If you decide to use the WordPress “Static Front Page” function, this theme gives you a few choices when it comes to styling your front page. Please note this works only when setting a static front page and does not work if your blog is set as the front page.
Header Option – Splash Page
This is a full browser window splash page that uses the WordPress Header Image functionality. You can have one photo displayed or you can add more photos and select the “Randomize” the header setting. This means that each time the page is refreshed, a different photo appears. This template also has a special Splash Menu location so that visitors can continue into your site.
Header Option – Featured Boxes
The featured boxes option lets you choose up to 4 featured images. Each one will point to a page that you setup where the image is actually the featured image for that page. The title of the page is the button text.
Header Option – Post Slider
This option lets you use any standard page template, or even the blog home page. This of course is the only exception that you do not need to use a static front page, you can have it show up on the blog home. The only thing to remember is that this post slider is coded to only show on the site’s Front Page.
Setup Your Front Page
If you decide to use one of these options, there are a couple steps, but the first is to create a page and to then choose the appropriate template.
- Create a page and call it whatever you decide, such as “Welcome” and then in the page attributes, choose the page template you want to use.
- You will need to create a second page for your blog, so we can call this one “Blog“. You just need the title for the page, no content.
- Go to Settings >> Reading >> set the front page to the page you created for it. Then set the page for the blog posts.
- Click Save
Now the next step is going to depend on what front page template you are using.
Splash Page
- Go to Appearance >> Header
- You get an image by default, but you can upload your own. When uploading, I recommend using the best quality photo and make sure it’s large enough. This function will crop your image to 1920×1200 pixels, so make sure your photo is at least that size. This is a showcase image, so make it a good one as this is used as first impressions.
- Click “Save & Publish” at the top of your customizer
Featured Image Boxes
- First thing is to make sure you have up to four pages with content and a featured image attached to each one.
- Go to Appearance >> Customize >> Theme Options >> Featured Box Settings
- Enable the Featured Boxes by checking the box next to “Display Featured Boxes”
- Now select the pages for each box. You can have 1 to 4, but generally I recommend at least 3.
- Click “Save & Publish“
Post Slider
- Go to Appearance >> Customize >> Theme Options >> Slider Settings
- Enable the slider by checking the box next to “Display the Slider”
- Choose a category to grab posts from. Note that this will get the latest posts.
- Choose how many slides to show
- Choose your slide excerpt size (how many words)
- Choose what you want to show on the slide
- Click “Save & Publish“
Finishing Touches
When you’ve setup your front page, don’t forget to go to your main menu and update it with the new Home and Blog pages.
Splash Page + Menu
If you are using the splash page option, you need to make a custom menu and then add whatever pages, or even a link to your blog. The menu location for this one will be the “Splash Menu” location under Menu Settings.