To save myself the headache of editing a new docs.html file for every premade I’ve decided to put the installation guide on the site for easier access. You’ll find an easy step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress theme in addition to creating your own custom menus below.
There are two ways to install WordPress themes on your website and they are as follows.
Step One: Installation
FTP:
Extract the theme zip file (example: sin21-wp-tb103.zip) and upload the extracted theme folder to the /wp-content/themes/ directory of your WordPress installation.
WordPress Dashboard:
In your admin panel, go to Appearance → Themes and click the Add New button at the top of the page. Then click the Upload button at the top of the page. Choose the sin21-wp-tb103.zip file from your computer and click Install Now.
Step Two: Activate Theme
After installing the theme, you must activate it. In your admin panel, go to Appearance → Themes and hover over the theme’s preview thumbnail. Click the Activate button next to the theme’s name.
▸ Recommended plugins: Classic Editor and Classic Widgets
▸ Gutenberg Editor Disclaimer: My WordPress themes often disable the following default WordPress styles, including relating styles for the Gutenberg Block Based Editor: wp-block-library, wp-block-library-theme, wc-blocks-style, global-styles, classic-theme-styles.
Tip: To read more about installing themes correctly: WordPress Adding New Themes.
Creating WordPress Menu
All of my WordPress themes come with the built-in Custom Menu feature offered by WordPress. Nearly all of my themes offer 2 Types of menus: a primary menu and a social icons menu. Many of my themes also offer child menu support better known as a “Dropdown Menu” as well, while some do not.
Here is how to set up your own custom menu:
Primary Menu (Main Menu)
This menu allows for link children. If a link has children it will allow for a dropdown menu to appear when the link is hovered over in desktop mode and usually a clickable slide-out feature in mobile.
Anything deeper than one level of link children will not be shown and/or break the menu altogether. This may not apply to themes created by different designers but it does apply to my own.
- WordPress menus can be found under Appearance → Menus.
- If you don’t have a menu already, click create a new menu to create one.
- On the left side of the Menu page, choose the pages/posts/links/categories to add to your menu and click Add to Menu.
- Now that you have the menu created, you need to assign it to the Primary Menu in the Theme Locations section.
- Save the menu when finished.
Social Icons Menu
- To add a social icons menu, go to Appearance → Menus.
- If you don’t have a menu already, click create a new menu to create one.
- On the left side of the Menu page, click the Custom Links menu item to add to your social links.
- Add the URL for each of your social profiles and a label for the link. The theme will do the work for you by detecting which site you are linking to and display the matching icon accordingly.
▸ Sin21 Themes Support 33 Sites: email (/contact/, /contact or mailto:), RSS Feed (rss, feed=, /feed/ or /feed), apple.com, blogger.com, bsky.app, dailymotion.com, deviantart.com, discord.com, dropbox.com, ebay.com, etsy.com, facebook.com, flickr.com, google.com, pay.google.com, plus.google.com, goodreads.com, instagram.com, messenger.com, patreon.com, paypal.com, skype.com, snapchat.com, soundcloud.com, spotify.com, tiktok.com, threads.com, tumblr.com, twitter.com, twitch.tv, vimeo.com, vk.com, yahoo.com, youtube.com, weibo.com, wikipedia.com, wordpress.com, x.com
- Now that you have the menu created, you need to assign it to the Social Icons Menu in the Theme Locations section.
- Save the menu when finished.
Tip: To read more about using the WordPress menus: WordPress Menu User Guide.