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Masterstudy Theme Documentation

Also available Online manual and Video tutorials.

© 2001 – 2018 Stylemix LLC


Table of Contents

Getting Started ............................................................................................................................. 1


Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 1
System Requirements ..................................................................................................................... 2
Installing the Theme ........................................................................................................................ 2
What to do if the theme installation fails .................................................................................... 6
Viewing System Status .................................................................................................................... 6
Getting Help .................................................................................................................................... 7
Importing the Demo Content .......................................................................................................... 8
Important Features of the Masterstudy WordPress Theme ......................................................... 11
Bootstrap Framework ............................................................................................................... 11
Plugins Installed with the Theme .............................................................................................. 11
Types of Posts ............................................................................................................................ 12
Setting Up your Website ............................................................................................................. 13
Customizing the Theme ................................................................................................................. 14
General Theme Options ............................................................................................................ 14
Typography settings .................................................................................................................. 15
Setting the General Color Scheme for your Website .................................................................... 16
Setting Up the Header and Top Bar............................................................................................... 17
Setting Up the Footer .................................................................................................................... 18
Setting Up Sidebars ....................................................................................................................... 19
Creating Additional Sidebars ..................................................................................................... 20
Setting up the Menu ..................................................................................................................... 21
Localizing or Changing the Language of the Theme ...................................................................... 21
Learning Management System ................................................................................................... 22
LMS Settings .................................................................................................................................. 22
Courses .......................................................................................................................................... 24
Lessons .......................................................................................................................................... 25
Quizzes and Questions .................................................................................................................. 26
Reviews ......................................................................................................................................... 27
Orders ............................................................................................................................................ 28
Paid Memberships PRO ................................................................................................................. 29
Woocommerce Courses (not LMS) .............................................................................................. 30
Adding Testimonials ................................................................................................................... 33
Displaying Testimonials on Other Pages or Posts .......................................................................... 33
Gallery ....................................................................................................................................... 34
Events ........................................................................................................................................ 36
Adding Other Content ................................................................................................................ 38
Additional Options for Pages and Posts ........................................................................................ 38
Miscellaneous Features .............................................................................................................. 39
Adding a Blog to your Website ...................................................................................................... 39
Incorporating a WooCommerce Shop in your Website ................................................................ 40
Updating the theme ................................................................................................................... 41
Updating via the WordPress Admin Panel (using Dashboard > Updates) ..................................... 41
Updating via the WordPress Admin Panel (using an Extra Plugin) ................................................ 42
Updating via FTP ............................................................................................................................ 42
Appendix A: Using the WPBakery Visual Composer Plugin to Set Up the Pages ........................... 43
Working with the Backend Editor ................................................................................................. 44
Working with the Frontend Editor ................................................................................................ 47
Appendix B: Using the Revolution Slider ..................................................................................... 48
Masterstudy Theme User Manual Getting Started

Getting Started

Introduction
Masterstudy WordPress Theme is a responsive Masterstudy WordPress theme targeted especially
for Masterstudy, chalet, resort, motel, hostel, bed and breakfast and apartment with all-in-one
booking system within theme package. Masterstudy is powered by Masterstudy booking
management features such as seasonal pricing, booking management, taxes, flexible rates and
many more. With our advanced booking management, customers can search available rooms and
book online.

Some of the features of the Masterstudy Theme include:

• Complete LMS System - No extra plugin purchase required!


• Quizzes, Lessons and all other needed content types for the LMS.
• Online and Offline Payments - Make a payment online from your website via PayPal or cash.
• Taxes and Fees – Set pricing on all accommodation charges: add mandatory fees,
accommodation taxes, service taxes. The guests can see the summary and total of charges
before making a booking. All this info on each booking is stored in the admin dashboard as
well.
• GDPR Compliant - Your guests will find the checkbox for opt-in consent below each booking
form to accept your website terms and conditions before reservation.
• Multilingual Support - Easily translate a website to any language.
• Responsive & Mobile Friendly - Masterstudy is fully responsive and looks great on all
devices.
• Built with SASS – the most stable and powerful professional grade CSS extension language
• Compatible with Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Edge and IE10+
• Bootstrap-based Responsive Layouts
• Ability to have a Background image for your website
• Ability to use any of 800+ Google Fonts
• Visual Composer drag & drop page builder
• WooCommerce compatibility
• Custom SVG and FontAwesome icons
• One-click demo content import
• Retina Ready
• SEO ready

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Getting Started

System Requirements
To install the Masterstudy Theme you must have a working version of WordPress already installed.
For information regarding the installing of the WordPress platform, please see the WordPress
Codex at http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress.

Installing the Theme


You can install the theme just as you would install any other WordPress Theme.

Note: In order to install a theme, you would need to login to your WordPress admin
area with Administrator rights.

Tip: If you wish, you can view a video of the Installation process at
https://youtu.be/QjQdVuxXieI

To install the theme:

1. In the WordPress Dashboard, click on Appearance > Themes to open the Themes screen.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Getting Started

2. Click on the Add New button to open the Add Themes screen.



3. Click on the Upload Theme button and upload the zipped theme file you have downloaded
from ThemeForest - https://help.market.envato.com/hc/en-us/articles/202821510-Theme-
is-missing-the-style-css-stylesheet-error.

Note: Depending on the speed of your Internet connection, it may take some time
to upload the zip file.

4. Once the file is uploaded click on the Install Now button to install the theme.

Note: If you have trouble installing the theme, please see the next section: What to
do if the theme installation fails.

5. Once the theme is installed, you need to activate the theme to enable the Masterstudy
Theme demos and theme auto update feature.

Click on Activate to activate the theme. You will then have to generate a token.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Getting Started

Steps for activating the theme:

1) Click on the Generate a Personal Token


link. A new window will open that takes you
to the Envato Account sign-in page.

2) Sign in using the credentials of the same


account you used to purchase the
Masterstudy theme.

3) Enter a name for the token. (This name is


to identify this token anytime later.)

4) Select the following checkboxes from the


Permissions Needed section:

* View Your Envato Account


Username,
* Download Your Purchased Items,
* Verify Purchases You’ve Made, and
* List Purchases You’ve Made.

5) Select the checkbox to agree to the terms


and conditions and then click on the Create
Token button.

6) A new page will load with a token in a box.


Select the token text and copy it to the
clipboard by pressing Ctrl+C on your
keyboard.

Paste the generated


token here.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Getting Started

6. Paste the token in the provided box and click on the Submit button.

If activation is successful, you will see a green check mark.



You can follow this manual if activation fails.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Getting Started

What to do if the theme installation fails


If the import stalls and fails to respond after a few minutes, or if WordPress gives you an error
message, you are suffering from PHP configuration limits that are set too low to complete the
process. You should contact your hosting provider and ask them to increase those limits to a
minimum as follows:

• max_execution_time 600
• memory_limit 128M
• post_max_size 32M
• upload_max_filesize 32M

You can verify your PHP configuration limits by installing a simple plugin found here:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-php-info. You can also check your PHP error logs
to see the exact error being returned.

Viewing System Status


You can also view some of your WordPress system settings by going to the Masterstudy Theme
System Status page. (Click on Masterstudy > System Status in the WordPress menu.) This page will
provide information about your WordPress environment and your server environment.


Any items that require your attention will be highlighted in yellow.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Getting Started

Getting Help
Your Masterstudy Theme comes with six months of free support.

In case you are facing problems with using the Masterstudy Theme, you can get help in the
following ways:

• Read our online documentation.


• Watch online video tutorials to learn how to customize the theme.
• Visit our Community Forum.
• Submit a Help Ticket.

Click on Masterstudy > Support in the WordPress menu to access the Support page.

Click on this button to


create a support account
if you haven’t already
created one.

You will need access to


the support account to
submit a help ticket.

Note: You can also get extended support through subscriptions via ThemeForest.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Getting Started

Importing the Demo Content


Once the theme is installed, you will find a new Masterstudy menu in the WordPress dashboard.
You can use this menu to access the different theme-related pages.

Don’t know where to start on building up your site? We have created an option for you to recreate
our theme demo site with just one click.

Tip: Before importing the demo content, you can check out the various demos at
http://masterstudy.stylemixthemes.com/. You can see the different demos and
decide on which one suits your firm the best.


Click on Masterstudy > Demo Import in the WordPress menu:

Tip: You can use the demo content as a starting point for your website and modify
the content to suit your needs. In that case, select the demo layout that is most
appropriate for your website.


Each demo layout requires a number of plugins to function properly. Fortunately, StylemixThemes
has made it easy for you to install the plugins and they will be installed automatically during demo
setup proceed. In order to start the import proceed, click on the Setup layout button.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Getting Started


Note: Depending on the speed of your Internet connection, it may take some time
to install all the plugins and import the demo content.


Note: If the import fails or stalls, please try to reload the page and click on Setup
layout button once again or see the previous section: What to do if the theme
installation fails.

Note: All the plugins which are not free come under our EXTENDED License, so you
don’t need to pay for their license to use them. Some of them might have messages
requiring activation, but they are already activated on our side. No purchase code
needed. When using them under our license you will need to wait for the plugin
updates in our regular theme updates. If you want to be able to auto update them
from wp-admin, you will need to buy your own personal license for that. However,
we always include the latest versions of the plugins in every update of the theme.

Setup Layout feature installs all required plugins, imports the chosen demo layout and widgets.
After finishing the proceed you can visit your site front page in order to see all ready features J

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Getting Started

Tip: If you want to start from scratch after viewing the demo content, you can
remove the demo content using the Reset WP plugin
(https://wordpress.org/plugins/reset-wp/). This plugin resets the WordPress
database back to its defaults. It will delete all customizations and content, but it
does not modify files; it only resets the database. Please see the above link for more
details.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Getting Started

Important Features of the Masterstudy WordPress Theme


This section describes some noteworthy features of this theme.

Bootstrap Framework
The Masterstudy Theme uses the Bootstrap framework, so you can have a layout grid of up to 12
columns to design your pages. Further, each widget has its own maximum and minimum widths, so
you have the flexibility of adjusting the widths of the widgets depending on the layout of the pages.

Plugins Installed with the Theme


As mentioned before, the Masterstudy Theme requires a number of plugins to function properly.
The following table gives you a brief description of each of the plugins:

Plugin Required/Optional How it helps you…


Breadcrumb Required Allows you to set up breadcrumb navigation on the pages
NavXT showing the visitors the path to their current location on
your website.
Contact Form 7 Recommended Allows you to easily design and add forms to your website.
Slider Revolution Required Helps to display image sliders or carousels on your web
pages. Useful for picture galleries, introductions, etc. Has
many slider options for varied purposes.
Masterstudy LMS Required LMS System from StylemixThemes.
Paid Required Plugin to Handle Memberships.
Memberships
STM Required Imports the Demo pages.
Configurations
WooCommerce Recommended Helps you set up your online store to sell things on your
website.
WPBakery Visual Required Helps you build pages quickly and easily with an intuitive
Composer drag-and-drop interface.

Note: We provide extra plugins with EXTENDED licenses and include latest updates
to every version of the themes. The plugins will be updated whenever you upgrade
your theme.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Getting Started

Types of Posts
The Masterstudy Theme comes with many built-in types of posts that are useful for business,
finance, or Masterstudy firms. The following table lists the various types of posts available:

Type Used for…


Teachers Teachers by post type (not users) for default Masterstudy layout.
Gallery Displaying categorized gallery images.
Events Displaying details of your events.
Testimonials Displaying your customers’ testimonials on your website.

Changing the Title of Custom Post Types


If you want, you can change the title of the following custom post types:

• Teachers
• Gallery
• Events

To change the title of the above-mentioned custom post type:

1. Click on Tools > STM Post Type in the WordPress menu.



2. Here select Post Types and then select the custom post type you want to edit.

3. After making the changes click on the Save & Publish button at the top of the page.

Note: If you change any of the STM Post Type names, you will need to regenerate
the Wordpress Permalinks. To do this:

Click on Settings > Permalinks in the WordPress menu to open the Permalink
Settings page. At the bottom of the page, click on the Save Changes button.
WordPress will regenerate the permalinks using the new names you have given.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Theme Options

Setting Up your Website

Once the Masterstudy Theme is installed, you will now have to customize the theme to suit your
needs. The following are some of the tasks you need to complete to customize the theme:

• Set up header, footer, and sidebars for your website.


• Choose your own color scheme and typography options.
• Type in the address and other information about your organization.
• Design and add widgets to your website.
• Set up the menus of the website.
• Change the main language of the site (if your main language is not English).























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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Theme Options

Customizing the Theme


You can perform general customization of the Masterstudy Theme by going to Dashboard > Theme
Options (just as you would normally do for any other theme). Here, you can set up the following:

• General site settings such as logo and site icon; default visualization options; default Title
Box settings, Google and PayPal API credentials, etc.
• Header and Footer for your pages.
• Colors scheme
• Typography settings.
• Page and Post Type options.
• General Page Settings such as the background image for the home page; font settings for
the headings and body text of your pages; and the layout or structure of certain pages such
as the archive and shop pages.

General Theme Options


Here you can setup global website settings such as site logo/icon, view types for basic modules, site
width and site layout options, default settings for page Title Box, Google and PayPal API settings.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Theme Options

Typography settings
If you want to change your website typography settings, you need to go Them Options >
Typography. It’s possible to change typography options for Main (body) and Headings, also
Paragraphs, Link, Blockquote and List settings.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Theme Options

Setting the General Color Scheme for your Website


With the Masterstudy theme you can specify a basic color scheme for your website. You can select
from between three pre-defined schemes or create your own custom scheme by defining a base
color, a secondary color and a third color.

To specify the Color Scheme:

4. Click on Them Options > Styling in the WordPress menu.

Specify a custom base color, secondary


color, and third color.

5. Click on the Save Changes button to save your settings.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Theme Options

Setting Up the Header and Top Bar


You can customize the look-and-feel of the header. You can also control what items appear in the
header area of your pages.

To set up or customize the header of your web pages:

Click on Theme Options > Header in the WordPress menu.


Here you can choose your header style and set up Sticky Header options. Besides this, there are
main top header bar settings under Theme Options > Top Bar.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Theme Options

Setting Up the Footer


You can customize the look-and-feel of the Footer. You can have up to four footers on your
pages/posts. You can control what items appear in the footer area of your pages. You can also
select between two heading styles for the footer and write the copyright message to be displayed
on the website.

To set up or customize the footer of your web pages:

1. Click on Theme Options > Footer in the WordPress menu for setting up main Footer options
and choose Footer Columns.
2. Theme Options > Footer > Footer Bottom section contains additional bottom footer area
settings.
3. Finally, Theme Options > Footer > Copyright you can enable here footer Copyright section,
set up its text and logo options, select social links, etc.

Note: If you want to have multiple footers, you can specify what information should
be shown in the different footers by going to Appearance > Widgets and dragging
widgets into the different Footer areas.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Theme Options

Setting Up Sidebars
The Pearl Theme has two sidebars, left and right. These sidebars can be selected for archives as
well as single pages or posts. You can create additional sidebars using Visual Composer widgets or
elements. These additional sidebars can then be added to individual pages or posts.

To set up the sidebars:

Click on Theme Options > Sidebars in the WordPress menu.

Note: If using the default WordPress sidebars, you can add widgets to the sidebar by
going to Appearance > Widgets and dragging widgets onto the sidebars.

To set up sidebars on individual pages or posts:

While creating or editing the page or post, add a Widgetised Sidebar or an STM Sidebar Visual
Composer element to the page.

Note: You may first have to add an extra column for the sidebar by clicking on the

button.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Theme Options

Note: Use the Widgetised Sidebar element if you want to add one of your
predefined widgets to the column, and use the STM Sidebar element if you want to
add one of your predefined sidebars to the column.

Tip: See Appendix A: Using the WPBakery Visual Composer Plugin to Set Up the
Pages for more information on using the Visual Composer.

Creating Additional Sidebars


In addition to the left and right sidebars, you can create your own sidebars using Visual Composer
widgets or elements. You can then add these sidebars to individual pages or posts.

To create additional sidebars:

1. Click on VC Sidebars > Add New in the WordPress menu.



2. Design the sidebar as you would design any other page. You can also add sections to the
sidebar using Visual Composer Elements and Widgets, if required.


Note: Once you have created the sidebars, you can add these sidebars to any of your
pages or posts. See Setting Up Sidebars for more details.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Theme Options

Setting up the Menu


As mentioned above, your theme allows you to have a menu at the top of your website pages and
up to three menus in the sidebars.

To set up the Standard Menus:

1. Click on Appearance > Menus in the WordPress menu to open the Menus page.
2. You can now set up the menus as you would do for any other WordPress theme.
3. At the end, you can choose one of the preset menu locations in order to display your menu
on Top Header Bar, Header Navbar or Footer menu.

Localizing or Changing the Language of the Theme


If you are using the Masterstudy Theme in a non-English speaking country, you can change the
language of the theme so that the wp-admin area will be in the language of your choice.

You can change your site’s main language via Settings > General > Site Language. This will change
all your WordPress related prompts to the selected language, but you will still have to localize the
theme related options and screens.

It’s easy to localize your site using the Loco Translate plugin. (You can see a related tutorial in the
following page: https://localise.biz/help/wordpress/translate-plugin/beginners.)

Another way is to add your translations using the PoEdit platform. Basically, you need to create a
.po file that contains the translations and PoEdit will generate a .mo file for you. You then need to
upload the .mo file to your theme’s language folder (../wp-content/themes/theme-
folder/languages/).

Note: Before adding translations for static strings, you need to rename the language
files correctly according your site’s language. The theme language files are located in
the ../wp-content/themes/theme-folder/languages/ folder. You can find a list of
language codes at WordPress in your Language. As an example, the language code
for English is en_EN, so you would save the translated files as en_EN.po and
en_EN.mo.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual LMS

Learning Management System

Masterstudy LMS – Learning Management System plugin includes all features for making your
website LMS Portal. After installing one of the LMS Demo Layouts, you will be able to see LMS
demo content on your site.

LMS Settings
You can see the main LMS Settings under STM LMS menu on your Dashboard. Here you can set up
Color Skin for LMS pages, Currency options under General tab:


Courses tab contains main Course archive page settings like Courses page, Page Layout, and
amount of courses per page:

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual LMS


You can set up also your Payment Methods under STM LMS settings:

PayPal payment needs to set up the email and its Mode (sandbox or live). Also you
should set up your PAYPAL account IPN as
http://yoursite.com/?stm_lms_check_ipn=1.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual LMS

Courses
LMS Courses can be found under STM LMS > Courses menu. Single Course have its own content
which can be built via VC Page Builder, Featured Image, Categories and Course Settings.

Besides this, you can add new Lesson and Quiz or include existing Lessons and Quizzes:


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Masterstudy Theme User Manual LMS

Lessons
STM LMS > Lessons menu includes your Lessons list. You can add your Course content wither with
VC Page Builder or WP Classic Editor.

Also, Lesson settings section allows you to choose:

• Lesson Type: Text, Video or Slide;


• Lesson duration: any text;
• Lesson Preview: Makes the Lesson open/private for visitors;
• Lesson Frontend description: Description of the Lesson;

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual LMS

Quizzes and Questions


Quiz can be created via STM LMS > Quizzes menu. Each Quiz may include unlimited Questions. You
can add either existing questions to your Quiz or create new one via Add new question field.

Quiz settings includes:

• Quiz Frontend description: Description of the Lesson;


• Quiz duration: duration in minutes/hours/days;
• Show correct answer: displays correct answer at the end of the Quiz;
• Passing grade: Minimum percentage of correct answers for passing the quiz;
• Points total cut after re-take: Quiz re-take cut percentage;

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual LMS

You can find all your questions under STM LMS > Questions menu. Question type can be Single
Choice, Multi Choice, True or False:

Reviews
Users can leave reviews for Courses and you can see all reviews under STM LMS > Reviews menu:


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Masterstudy Theme User Manual LMS

Orders
You can check orders through STM LMS > Orders:


Admin can see the order details and change its status from Pending to Complete or Canceled:

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual LMS

Paid Memberships PRO


Masterstudy LMS plugin supports Paid Memberships plugin and smoothly works together for
creating Membership System with Subscription Plans on your website.

This third-party plugin allows you to create Membership Levels (Plans). In order to create
Membership Plans, got to Dashboard > Memberships > Add New Level. Here you can set up Plan
options and number of available courses in subscription under STM LMS Settings:


Payment Gateway also should be set up separately for Membership plans:


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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Woocommerce Courses

Woocommerce Courses (not LMS)

Default Masterstudy layout Courses are built on WooCommerce Products. To create a course, you
need to add a Product:


For each course you can specify the Category, add Course name and Description. For the
Description we use standard Content area with Visual Composer, where you can insert any
shortcode you would like to display.

Moreover, you can add the course image or image gallery:


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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Woocommerce Courses

For the Content area – if you want to add a Course plan, Course sections or Course lessons
overview, just insert the Course Lessons shortcode:


After you insert it, you have the option to add a lesson into the Course section:


After you add a Lesson, it has addional options:


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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Woocommerce Courses

Once you complete the Course description, go to the Product Data to specify the Price:


If it’s a Free course, you just put 0 for Regular Price. If you have limited seatings in classes, you
should go to Inventory tab specify Stock Qty.

After that you can specify the Course Details information and assign a Teacher of that Course.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Content Management

Adding Testimonials

Testimonials are important for strengthening the credibility of your organization.

You can easily add Testimonials using a custom post type of Testimonials. You can also define
categories for the testimonials and display testimonials of different categories on different pages.

To add Testimonial posts:

1. Click on Testimonials > Add New in the WordPress menu.


Type the name of the person giving the


testimonial.

Type the testimonial here. Type the details of the person


giving the testimonial. You can
optionally add a background
image for the testimonial.

Optionally, add an image as a


Featured Image.

Displaying Testimonials on Other Pages or Posts


Once you have created the Testimonial posts, you can display them all over the site, by just
inserting a Visual Composer Testimonials or Testimonials Carousel element.

To display the testimonials on the website:

1. Add the Visual Composer STM Testimonials element on any page or post where you want
to display the testimonials.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Content Management

Tip: See Appendix A: Using the WPBakery Visual Composer Plugin to Set Up the
Pages for more information on using the Visual Composer.

Title of the section.

Specify the number of


testimonials to be displayed.

Testimonials visualization
preset style.

Specify whether to display 1, 2,


or 3 testimonials per row.

Gallery

Galleries are created as a custom post type for special images collection. It has Categories that can
be ordered as needed. Here you create just single gallery photo.

All the content of Gallery page can be built by means of Visual Composer on the Gallery page.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Content Management

So basically, you create an individual post describing for each photo in your gallery. After that you
go to the Pages > Add new.

On the new page you should insert Gallery Grid shortcode from Visual Composer.


After that you can have an option go make your gallery view Masonry or Standard grid (by default):


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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Content Management

Events

Events are created as another custom post type called Gallery. You can see all your Events under
Dashboard > Events menu on your Admin menu.


It has Tags that can be ordered as needed.


All the content of Event page can be built by means of Visual Composer. And there is a main
Information section for the Event details:

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Content Management


Also, there is All Participants section in order to see the list of the joined users:

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Content Management

Adding Other Content

Other than the special types of content covered in the previous sections of this manual, you can
also add regular content to your website as normal pages and posts. You can create your pages
using Classic mode or the Visual Composer Backend or Frontend Editors.

Tip: See Appendix A: Using the WPBakery Visual Composer Plugin to Set Up the
Pages for more information on using the Visual Composer.

Additional Options for Pages and Posts


The following additional options are available while adding pages and posts:

1. You can add sliders to the page (if you have set up sliders using the Revolution Slider
plugin).

2. You can change the formatting of the page title area (for a particular page) using the Page
setup panel.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Content Management

Miscellaneous Features

The Masterstudy Theme also supports blogs. You can set up a custom blog page. You can also have
custom sidebars on the blog.

The Masterstudy Theme is also compatible with the WooCommerce plugin, so you can have an e-
commerce shop on your website.

Adding a Blog to your Website


You can also have a regular blog on your website where you (or anyone with admin/author rights)
can put up posts.

Note: Blog posts can be published from the WordPress admin area. Only someone
with admin or author rights can put up blog posts.

You can assign any page you create as the start page of your blog by clicking on Appearance >
Customize > Site Settings > Static Front Page and selecting the page in the Posts page drop-down
list.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Content Management

Incorporating a WooCommerce Shop in your Website


WooCommerce is the most popular e-commerce plugin for WordPress. Now you can have a shop
with all e-commerce features on your WordPress site.

Before you start adding products, please go through the WooCommerce plugin settings and specify
everything you need for your shop.


Please see https://docs.woothemes.com/documentation/plugins/woocommerce/getting-started/
for more details on setting up a shop using the WooCommerce plugin.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Theme Update

Updating the theme

We will periodically provide updates of your theme. These updates are essential if you want to
have a bug-free website as we give new features and improvements to the theme over time. Some
of these updates might be needed in order to make the theme compatible with newer versions of
WordPress.

Note: There is no risk of losing your settings and pages when you update the theme.
However, any modifications you have made to the core theme files will be lost, so
you should back up those files before you update the theme.

Tip: After upgrading the theme, you can update extra plugins via Appearance >
Install Plugins.

There are three ways of updating our WordPress themes to newer versions:

• Updating via the WordPress Admin Panel (using Dashboard > Updates)
• Update via the WordPress Admin Panel (using an extra plugin)
• Updating via FTP

Updating via the WordPress Admin Panel (using Dashboard >


Updates)
The easiest way of updating the theme is via Dashboard > Updates. When an update is available
for your theme, you will get a notification in your WordPress Dashboard and you can update your
theme by clicking on Dashboard > Updates and updating the theme (just as you would update any
other installed theme).

Note: You will need the token key you had generated when you had originally
installed the theme. You will find this under the Settings > API Keys section of your
profile on Themeforest.

Tip: After upgrading the theme, you can update extra plugins via Appearance >
Install Plugins.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Theme Update

Updating via the WordPress Admin Panel (using an Extra Plugin)


For this method you should first install the Easy Theme and Plugin Upgrades plugin
(http://wordpress.org/plugins/easy-theme-and-plugin-upgrades/) This plugin will update your
theme when you upload the theme.zip file.

Once you have installed the Easy Theme and Plugin Upgrades plugin:

1. Download the theme file update from ThemeForest.



2. Extract the masterstudy.zip file from the downloaded theme file.

3. In the WordPress dashboard, click on Appearance > Themes > Add New > Upload Theme >
Browse...

4. Select the masterstudy.zip file that you extracted in step 2 and click on Install Now.

Tip: After upgrading the theme, you can update extra plugins via Appearance >
Install Plugins.

Updating via FTP


Another way of updating your theme is via FTP.

Extract the contents of the masterstudy.zip file (which you will find inside the theme update file
you have downloaded from Themeforest). The contents will be extracted to a folder called
masterstudy \ and to subfolders within the masterstudy folder.

Tip: Make sure your unzipping software does not create any extra directory with the
same name nested within the masterstudy\ folder. In other words, make sure you
extract the files to masterstudy\ and not masterstudy\ masterstudy\.

Using an FTP program, upload the masterstudy\ folder (and its subfolders) to /wp-content/themes/
on your web server.

Note: The FTP program will give a warning that the masterstudy\ folder already
exists. Choose Replace All.

Tip: After upgrading the theme, you can update extra plugins via Masterstudy >
Plugins.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Appendix

Appendix A: Using the WPBakery Visual Composer Plugin


to Set Up the Pages

Your Masterstudy Theme incorporates the WPBakery Visual Composer plugin that helps you build
pages quickly and easily with an intuitive drag-and-drop interface.

Note: This appendix gives you a brief overview of using the WPBakery Visual
Composer to create your pages. Please see http://codecanyon.net/item/visual-
composer-page-builder-for-wordpress/full_screen_preview/242431 to view a short
manual on how to use the Visual Composer, or http://vc.wpbakery.com/video-
tutorials/ to see some tutorial videos.

Tip: Click on Visual Composer > General Settings in the WordPress menu to set up
or control the functioning of the Visual Composer plugin.

You can control whether the Visual Composer plugin should be enabled or not for different types of
pages and posts in the Visual Composer Settings pages. If the Visual Composer is disabled, you will
see the WordPress Classic Editor with buttons to switch to the Visual Composer (as in the following
image):

Switch to the Visual Composer Backend


Editor.

Switch to the Visual Composer Frontend


Editor.


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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Appendix

As can be seen in the above image, the Visual Composer can work in two modes: as a Backend
editor, or as a Frontend editor.

Working with the Backend Editor


Click on the Backend Editor button to switch to the Backend mode.

Switch to
Classic Select a layout
mode. or template for
the page.
Switch to full-
Add an screen editing Change page
element to the mode. title and add
page. custom CSS.

To add an element to the page, click on the Add Element button and select an element or widget
from Visual Composer’s vast array of elements or widgets.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Appendix

Click on these tabs to view elements of a particular category.

Click on any
item to add it
to the page.

Note: You will find all the Masterstudy Theme related elements or widgets in the
STM, STM Post Partials, STM Vacancy Partials, and STM Staff Partials tabs.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Appendix

For some of the elements you may


have to specify additional details
or settings.

The element will be added to your


page and formatted according to
your settings.

To make changes to any added


element, hover the mouse pointer
over the element. You will see icons
that allow you to move, edit, copy or delete the item.

Tip: As you add elements with the Visual Composer, use the Preview button to see
what your page will look like.

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Masterstudy Theme User Manual Appendix

Working with the Frontend Editor


The Backend Editor shows you the “blocks” that make up your page, but does not show you what
your page actually looks like. Alternatively, you can work with the Frontend Editor to see what the
actual page looks like as you create/edit it.
See what your page
Change page
looks like on a tablet
title and add
or smartphone.
custom CSS.

Note: This was just a brief overview of using the WPBakery Visual Composer to
create your pages. Please see http://codecanyon.net/item/visual-composer-page-
builder-for-wordpress/full_screen_preview/242431 to view a short manual on how
to use the Visual Composer, or http://vc.wpbakery.com/video-tutorials/ to see some
tutorial videos.

47
Masterstudy Theme User Manual Appendix

Appendix B: Using the Revolution Slider

Your Masterstudy Theme incorporates the Revolution Slider plugin that allows you to display a
series of images or other content on your web pages as a slider or carousel. This is useful for
picture galleries, introductions, etc.

Note: This appendix gives you a brief overview of using the Revolution Slider. Please
see http://www.themepunch.com/revslider-doc/slider-revolution-documentation/
for more detailed instructions.

Before you can add a slider to a page/post, you first have to create the slider. Click on Slider
Revolution in the WordPress menu to access the Sliders page.


You can create a new slider from scratch or you can use a free or paid template.

Once the slider has been created, you can add it to your pages/posts in one of the following ways:

• In the page/post editor, add a shortcode [rev_slider alias=“xxx”] (where “xxx”


is the name of the slider), or using the Classic Editor, click on the button and select a
slider to insert it at your cursor location.

• In the Widgets screen (Appearance > Widgets), drag the “Revolution Slider” widget to a
sidebar.

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