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General Usage

In this theme we have enabled some additional options in your post editor which we think are really useful. Formats: Total Styles for text highlights, thin font & white text, plus color buttons Shortcodes: Add icons, a WPML language switcher, a PolyLang switcher, simple button, divider, spacing, staff social links or a shortcode for the current year…

Custom Editor Styles

The Total theme includes a powerful custom built (for Total only) metabox that allows you to tweak multiple aspects of the current page/post. This includes, but isn’t limited to, disabling page elements like the footer, callout, top bar…etc, adding a slider to the top of the page, changing the page background and altering the footer…

Theme Settings Metabox

Total includes an advanced function for creating local scrolling links. How to Create a Local Scroll Section The first step before creating a local scrolling link is to of course create a section that you are going to link to. You can do this by adding a new row via the WPBakery and adding a…

Local Scroll Links & Buttons

By default comments are disabled on pages because for most people it’s not needed. However, if you want to enable them it’s very simple. Go to Appearance > Customize > General Theme Options > Pages and here you can enable them. Enable Comments In WP Dashboard By default comments are disabled on pages on the WordPress…

Enable Comments For Pages

The Total theme includes a special format which will make it easy to add a checkbox list to to any page/post via the default text editor: Step 1: Create a List Start by adding a standard list in the text editor. Step 2: Select the format Then you can click on Formats > Total Styles…

Adding A Checkmarks List

By default in the Total theme the page header has a bottom margin to add space between the title and the content. However, sometimes when building a custom page you’ll want to have an area that touches right up with the Page title such as a slider or row with a background. To disable the…

Disable Page Margin

By default the WordPress editor hides the Font Family, Font Size, bold…etc from the post editor. To enable it simply click on the “Toolbar Toggle” button:

Enable Font Font Options In The Editor

By default the Total theme has buttons at the bottom of every page/post so you can quickly edit it while logged into your site. See screenshot below: To remove these simply log into WordPress and go to the Theme Panel and you can disable them from here.

Disable The “Edit Post/Page” Links

By default the Total theme does a pretty good generating excerpts for the Visual Composer modules, however, depending on how you are creating your pages these automatically generated excerpts may not be 100% ideal. In our live demos we create or posts in a way that allows for good auto excerpts but depending on your needs…

Adding Custom Excerpts

Total includes 2 built in formats for easily adding dropcaps to your site without the need of shortcodes. To use them simply highlight the letter you want to become a dropcap then click on the “Formats” link in the editor hover over the Dropcaps and select the style you want to apply and that’s it! See…

Adding Dropcaps

The Total theme includes a built-in shortcode for creating a login/logout link which you can add anywhere on your site (including certain options in the Theme Customizer such as the Topbar content field). Here is the very basic way of adding the shortcode to your site: [wp_login_url text="Login" logout_text="Logout"] And here are the accepted parameters: login_url –…

Adding a Login/Logout Link

The Total theme includes options located at Appearance > Customize > General Theme Options > Page Animations so that you can enable an animation whenever a page is loaded on your site. This is disabled by default (we personally don’t recommend it do to usability but was added as a highly requested feature). Simply choose your…

Page Load-In & Load-Out Animations

The way it works on ThemeForest (click here to view the bundled plugin docs on their site) is when a premium plugin (sold on Codecanyon) is included for free with a WordPress Theme you can use the plugin without any issues, however, if you want automatic updates and support from the plugin developer you need to purchase…

Understanding The Bundled Products License

NEW – Ajaxed Filter: In Total 5.6.0 we added a new Ajaxed filter function that will allow you to not only “show/hide” items in a grid but actually use ajax to query items based on your filter links. See the updated documentation here. In Total 3.5.3 we added the ability to create a custom filter…

Custom Grid or Post Cards Menu Filter Via the Navigation Bar Element

By default in WordPress whenever you query posts from the database they display in order of publish date with the most recently published item first. So by default your portfolio items will display based on when you added and published the portfolio post. If you want to re-order them there are a few options available: Re-order…

How to Reorder Portfolio, Staff, Testimonials or Other Post Type Entries

The Total theme has a built-in module that allows you to easily insert a grid/list of your WordPress users. You can display all users, admins only, authors only, contributors only or display users based on a custom role. Step 1: Open the page you want to add your users to via the Visual Composer First…

How to Display A Grid of your WordPress Users (authors, admins, etc)

The Total theme uses the classname “theme-button” to create buttons so you can add a button anywhere on the site including text widgets if needed. Step 1: Add your text widget and a link Simply add your text to the widget and then add your button text as a simple link like this: Step 2:…

How to Add a Button in a Text Widget (Footer/Sidebar)

When creating dynamic templates for your posts you may want to show related items at the bottom of the post. You can easily do this with the Post Cards element. Simply go to the Query tab and select the Related by Taxonomy option like such: Once you’ve selected the “Related by Taxonomy” option you can…

Show Related Posts in Dynamic Templates

Since Total 4.9.3 a new lightbox script “Fancybox” has been included with the theme which supports inline popups so that you can open any code in a lightbox including contact forms. This article will show you how to open a popup form via a widget. Note: You will need to install a contact form plugin…

How to Open a Contact Form in Lightbox Pop-up using a Widget

The Total theme is an advanced and highly modular framework built on hooks. This means you can easily modify theme parts via your child theme using add_action and remove_action functions such as this example. But, Total also caters to non-developers so if you are looking to insert a template or custom content via a hook…

Custom Actions Panel

Total 5.3 introduced a new Toggle functionality built-in that will allow you to show/hide sections, rows or specific elements on the page. This is accomplished in the following way: Create a Hidden Element that will be “Toggleable” First you want to create an element that you want to be “toggleable” (aka show/hide via a click).…

Toggle Elements (Show/Hide Sections, Rows and other Elements)

In Total 5.6.0 we added the ability to create an ajax filter for the Post Cards element via the Navigation Bar element. This will allow you to display categories or custom taxonomy terms that when clicked will sort the Post Cards element items with the selected item(s) without refreshing the page. Step 1: Insert the…

Post Cards Ajax Terms/Category Filter

By default the theme includes various bundled plugins and when you first install the theme you will be asked if you want to install the plugins or not. Whenever the theme is updated you may also receive notifications to update those bundled plugins. Now, let’s say there is a specific plugin you are not using…

Suppress Bundled Plugin Notifications

The Total theme includes the ability to assign colors to your categories, tags and custom taxonomies. Assigning colors to your terms allows you to do some cool stuff such as show colorful buttons that link to your post categories. Enable The Functionality By default this functionality is enabled but it’s a good idea to check…

Category (Taxonomy Term) Colors
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