Handy Theme is a WordPress theme, therefore it is important to get to know WordPress CMS before you continue. If you are not familiar with WordPress please visit WordPress getting started guide

Installing the Theme

Once downloaded, unzip the compressed folder to see the structure of package.

Go to THEME folder, there you will find a packaged handy.zip, upload the package to wp-content/themes/ folder of your WordPress and uncompress it. Once uncompressed the theme can be activated.

Activating the Theme

Go to backend section of your WordPress site (http://link_to_your_site/wp-admin/), then go to Appearance -> Themes and activate the HandyStore theme).

Installing Plugins

When you click on "Activate" button to activate Handy Theme, you will see the a notice offering you to install required and recommended plugins. Click "Begin installing plugins", on the screen that appears, next select the plugins you want to be installed, pick "Install" in Bulk Actions select box and click "Apply" button. For optimal user experience install and activate all recommended plugins.

Installing Sample Data

After you activate your theme and install required plugins you may want to install sample data to make your site look like Live Demo of our theme, which can be found here: http://handy.themes.zone/. To install sample data go to Appearance -> Import Demo Data and press the Import Demo Data button. Make sure your hosting meets the php requirements needed for demo installation process to be succressful.

You may also want to import the demo slider, demo map, and demo vendors to make your site look exactly like our live demo. You can find demo slider and map files in the \required-plugins\dummy-data folder of your theme. We can provide you with demo vendors upon request at https://themeszone.freshdesk.com

To achieve the best site speed you need to choose good hosting. WP Engine servers are configured to run WordPress and WooCommerce sites as smoothly as possible, they are always up to date, simplest to configure and their support is just outstanding.

For all our clients here is a special offer from us, 20% discounts for:

• Personal Hosting Plan (Will be OK for small shops up to 20 products or 500 visitors per day)
• Business Hosting Plan (Will be good for medium shops up to 100 products or 10000 visitors per day)
• Professional Hosting Plan (Will be good for large shops up to 10000 products or 100000 visitors per day)

Creating a child theme

We strongly recommend you to create a child theme and use it for customizing Handy Theme. This way you can update Handy Theme and it's plugins without fear of loosing implemented changes.

Video tutorial on how to create a child theme for Handy theme:

function child_theme_enqueue_styles() {
wp_enqueue_style('parent-style', get_template_directory_uri().'/style.css');
wp_enqueue_style('parent-style-woo', get_template_directory_uri().'/woo-styles.css');
wp_enqueue_style('child-style', get_stylesheet_directory_uri().'/style.css');
}

add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'child_theme_enqueue_styles' );
			

Please, not that you might "loose" your menu after activating your child theme. Please, go to Appearance->Menus, check "Primary Menu (Under Logo)" option and hit "Save menu" to reassign the menu:

Handy theme supports default WordPress functionality, such as post types and page templates. This allows you build any kind of page, plus theme contains a lot of useful shortcodes and pre-built elements.

function child_theme_enqueue_styles() {
wp_enqueue_style('parent-style', get_template_directory_uri().'/style.css');
wp_enqueue_style('parent-style-woo', get_template_directory_uri().'/woo-styles.css');
wp_enqueue_style('child-style', get_stylesheet_directory_uri().'/style.css');
}

add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'child_theme_enqueue_styles' );
			

Theme menu, which is located in Appearance menu of your dashboard, is a powerful and easy to use tool which gives you control over various theme aspects.

Site Settings

Site settings is the first tab of our theme's menu.

Global Theme Options

• Select layout for site - switches the sites between Wide and Boxed regimes
• Site Breadcrumbs Switcher turns your breadcrumbs on and off
• Post Like System Switcher turns on and off likes for you blogposts

Header Options

• Choose background image for header sets your header backgound image
• Choose background color for header sets the color of your header

Top Panel Options

• Top Panel View Switcher switches on and off a small panel with menu items and location at the very top of our live demo site
• Choose bg type for header top section sets the type of background your header top is going to have
• Set background color of header top panel sets the color of header top background in case if solid color background has been chosen
• Enter info contents outputs text in the middle of your top panel

Logo Options

• Choose logo image option allows you to choose your logo file
• Select logo position option allows you to choose your logo location

Footer Options

• Footer shortcode section switcher turns on/off the shortcode-friendly area above the footer
• Choose background image for shortcode section sets the background image for the shortcode area
• Choose background color for shortcode section sets the background color for the shortcode area
• Enter shortcode this option allows you to enter shortcodes for the shortcode area
• Enter sites copyright - here you can enter copyright info for you site

Sidebar Positions

Handy Theme offers you a dynamic way of sidebar positioning. You can set both global and per page sidebar positions. To set Global Sidebar Positions go to Backend of your WordPress site (http://link_to_your_site.com/wp-admin/), then go to "Plumtree" panel, open "Layout Settings" tab.

The "Layout Settings" panel lets you set global layout settings for each type of page. You can set sidebar position to left, right or with out the sidebar. Front Page Layout lets you set the sidebar position for the Home Page, "Global layout for Pages" setting will set global value for all static pages present on the site. The "Blog Page Layout" settings will set sidebar position for "Blog" pages (Page that has blog posts listed). "Single Post View" controls the position of a sidebar on single post page (the Single Post page). Store Layout options lets you set sidebar position on Store Pages (Product Listing Page, Single Product Page).

You also can set Sidebar Position for each created Page. Open a static page for editing in the backend of your site, there you will find a "Layout Settings Widget", set the sidebar position in that widget and the global value for the sidebar position will be overridden.

Setting Colors and Fonts

Handy Theme allows you to change main theme color, text color, menu color and headings color.
Use Custom Color Scheme Switcher to enable color changes.

Handy Theme comes with a set of the best fitting font set. You can also add your own fonts to the theme.

RTL

Since version 1.1 HandyStore theme received basic RTL (right-to-left) support.

To activate the basic RTL for you theme copy the code from RTL.css file, which can be found in you theme package, to the end of your style.css file. Then flip the rest of elements (like sidebars, menus, logo) from left to right manually, using HandyStore theme's controls.

You can see an example of RTL css in our RTL live demo section:

Read more about Wordpress RTL Support: https://codex.wordpress.org/Right-to-Left_Language_Support

Multi Vendor

Since version 1.1 HandyStore theme received WC Vendors plugin support.

Multi Vendor WooCommerce Plugin by WC Vendors is a popular feature-rich plugin that allows other sellers to set up their own store on your WooCommerce based website. And it's free.

To use this plugin with HandyStore theme choose WC Vendor Template for the three pages, created by the plugin after installation:

After that your clients will be able to style their own shop page and sell their own products:

Please, read the WC Vendors Setup Guide for more info

This is a list of most common known issues you may encounter

Missing widgets

Please watch our detailed video tutorial on sample data installation.