Stardust Theme

If you are not using a custom background image for your home page, you can still add a photo, as shown in the image below:

The recommended size for your home page photo is 180 pixels wide by 240 pixels tall.

Follow the steps below to add your photo to the home page:

STEP 1: From the WordPress Dashboard click “Media > Add New”

STEP 2: Click the “Select Files” button.

STEP 3: Browse to the correct file and click the “Select” button.

STEP 4: Highlight the “File URL” and copy the URL (press Ctrl + C to copy)

STEP 5: From the WordPress Dashboard, click the “Stardust Theme Settings” link.

STEP 6: Paste the URL that you copied in step 4 into the “Home Page Photo” box.

STEP 7: Click the “Save Options” button.

Using an image editing program (such as Photoshop), create the background image you’d like to use and save the file as a JPG image to your desktop. Please refer to the image below for the dimensions:

Once you have customized and saved your background image, follow the steps below to add the custom background to your site:

STEP 1: From the WordPress Dashboard, click “Stardust Theme > Custom Image Header”.

STEP 2: Click the “Browse” button and locate the image you want to use as the background and then click the “Open” button to select the file.

STEP 3: Click the “Upload” button.

The Stardust WordPress Theme has a theme options page that allows you to easily add links to all of your social profiles, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Follow the steps below to setup your social profile links:

STEP 1: From the WordPress Dashboard, click the “Stardust Theme Settings” link.

STEP 2: Enter the corresponding URL for each of your social profile links. (If you don’t have an account for a listed profile, simply leave that field blank.)

STEP 3: Click the “Save Options” button.

By default the Stardust WordPress Theme displays your most recent blog entries on the home page of your site (below your “Featured” Home page). If you would like to use one of your existing WordPress pages as your home page and have a separate “Blog” page as a link in your navigation menu, follow the steps below:

STEP 1: From the WordPress Dashboard, click “Pages > Add New …”

STEP 2: Give your new page a title and enter the contents of the page in the page editor.

STEP 3: In the “Attributes” section (in the right-hand column), click the Template drop-down menu and select the “Static Home Page” template.

STEP 4: Click the “Publish” button.

STEP 5: From the WordPress Dashboard, click “Pages > Add New…”

STEP 6: Title the new page “Blog” and leave the content area blank.

STEP 7: Click the “Publish” button.

STEP 8: From the WordPress Dashboard, click “Settings > Reading …”

STEP 9: Select the radio button next to “A static page” and select the Front page you created in step 2 and the Blog page you created in step 5  in the drop-down menus.

STEP 10: Click the “Save Changes” button.

The Stardust WordPress Theme allows you to easily add “sticky notes” to the featured area of your home page, which can link to whatever URL you’d like. The notes are added using text widgets in the “Home Page Stickies” sidebar area. Follow the instructions below to setup your “sticky notes” …

STEP 1: From the WordPress Dashboard, click “Appearance > Widgets …”

STEP 2: Click the arrow to expand the “Home Page Stickies” sidebar panel.

STEP 3: In the “Available Widgets” section, drag and drop the Text widget into the “Home Page Stickies” sidebar panel.

STEP 4: Give your sticky note a title and type the contents of your note in the text area.

*To link your sticky note to a specific URL, use the HTML code below:

<a href="http://www.YourLinkGoesHere.com">This text is linked.</a>

STEP 5: Click the “Save” button.

STEP 6: Repeat steps 3 – 5 to add up to four text widgets to the “Home Page Stickies” sidebar panel.

By default, WordPress uses web URLs which have question marks and lots of numbers in them. However, by setting up permalinks on your site, you can make those URLs a lot more friendly. For example, you can turn a URL like this: http://stardustwordpresstheme.com/?page_id=2 … into a URL that looks like this instead:  http://stardustwordpresstheme.com/about.

STEP 1: From the WordPress Dashboard, click “Settings > Permalinks …”

STEP 2: Select the option next to “Custom Structure” and enter the following in the input area: /%postname%/

STEP 3: Click the “Save Changes” button.

The pageMash plugin is used to control the order of the links in your menu bar, as well as to hide certain pages from being visible (ie, a “Thank You” page or a “Download” page).

STEP 1: Install and activate the pageMash plugin.

Click here to learn how to install a plugin.

STEP 2: From the WordPress Dashboard, click “Pages > pageMash …”

STEP 3: Roll your mouse over the arrow next to a page title and click the “Hide” link to make a page invisible.

STEP 4: Drag the pages up or down to change the page order, or left and right to create drop-down pages.

STEP 5: Click the “Update” button.

STEP 1: From the WordPress Dashboard, click “Plugins > Add New …”

STEP 2: Type the name of a plugin in the search box and click the “Search Plugins” button.

STEP 3: Click the “Install” link to install the plugin.

STEP 4: Click the “Install Now” button.

STEP 5: Click the “Activate Plugin” link.

STEP 1: From the WordPress Dashboard click “Pages > Add New …”

STEP 2: For the title of the page, type the word Home
NOTE: Your home page must be titled “Home” or it will not display on the home page of your site.

STEP 3: In the Post Editor type the text you want to appear on the home page.

STEP 4: Click the “Publish” button.

You can now visit the home page of your site and see your featured area directly below the navigation menu.

Before you can install the Stardust Theme you need to have WordPress already installed on your site.

STEP 1: Login to the WordPress Dashboard.
You can access the login screen at http://yourdomainhere.com/wp-admin/

STEP 2: Click “Appearance > Add New Themes …”

STEP 3: Click the “Upload” link.

STEP 4: Click the “Browse” button and locate the stardust.zip file.

STEP 5: Select the stardust.zip file and click “Open”

STEP 6: Once the file has been selected, click the “Install Now” button.

STEP 7: Once the theme has been successfully uploaded, click the “Activate” link.