1. Theme installation

1.1 Through Dashboard (Easy)

1. Go to Appearance -> Themes.
2. Click on Install Themes at the top.
3. Click on Upload tab
4. Upload “sparkling.zip” archive file via web interface
5. Activate newly installed theme

1.2 Manual Installation using FTP (Advanced)

• Go to Sparkling page at https://colorlib.com/wp/sparkling .
• Click on Download button to download theme on your Desktop.
• Unzip sparkling.zip on your Desktop. You should get folder called “sparkling”
• Access your host web server using your favorite FTP client (such as Cyberduck(Mac), FileZilla (Windows & Mac) or other).
• Navigate to /wp-content/themes/ and  upload  entire “sparkling” folder.
• Now open WP Dashboard and go to Appearance -> Themes and activate Sparkling theme from there.

2. Custom Menu

Sparkling theme supports WordPress Custom Menu in header and footer but you can feel free to add Custom Menu in any Widget Area as well. More about its default functionality you can find on this tutorial made by team behind WordPress itself. Custom Menu uses a simple drag & drop interface, so no technical knowledge is required.

2.1. Advanced Manu Setup

This theme uses a custom made Bootstrap Nav Walker that allows to use Glyphicons and other Bootstrap styling. Only drawback for it is that is only support two menu levels – main and one sub-menu.

This script included the ability to add Bootstrap dividers, dropdown headers, glyphicons and disables links to your menus through the WordPress Menu interface.

2.1.1. Dividers
Simply add a Link menu item with a URL of # and a Link Text or Title Attribute of divider (case-insensitive so ‘divider’ or ‘Divider’, both will work ) and the class will do the rest.

2.1.2. Glyphicons

To add an Icon to your link simple place the Glyphicon class name in the links Title Attribute field and the class will do the rest. Glyphicon classes you can find here.

2.1.3. Dropdown Headers

Adding a dropdown header (unclickable menu title that could be used to describe this sections) is very similar, add a new link with a URL of # and a Title Attribute of dropdown-header (it matches the Bootstrap CSS class so it’s easy to remember). set the Navigation Label to your header text and the class will do the rest.

2.1.4. Disabled Links

To set a disabled link simply add “disabled” to the Title Attribute and the theme will do the rest.

2.2 Font Awesome Icons

This theme also supports Font Awesome icons that you can add right before or after each menu item. Here is an example how it would look if you want to add cogs Font Awesome icons inside menu:

All Font Awesome icons you can find on their website.

3. Custom Background

Sparkling theme supports WordPress Custom Backgrounds feature.

1. In WordPress dashboard go to Appearance -> Background.
2. You can either set the image or solid color as background.
3. You can see the background preview on the same setting page.
4. Click Save Changes when you are satisfied with what you see.
5. You can always reset theme default background.

4. Header Image (Logo Upload)

For custom header image and custom logo upload this theme uses WordPress Custom Header functionality which can be accessed via WordPress dashboard – Appearance – Header. Here is how it works:

• Upload logo using already familiar WordPress Media Uploader or select image which is already uploaded.
• Crop it (recommended cropped image size will be displayed in the square but you can feel free to modify it but you might “break” website layout in some cases).
• Hit Crop and Publish button and you are ready to go.

5. Setup Featured Slider For Homepage

Sparkling theme relies on Flexslider image slider which is built in into theme and no plugin is required.

• Slider Settings are located in Theme Options – Main
• To enable slider tick checkbox and you will see that two no options will appear “Slider Category” and “Number of slider items”
• Select category from dropdown to use for slider
• Now select number of slides to be used in slider (newest Posts from that category will be used)
• Make sure you have Featured Images uploaded and added for those Posts.

6. Customization

There are several customizations available for this theme via Appearance – Theme Options. You can change elements color, link color, header menu style, footer color, social link color and many other aspects. If you feel that you can’t do something via web interface, please notify us via Support Forum.

7. How to Disable Comments for Page/Post

• Open particular page on which you want to turn off comments via WP dashboard.
• Look for the Discussion box below the post editor box.
• It might be disabled but you can enable it via Screen Options on the upper right corner of Post/Page edit screen.
• Uncheck “Allow Comments” in the Discussion box and hit Update.

To disable Comments on posts “globally”. Go to Settings – Discussion – and untick “ Allow people to post comments on new articles“. This will apply for new Posts. Post that are already published won’t be changed and will still have open comments section.

8. Recommended Image Sizes

Featured Image (Blog and Single Post) is set to 750 by 410 pixels. 
Featured Slider Images. Personally I use 1920 by 550 pixel images for Sparkling Demo but you can feel free to use any other image size. Images won’t be scaled and you will get what you upload.

Please note! Images for slider is not resized and are displayed the same size you uploaded them. Other images such as featured images for posts are resized automatically as you upload them.

9. How to set up Blog Page

Blog should be displayed by default on front page. If you have chosen to use Home Page as static like I have in Theme Demo you will have to setup blog page separately.

1. Create a new Page and name it “Blog” or whatever you feel right.
2. Go to Setting – Reading and select “A static page (select below)”
3. Now select previously created Page as “Posts page:”

10. Translation

Sparkling theme is translation ready and has translation files included. Please see this tutorial on how to translate this or any other WordPress theme. Once you have translated Sparkling, please send translation files to use and we will include them in the next theme update. We would really appreciate your contribution! You will also get featured on our website and theme installation itself.

11. Gallery Page

Gallery page as on Sparkling Demo is created using Jetpack plugin, which is developed by the same team which is behind WordPress itself.

1. Download and install Jetpack.
2. Enable function called “Tiled Galleries” via WordPress dashboard – Jetpack.
3. Create a Post/Page like you normally would.
4. Create WordPress gallery and set Tiled Mosaic under Gallery Settings on the right side of the Gallery Edit Screen.
5. Now create gallery itselft (see video below)

12. Footer Copyright

We made it easy to change Footer Copyright information for this theme. You can change it via Appearance – Theme Options – Footer. This form supports HTML for URLs and other formatting. You can also change Footer background, text, link color via Theme Options.

13. Call for Action

This feature is disabled by default and you can enable it via Theme Options – Action Button.

Most important parts of this section is Text, Button and Link where this button will lead your visitors when clicked. Underneath you will find several color pickers to customize this area, but it is only optional and this area will look stunning (like in theme demo) without any customization.

14. Custom Widgets

14.1 Popular Posts Widget

It is a custom built WordPress widget that can be used like any other default widget. You can enable it via Appearance – Widgets by selecting “Sparkling Popular Posts Widget”. There is only two options and both are straightforward – Title and Number of Posts.

14.2. Sparkling Categories

It is a custom WordPress widget to display categories and number of post for each category. It doesn’t do much but it does look much better than default WordPress category widget. You can enable it via Appearance – Widgets.

14.3. Sparkling Social Widget

Social Widget uses the same social profile links that you can configure via Theme Options – Social. This widget doesn’t have any customization options except Title. It just works!

15. Social Media Icons

Social Media Icons can be enabled via Theme Options – Social. Below you will see several, one for each social network. In those fields you should copy/paste URL to your actual social network profile. For example, our Twitter URL would look like this “https://twitter.com/colorlib”. Now save changes and you are ready to go.

Social Media Icons by default will appear inside footer are but you can also use “Sparkling Social Widget” to add them in other Widget Areas.

16. Widget Areas

There are 3 widget areas with 7 widget block in total. One area is for static Front Page (if one is used), second one is for a regular sidebar and third one is for footer widget area. All these widget areas can have unlimited number of widgets.

Attention

In case you are using Esy Bootstrap Shortcodes plugin which we recommended here, you must configure it like you can see in screenshot below. Otherwise 3 additional files will be loaded that are already part of theme and will cause duplicates, conflicts and performance issues and we are sure that you don’t want to experience that. Under some circumstances it might cause dropdown menus to be unclickable, so make sure to configure this plugin properly.

If you feel that something is missing from this you can start a new thread on our Support Forum.