class="col-xs-12  col-lg-6">
    [tel your-telephone class:form-control placeholder "Phone"]
  </div>
  <div class="col-xs-12  col-lg-6">
    [text your-subject class:form-control placeholder "Service"]
  </div>
</div>
<div class="row">
  <div class="col-xs-12">
    [textarea your-message class:form-control placeholder "Message"]
    <div class="wpcf7-notice">Fields with * are required.</div>
    [submit class:btn class:btn-primary "SEND MESSAGE"]
  </div>
</div>

After that just place the plugin's shortcode into your Contact Us page.

WooCommerce

This theme supports basic WooCommerce integration.

Once WooCommerce is activated you will see this notice:

Click on Run the Setup Wizard button to begin the WooCommerce install. That will start the setup wizard, where you can set things like shop pages, store locale, shipping & tax and payments.

If you want to change some settings, you can change them in WooCommerce » Settings. There are many tabs at the top, you can configure to fit your needs.

Most of our themes come with our own demo products for the WooCommerce store and will be imported automatically when you import the demo content using our industry-leading One Click Demo Import plugin. You need to make sure that WooCommerce is activated at the time that you import the demo data.

However, you can (optionally) install the additional demo products by WooCommerce. Go to Tools » Import » WordPress and import the demo XML file which can be found in the folder where WooCommerce was installed on your server. Usually this is in wp-content/plugins/woocommerce/dummy-data/dummy-data.xml. Also check the Download and import file attachments checkbox, so that all product images will be downloaded as well.

When you're done, you should see the products:

When you are done with the settings, go to Appearance » Widgets.

Drag & Drop the WooCommerce widgets that start with "WooCommerce" to the sidebar called Shop Sidebar.

That's all, your WooCommerce shop is now ready!

Visual Composer

Visual Composer: Page Builder for WordPress is supported for our Auto theme from version 1.3 onwards, so in order to use Visual Composer, it's best to update your CargoPress theme to the latest version. (Note: We do not bundle this plugin with the theme).

We have converted our widgets to the Visual Composer content elements, so you can use them in the VC editor. You can add them to your site from the Add new Element menu. Our elements are marked with our ProteusThemes icon, so they are easy to spot.

Templates for Visual Composer

We've also made it very easy to create our original demo page layout templates with Visual Composer. You can choose from these pre made templates: Home Page, About Us, Contact Us, and Our Services. To recreate the theme Home Page you need to:

1. Create a new page and set the page template to Front Page with Slider and set the slider images below the editor.
2. In the Visual Composer editor click on Templates icon, click on Default Templates tab and then select Home Page template:
3. Publish/update the page.

Nested Visual Composer Elements

Some of our Visual Composer elements are nested elements. That means that once you select the element you will have to add its child element in order to achieve the desired result.

Let's take Social Icons as an example of the nested element. When you select the Social Icons element in the VC editor a window will pop up with just a simple option to open links in a new tab and a "container" will be displayed in the editor.

Now you have to click the + icon and add a Social Icon element, edit its settings (that will actually add a social icon to the page). With this method you can add as many social Icons as you want. And that's why we use nested elements.

Other nested elements are: Accordion, Testimonials and Pricing List. They all work on the same principle, they enable you to add multiple accordion items, testimonials and so on...

Breadcrumbs NavXT

The breadcrumbs in this theme are powered by the Breadcrumbs NavXT plugin.

All the settings for breadcrumbs can be found in Settings » Breadcrumbs NavXT. When you first access this settings page, there might be a notice, which has a link Migrate now at the end, just click it and it will take you to the correct settings page. Here you can define a separator (which should be empty by default for our themes), breadcrumb hierarchies for different pages (pages, custom post types, taxonomy, ...) and set other breadcrumbs related things.

Default Product Breadcrumbs

Let's take a look at how to setup the default breadcrumbs used on this theme for the Products custom post type. Go to Settings » Breadcrumbs NavXT and click on the Post Types tab. Scroll down to the Product section, and set the Product Root Page to Shop page and since we set the root page, we can also disable (uncheck) the Product Archive Display checkbox. Don't forget to save the settings.

Default Portfolio Breadcrumbs

To set the correct default Portfolio/Project custom post type breadcrumbs, you should go to Settings » Breadcrumbs NavXT and click on the Post Types tab. Scroll down to the Portfolio Item section, and set the Portfolio Item Root Page to your "Projects" page (where you list all your projects), then disable (uncheck) the Portfolio Item Archive Display and Portfolio Item Hierarchy Display checkboxs. Save the settings.

Footer

Last but not least there is our footer area. The footer area is divided into:

Footer Widgets

Footer Widgets is the place where you can add the last things to your page. You can add widgets in the Apperance » Widgets » Footer. There are also few options for that area in Appearance » Customize » Theme Options » Footer. You can changes different colors there.

Middle Footer

Middle Footer area is place for your additional information like social icons, supported credit cards, copyrights or some other text. Custom text for left or right of middle footer can be added in live customizer Appearance » Customize » Theme Options » Footer. In that area you will also find Back to Top button which can be turned off in the same place in customizer.

Bottom Footer

The Bottom Footer area is the place for copyrights or some custom text. Custom text for the left and right side of the bottom footer can be added in live customizer Appearance » Customize » Theme Options » Footer.

Translations

Manual translation

We have an article with a video on how to translate our themes.

WPML for Multilingual sites

This theme officially supports WPML. Head over to the WPML website, buy the subscription, then install the main plugin — likely the OTGS Installer Plugin. When prompted to download, install, and activate specific WPML plugins, make sure to install and activate these:

• WPML Multilingual CMS
• String Translation
• Media Translation

WPML’s setup wizard will also prompt you to install other plugins if it thinks you need them. For example, if this theme includes a WooCommerce-based site, WPML will prompt you to install WooCommerce Multilingual & Multicurrency. Install whatever WPML suggests installing.

Extras

Demo Images

All images used in Auto WP can be found on Shutterstock.

Customizations

If you need advanced customizations for this theme, we can do that. See our Theme Customization page for details.

Changelog

View the Auto WP changelog.

Support

If you need more help after all, you can write to us.