22384 comments found.
Hi AJ.
I thought I had posted this before but I cannot find it here nor in your answers copied by email. Sorry if that is a double again.
I have used the email item both in Social Link and Social Share. I must be misunderstanding its use, because it is not a mailto type element. Is there more doc just on the use of the email element, both for Social Share and Social link? I cannot see anything in the vids.
Until I understand it, would you please let me know the best way to send an email with a pre-defined adress, cc adress, title etc using a Total or other WPBakery element. Or does is have to be hard-coded like a mailto?
And if that’s not a good way of doing it, is there material on using email forms in Total, again starting from a simple WPBakery element?
Thanks a lot.
Hi,
The reason the email item in the social link isn’t a mailto: link is because some customers want to link it directly to a contact page. All you need to do is add the mailto: yourself in the link if you want it to work that way.
The social share email function opens up whatever email you have setup on your computer to allow people to share a link to the current post.
If you want to visitors to send you an email with title, address, etc you can’t use a simple mailto link you need to setup a contact form on your site. There are tons of plugins out there for this such as Contact Form 7 which is one of the more popular ones.
Email forms aren’t something built-into Total or pretty much any theme because they are fairly large/advanced functions which are better added via plugins.
- AJ
Evening AJ (well, my evening anyway, don’t where you are).
That all makes a lot of sense. I think I prefer using a mail form anyway. I’ll look into Contact Form 7. I’m sure they’re all pretty much alike. The only thing I want to be able to do is reach the email form from the Social Link Icon: so I suppose once you set up a contact form, you set it up as an unpublished page, or even better, a template in WPBakery and you can get to it from the Social Link 3link” field? What would be cool is being able to fire up that form ina pop-uo rather than opening a new tab or replacing the page you’re on.
Hi,
It’s 10:35 am here 
The best solution is to create a new page for your contact form. Here are some basic examples:
- http://totaltheme.wpengine.com/samus/contact/
- http://totaltheme.wpengine.com/nouveau/contact/
- http://totaltheme.wpengine.com/agent/contact-us/
The main reason to use a page is so you can share the link with people. If someone asks you via social media for example how to contact you, you can share the link. You can’t do that with a popup.
If you want to use a popup then you will want to look at a plugin specifically for a popup form. Because it will need to use ajax (can’t reload the page when clicking submit) and will need the popup functionality.
- AJ
Good morning AJ 
So what’s it like living on Mars then?
Ok, page it is then. Though I need to make sure the page is not published but still has the header with menu so peeps can navigate back to the rest of the site I guess.
Haha, I actually live in Vegas, so pretty similar landscape to mars, ha
I’m not sure why you need to page to not be published…Can you explain?
- AJ
Yeah but you come from Mars, right?
I guess I am still mixing my metaphors. Remember than I have been learning WordPress since I bought your theme and no longer. All my prior experience with WordPress consisted of deciding what theme to go for (made a great choice though maybe you disagree) Hence all the basic questions that sometimes turn out to have nothing to do with Total.
Perhaps I don’t mean unpublished. I probably mean not available in the menu structure so that it is only seen when called (from the email social link Icon in ly case).
I could be from Mars…but I’m not telling you.
“Perhaps I don’t mean unpublished. I probably mean not available in the menu structure so that it is only seen when called.” <- Oh yes that makes sense
In WordPress published means the page is live otherwise it’s a draft and can only be accessed if you are logged in.
- AJ
You speak good WordPress for a Martian.
Thanks for the lesson? Seriously, it’s really kind of you to take time to teach beyond the scope of the theme. I really appreciate it.
Minor issue after updating but just wanted to let you know: after updating the theme on one of my client’s sites, I noticed the custom CSS was no longer working on the Icon Box element I added. After further review, it seems the ‘Unique ID’ setting is not applying. I’ve switched to using classes as that works and I needed the CSS to apply again, but would be good to have it back in case I missed any other elements. Thanks!
HI there,
This is AJ the theme developer. Thank you so much for reporting the bug! Looks like the unique ID is only being added when the icon box is wrapped in a link. Here is the fixed file – https://cl.ly/qx45 – if you want to update via FTP under Total/vcex_templates/
Thank you again for reporting the bug and if you have any other issues, questions or suggestions let me know.
- AJ
Wow, thank you for a quick response and solution! It’s greatly appreciated 
Hey AJ,
GDPR / DSGVO is indeed a huge problem right now for us in Europe.
One problem are google fonts, which should be loaded locally. Not such a big problem to solve. But without the plugin: „Remove Google Fonts References“ the theme still „calls“ fonts.googleapis.com and fonts.gstatic.com and I dont know why.
The plugin is not up to date anymore and I would prefer not to use it (keyword: security). Is there a (best-case) One-click-solution to deactivate these calls? And, if not, could you please consider an option in the settings for it?
(I fear, that this will not be my last request concerning GDPR :()
Best regards, Sanny
Hi Sanny,
Total has a built-in setting to remove all Google fonts from the theme – https://wpexplorer-themes.com/total/docs/disable-google-fonts-completely/ – this was actually added for Chinese users.
But this will also remove any google font selections from modules and the Customizer, so I would recommend adding whatever fonts you are using on the site via the custom fonts filter – https://wpexplorer-themes.com/total/snippets/add-custom-font-customizer/ – so you can still access them.
If this setting is disabled and you still see requests it may be coming from a plugin on the site such as Slider Revolution or the page builder which have their own methods for loading fonts.
Is the issue with the Google Fonts the fact that the user’s IP address is being sent over to Google to make the request? I’ve been doing a lot of research on GDPR but can’t find much in terms of why Google Fonts would be an issue. If you have any extra data I would love for you to share, thanks!
- AJ
Hey AJ,
great, thank you so much. I had a look at the themepanel before I wrote my comment but Ive overseen it, sorry. (But to be honest, without your links it would have cost me hours and hours, I guess…^^) Unfortunately, there is still something calling “Mommy-Google”. I’ll try to identify the bad guy.
Yes, the problem is the IP – that way google knows exactly which pages a user visites. This information in combination with all the other info google ownes gives them the opportunity to exactly identify the user (at least this is the way I understood the problem.) Unfortunately i dont have sources in English since I m German and therefore prefer to read difficult law-related texts on German.
If I should find out more about this I`ll update the comment.
Best regards, Sanny
Hi Sanny,
If you can share the URL maybe I can figure out where it’s coming from
- AJ
Hey AJ,
sorry for delay! I tried to rememeber where I read this exactly, but I’m sorry, I dont know anymore. Read too much concerning this topic the last weeks…. It is not yet clear, whether google fonts will REALLY be a problem or not, not before the courts made the first decisions. Especially here in Germany the lawyers look VERY exactly at everything concerning private data… But when I find something, I will come back and tell you.
Best regards, Sanny
Keep in touch
Thanks for your reply, another question before purchasing, http://totaltheme.wpengine.com/tinyfolio/portfolio-item/french-macaroons/ for this page, do you only have one format? Do you have the picture on left and text on right?
Hi, Thank you for your patience. I was sleeping I just replied to your previous reply with the same question, please have a look.
- AJ
Thanks for your work, I will purchase it. Thank you again
Hi,
I see you purchased the theme. Awesome! If you have any issues, questions or suggestions let me know so I can help you out. I hope the theme works well for your needs
- AJ
Sorry, me again.
I added a Total social share element via WPBakery. All displays fine but:
1) Am I limited to those 6 items (no delicious, reddit, stumbleupon, or digg for example)? 2) I Included an email social share. The title and body of the email are undefined. But Can I actually define them somewhere in the social share settings? Obviously, I would like to include a url of the page being shared as well as some pre-defined text in the body of the email. There are no settings to set such parameters here.
Thank you
Hi there,
Yes, the social share in Total is more minimal and includes only the top sites. It’s proven that the less social sharing options you provide the more likely people are to actually use them. Which is why I decided to keep things more minimal rather then bloating up the them.
That said you can add more via code – https://wpexplorer-themes.com/total/snippets/add-new-social-share-options/
Or just use a different plugin for your social share, there are TONS out there. If social sharing is a huge priority I would recommend investing in a good service though with actual analytics like Addthis or Sumo.
- AJ
Thank you.
Is it possible to have an independent layer on top of all others in Total? Probably not the best way to describe it, but here is an example of what I am trying to do.
I have a blog page on the site I am developing. It is currently just dummy data. I would like to have a post-it or sticky note (or just an image or a text block) that floats on top on the blog page, anchored to a position on on the screen (say centre) where it remains when the user scrolls. That sticky note would say something like”Blog page under construction: dummy data only”.
Using Total elements in WPBakery, I don’t see that I can do that, because the WPBakery pardigm is rows and colums with elements inside. But I want that element to float on top of all the rows and columns. I have a notion that Elementor has a Z-Index feature which I supposed is similar to my description of “layers”, but I only want to use WPBakery since it is fully integrated into Total.
Before I start adding other plug-ins to try and do this, I’d rather get to the bottom of whether there can be such a thing as a “layer” system in WP, which would seem to be in the Elementor structure, and whether is is any reaon it could not be implemented in Total (not just for the sake of a sticky note on a dummy blog page, but because I can actually dozens of applications).
Your thoughts would be appreciated as and when.
All the best.
Chris
Hi Chris…looks like your comment went through twice. I replied to the first one
Sorry AJ. Has a timeout of first. Thought it had dies.
Is it possible to have an independent layer on top of all others in Total? Probably not the best way to describe it, but here is an example of what I am trying to do.
I have a blog page on the site I am developing. It is currently just dummy data. I would like to have a post-it or sticky note (or just an image or a text block) that floats on top on the blog page, anchored to a position on on the screen (say centre) where it remains when the user scrolls. That sticky note would say something like”Blog page under construction: dummy data only”.
Using Total elements in WPBakery, I don’t see that I can do that, because the WPBakery pardigm is rows and colums with elements inside. But I want that element to float on top of all the rows and columns. I have a notion that Elementor has a Z-Index feature which I supposed is similar to my description of “layers”, but I only want to use WPBakery since it is fully integrated into Total.
Before I start adding other plug-ins to try and do this, I’d rather get to the bottom of whether there can be such a thing as a “layer” system in WP, which would seem to be in the Elementor structure, and whether is is any reaon it could not be implemented in Total (not just for the sake of a sticky note on a dummy blog page, but because I can actually dozens of applications).
Your thoughts would be appreciated as and when.
All the best.
Chris
Hi Chris,
First of all I do want to point out that Total is 100% compatible with Elementor and I do have a good number of customers that use Elementor with Total for their client sites so if you do prefer that builder you can use it. But you should only be using one builder at a time so you should disable the WPBakery one.
Now in terms of layering items you can do it with negative margins. There is no z-index field added to the modules but it’s a great idea and I will add one in the upcoming update. Good idea!
That said, what you mention doesn’t make elements sticky it just gives them relative positions.
If what you want is to add some sort of notice to the entire blog there are better ways of doing it via a child theme using theme hooks – http://wpexplorer-themes.com/total/docs/action-hooks/ – especially if you want it on multiple pages (it would be a pain in the but to manually add that to your blog pages then manually remove it).
My recommendation though if you are “under construction” is to actually use the Total under construction function for the whole site – https://wpexplorer-themes.com/total/docs/under-construction-or-coming-soon-page/
This function redirects all your traffic (that is not logged in) to an under construction page so you can work on your site and no one that isn’t logged in can view it. This is better also in terms of SEO rather than showing unfinished content to search engines.
- AJ
Hi again AJ,
I’ve just read the Under Construction page doc. I had got it wrong. I thought it blocked the whole site, so I had decided to simply replace those pages that were not ready with a custom made page and leave the other pages live. But I see that it does not block the whole site for users who are logged in. I had got that wrong.
That said, the idea of a layer on top of the body of the site (I think the Header and footer should remain unimpaired, or “on top” is still very useful for many other things. In the case of my Blog page, I still want to display something on top of the page, because the “client” will not relly understand what’s done and what’s not. I think I’ll use a modal popup of some kind. That should do the trick.
I hear good things about Elementor, but as a newbie, I think I should stick to one page builder and learn it properly. Besides, it’s what Total offers, But a Z-Index for Total would be well cool.
Am I allowed to ask questions on WPBakery here? I’m not sure I can ask questions on their support blog since it came bundled with Total.
Here is the question, but please let me know if I should ask it somewhere else.
When adding element, the tabs allow me to zero in on the elements I want, the Total elements for example. But in all the categories under tabs, or the ALL category, the elements do not seem to be ordered in any particular fashion I can recognise. Is there a particular sorting order and, whether there is or not, can I change it to alphabetical?
Thank you.
Hi,
Yes you are, for any bundled plugin in themes sold on this marketplace the support is provided by the theme developer unless you purchase your own license in which case you can ask questions to me and the plugin developer.
Are you referring to the elements displayed in the popup – https://cl.ly/qwFe ?
If so, the order is based on how the elements have been registered in the code. The only way to re-order them is via some advanced code in the child theme.
So for example the custom Total modules I’ve tried to re-arrange them based on what they do keeping similar items close to each other such as all the divider modules next to each other or all the image modules together.
Sorting alphabetically is not necessary though because of the search function. When you open the popup the search is focused so you can start typing, for example if you are looking for the divider module just start typing divider when the popup opens and it will be quick to locate – https://cl.ly/qv6P
That said, I think I could move some of the Total modules around a bit so most used modules are first, for example the heading and image module are most likely used more. The problem is customers are probably used to the current placement of items so it can be confusing.
Also what you can do is go through and disable modules you don’t think you will ever need to really slim things down – https://wpexplorer-themes.com/total/docs/enabling-disabling-vc-modules/
- AJ
Very clear, thank you. Basically less confusing to use the search function. Let’s stick to that. I guess I’ll be more efficient when I really get to grips with all the options.
Uhm, i am not comfortable with the ambiguos documentation about translations of Total. So: which files do i need to edit with Poedit to have Total in romanian language? Thanks.
Hi there, It’s been a long time since I’ve heard from you I hope you are doing well.
Translations are the same for any WordPress theme but it depends mostly on the translation program you are using. If you are using Poedit which is one of the most popular ones you would start by going to File > New catalogue from POT file and you would select the Total.pot file under Total/languages/ then follow the steps to input your catalog details and translate the strings.
However, these days there is no need to do all that. There are many plugins that make it way easier. Most people use this one https://wordpress.org/plugins/loco-translate/ – which allows you to translate the .pot files directly in your WP dashboard.
- AJ
Hey AJ, i am glad you’re still supporting this excellent theme, i am busy but recently installed Total for my future blog and had to present it in my native language. Thanks for the clear guidance, i will translate with poedit when i have some free time.
If you have any issues or other questions just let me know
Hey folks – can you all share your experiences with various GDPR compliance plugins and how well they work with Total? Thanks!
Hi,
This is AJ the theme developer. We are located in the US and while we have a lot of customers in the EU we haven’t received any questions previously regarding GDPR plugins. But basically Total doesn’t have anything built-in that shares or stores data and it’s a well coded theme so any plugin that is also well coded should work fine with Total without issues. If you are trying a specific plugin and do have issues please let me know and I can test it out and see what’s going on.
That said, Total does have a “Facebook Page Widget” and there are some new GDPR rules regarding Facebook embeds such as the Page – https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/page-plugin/ – so if GDPR Is a concern I would recommends using that widget and instead put a simple social link to your Facebook page.
- AJ
Thanks, AJ. Our company is also US based, but it’s my understanding that GDPR requirements apply to any information collected on EU residents no matter where the website’s owners are located: newsletter signups, contact forms, purchases, analytics/tracking, comments left on our blog, etc.
Unfortunately, GDPR is relatively new (it goes into effect on May 25, 2018) so most GDPR plugins don’t have many reviews yet: https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/gdpr/
The good news is that Automattic is working to make WordPress itself compliant, so maybe a GDPR plugin won’t be necessary.
Hi,
Yes, I was also reading about the GDPR updates being added to WordPress. And you are correct it does apply for your EU customers. Right now there are only 2 things in Total (itself, excluding 3rd party plugins) that I believe may have some impact is the use of Google Fonts (can be disabled – https://wpexplorer-themes.com/total/docs/disable-google-fonts-completely/ – and I believe Google is making changes on their end to comply as well – plus I am hoping to have a new custom font manager/uploader in Total before this date). The other function is the Facebook Page widget which uses some code to connect to Facebook to check if the current visitor is logged in. Those are the only 2 things inside Total that I believe can cause any sort of concern.
If you are a US based website hosted in the US can the GDPR really go after you? I’m curious as I haven’t been able to find much info on that either.
- AJ
I think that if a US based website hosted in the US is in especially egregious and blatant violation of GDPR, then authorities might try to bring legal action. I would think that smaller websites, especially those that don’t specifically target visitors/customers from the EU, are less likely to be targeted – at least until after there is some established legal precedence.
Having said that, I do think all website operators should be considerate of the privacy, consent, and “right to be forgotten” principles that are the basis of GDPR, regardless of where the visitor is located.
“I do think all website operators should be considerate of the privacy” – I totally agree 100% with this I just wish that the GDPR was more straight forward and not so complex/vague. It seems everywhere you look websites are saying different things and it’s a bit hard to figure out exactly what’s required to be in the “green”.
Anyway…I am always looking to improve my theme and keep it as secure for both the website owner and end user so if you see anything or have any doubts please send them over (thanks). Same things goes for accessibility.
- AJ
Hello AJ, Long time no see. Two issues:
1) It looks like the nav options on the image carousel are broken for some reason, neither the arrows nor the dots are showing up when displaying wider than 960px. The options are added to the carousel stage as css classes but they don’t effect the result.
2) There is a load order issue with its js, I had it several times now where the images load as a list instead of a carousel, presumably the js having fired before they were loaded. It loads as a stack on top of a duplicate of the stack, it turns into two identical carousels if you resize the browser.
Hey there,
1. Can you share the URL so I can take a look? Usually if the carousel is broken a 3rd party plugin is creating a javascript error on the page or some CSS is conflicting. There isn’t any known issues with the carousel module so I will have to look at the live site to see.
2. There is a known bug (browser related and mostly creates issues in Firefox) with the stacking of images. I have already added a fix for the next update. The bug is related to this setting enabled – https://cl.ly/qtuA
If you disable that does it work correctly?
- AJ
1. It’s a private development at this point but I found what is going wrong. You have code in there that hides the arrows if it calculates that all the items are visible on the screen. There is either a zero-indexing or other calculation problem where the arrows only show if you have n+2 images rather than n+1. Try it by setting your width to four images and adding four first and five later. It only shows the arrows at full width at six or more (with the display setting at 4) 2. If I disable auto-width, I don’t have the stacking issue but now the images are not scaled to the same height, rather they are made the same width and heights scaled to match that, even when the image assets are the same width originally. Since this is a carousel, I think it would make sense to make them match and fill the same height by default (and offer an option to not do so optionally).
Hi,
I recently updated the carousel script which should fix both issues. Usually I can send people Beta’s to test out if they open a private ticket – https://wpexplorer-themes.com/support/ (I can’t share it here since it’s public) – but looks like your support has expired so you can’t submit private tickets.
I plan on releasing an update this week though, are you able to wait a few days for the official update? Or renew your support license? Or did you want to figure out a different way for me to send it over to you to beta test?
- AJ
I can wait no problem, if you need me to test it beforehand I’d be happy to provide an email address or something. We never got the site up around purchase and the project just got restarted hence the no support, though it has yet to be used online. I’ll buy support once it goes online, mostly because you are so helpful and don’t dodge issues like many theme developers.
On the carousel again, I just realized it does not parse video links unlike the image gallery. Judging from the comments in vcex_image_carousel.php, you started working on it but then stopped because the video wasn’t pausing on slide advance. Here is how to do that, you could also prevent autoplay until video stops playing: https://developers.google.com/youtube/iframe_api_reference#Loading_a_Video_Player older solutions in case your lightbox is not using the API in that manner https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7443578/youtube-iframe-api-how-do-i-control-a-iframe-player-thats-already-in-the-htmlOh, I just realized that Owl already does all this by default now if you can update it. It will also help with the performance. Yours was based on 2.0 beta, it’s now past 2.3.3. I haven’t tried dropping it in after renaming functions though.
Hi,
I actually have tried the built-in image playing functions in Own Carousel the issue is that it’s not very user-friendly as it’s usually such a small area and 2 that the carousel adds extra code to the videos and replaces the video with a thumbnail taken from youtube (as opposed to the featured image).
If you are doing a carousel of just videos I would recommend enabling lightbox on the carousel and the carousel will display the video in the lightbox which much more user-friendly.
And yes the upcoming update does use the latest version of the script
Some customers have also mentioned that they use and like this plugin – https://wordpress.org/plugins/ultimate-carousel-for-visual-composer/ – I haven’t personally tested it but the demos do look promising if you think it would be useful in your project.
You can always slim things down and disable the total carousels – https://wpexplorer-themes.com/total/docs/enabling-disabling-vc-modules/ – if you do choose that.
I totally understand regarding the support license and I always answer the comments here whether you have a license or not, it’s just that my private support checks for valid licenses as it can become very costly paying my staff to support customers for many years without the added benefits of the customers paying for and renewing support licenses. It only helps offset costs.
- AJ
It doesn’t play the video in the lightbox either, and unlike the image gallery, it doesn’t add a play icon or something to note that it is a video. The youtube thumbnail would actually be good since someone already produces that and youtube has the tools to help them do so. I was hoping to keep it to total so that there isn’t a second lightbox script and to minimize dependencies in general, I trust you to avoid conflicts and php resource bombs, but I don’t trust all devs
Oh you are right I didn’t add the code for the lightbox! I definitely should do that
I actually just commented out the code for the video support so it’s pretty much already coded just need to uncomment and test it with the latest verison of the script. Give me a sec I’ll check it out and see if it’s any better now…
- AJ
So the video function seems to work much better in the latest version of OwlCarousel but in my opinion it doesn’t look too great. I added a filter so you can enable the functionality in a child theme – https://cl.ly/qwFB – for the next update.
But I think having lightbox with a little icon would be best. Thoughts?
What are you creating exactly?
- AJ
Filler works for me, my child theme is ridiculous with many fillers and custom functions anyhow.
I’m donating a website to a local school and thought it would be nice to have a minimal interaction visual showcase on the main page that scrolled though images and videos that they wanted to have upfront.
While I like the option of having the lightbox with the play icon, neither them nor their visitors are super tech-savvy, so the familiar youtube interface would work better for them so that it is clear that it is a video with the title and all.
Thanks for this, I spent the last hour looking at other offerings but they are all cumbersome in one way or another.
That’s really nice of you!
Is the school really into youtube? If so, there are some plugins where you can just enter the youtube account ID and it will auto display the videos via the youtube API. Like this one – http://plugins.sbthemes.com/youtube-channel-vc-addon/carousel/ (which actually uses Total for their demo). I haven’t tested the plugin but I would be more than happy to donate it for your non-profit project.
- AJ
Thank you for your generous offer but they really only have a couple videos, they haven’t gotten the hang of it yet, I think they’ll be more comfortable with the drag and drop carousel you already have programmed with the option to simple paste in a youtube url. With the filter, will Owl just replace the image with the youtube video embed?
Unrelated to this, has anyone complained about the Frontend Editor producing a white screen with VC? I ran logs before and after render and it doesn’t put anything on the log. Backend/classic is fine, frontend drops instantly. My memory limit is 256m so its not that.
Sorry I should have also added, I tried disabling all plugins (except for VC) and switching out of the child theme.
- Here is the image carousel file (updated) if you want to test it out – https://cl.ly/qxxY – it would be replaced under Total/vcex_templates/
Then you can add this code to enable it to the child theme:
add_filter( 'vcex_image_carousel_video_support', '__return_true' );
It should still work even with the older version of Owl Carousel if you want to give it a try. I just can’t send you the updated JS file because there has been other changes that may cause some other issues on the site.
And yes, the carousel will display the thumbnail used on youtube instead of the featured image. Which to me seems a bit strange because you are defining the video on an image so it would make more sense to show that image no?
This update doesn’t have the lightbox support for videos but I can add that as well and send it over if you want to test both before the official update. It wouldn’t take too long to update.
Regarding the Visual Composer, no one has complained about a white screen on the front-end editor recently. This would most likely be a javascript conflict with a 3rd party plugin or a server error. Do you have access to the server error logs? And if so do you see any errors being added when opening the editor?
Additionally when you open the editor do you see any errors in the browser console? https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome-devtools/console/
- AJ
ps: Thank you for the awesome rating/review
Is there anyway to make it so that all carousel items are the same height (like a normal carousel) so that is a long unbroken ribbon?
Yes, auto width won’t work with videos because the size is unknown at load 
Because the videos are iframes the only way to force the same height is via CSS but then the video proportions would be off. That’s why it would be best if combining images and videos to use lightbox or only use videos.
I can send you the lightbox version if you want to try it out.
- AJ
On the VC white screen, I tried disabling everything but Total yet it still wouldn’t load the frontend. There is no js loading, so the console is clean. I tried normal wp debug and this (https://github.com/stracker-phil/wp-no-white-screen/blob/master/no-white-screen.php) but they logged no problems. I wonder if it is a stupid godaddy issue (they had a hosting account from them.. I’m going to move them out soon but thought we’d use it for development since they had it)
There is something up with the video width but I’m not sure what. even if I set video with in js(option in owl), it only works once you click the thumbnail, until then, autowidth hides the tn container. I’ll take a better look once the update is out with new js and all.
Worst case I could go with your image slider instead as it behaves better, but I still prefer the carousel. I just liked the ability to see the images before and after the current image as it readily allowed people to see that there are more images either direction. Any way to stop videos from auto-playing in the image slider / gallery sliders?
Hi,
The live demo here has some extra parameters that aren’t available yet in the file I sent because it requires an update to the core JS such as video:true as well as videoHeight and videoWidth.
In order for me to add all the extra parameters though I have to update all the carousel modules and when doing so I will optimize the code a bit to use a json string of parameters instead of multiple data attributes in the html and I will also add a filter so you can easily add/remove parameters that may not be available in the module settings. I’ll start working on this so it’s available in 4.6.2
Hopefully adding the extra parameters will help with the auto widths but I am also wondering if the carousel needs to be setup with only videos and no images for it to work correctly, I’ll have to scan through the JS code but I’ll see how we can get it working 100% in 4.6.2.
Total uses it’s own image resizing function which is dynamic so it bypasses some of the core filters. You can disable that under Theme panel > Image Sizes if you want to use native image cropping on upload/regenerate.
That said, upscaling via PHP is less optimal then just using CSS, no?
Looks like I hardcoded the autoplay for videos – https://cl.ly/r0aj – I will update this as well so it can be altered via PHP, thanks for pointing that out!
To be honest I haven’t had any customers really use the video functionalities in these modules before so no one has made any recommendations or requests. I really appreciate you stepping in and helping me make them better!
- AJ
No problem, I assumed as much on the core js (well, more than assumed, went through the js after I sent the comment). I’m still writing a guide for them on how to update content so we probably won’t be online until early May (Do you think 4.6.2. will be around then?) I can always help along with some CSS if any ‘auto’ sizing is not working.
PHP upscaling is certainly not ideal, I just did not know that there was another resizing function working behind the scenes, and so was interrogating unexpected behavior. I cannot always count on them to put high resolution images (it might be 10px short for example) so the php upscaling just irons out alignment issues in such cases.
A lot of visual content is moving to video these days, so its probably good to iron them out before you have multiple people run into them. Happy to help
Unrelated to this.
1) Is there anyway to hard-disable font family option in the WYSIWYG editor? They get a little too elaborate sometimes I’d rather keep the default that I set via CSS
2) This is a more extended suggestion (aka fantasy). I’ve never seen this done in a theme but if you could have ‘save as defaults’ in your VC modules that stored settings in the theme settings data, it would allow people to easily build consistent designs across pages. Especially if you could combine it with code that could do
if(no entry)(saved-default)?$default:null
sort of thing per field. You could just set a default margin for text boxes for example and change them all by re-saving defaults.
Hi,
1. Yes you can disable that via your child theme:
add_filter( 'mce_buttons_2', function( $buttons ) {
$remove = array( 'fontselect' );
return array_diff( $buttons, $remove );
}, PHP_INT_MAX );
More info here: https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Filter_Reference/mce_buttons,_mce_buttons_2,_mce_buttons_3,_mce_buttons_4#Remove_a_button
2. This is a great idea, the problem is that it can be done for Total modules and core modules but very difficult to integrate into any 3rd party extension plugins like “Ultimate Addons” which a lot of customers use.
It’s a fantastic idea though and a lot of customers will really want it so I added it to my todo list for 4.7 – https://cl.ly/r4k8 – it’s going to take some time to integrate and test but it would be a really really nice function to have.
And the way it would work is when you select a global preset it will load the default settings from that preset basically becoming the “defaults” so you could still edit that module if there is something you want to change specifically on that module only.
I definitely think it’s possible, the tricky part is going to be developing it in a way that will hopefully work for any addon plugin not just the core builder modules and the Total modules. Since each addon works so differently I’m not sure if that would be possible. That said, most customers stick with the available Total modules.
ps: A lot of customers using Total actually use the Elementor page builder which I believe already has this thing built-in. Total works well with that builder.
- AJ
I did that earlier but your Total/framework/wp-filters/tiny-mce-buttons.php climbed on top. I’m assuming the php int max is fixing that loading order?
Elementor is totally nicer and I thought of migrating things over but at this point it might be too much work, I coded several VC modules for them already. I might give it a shot on a staging version sometime.
Hi,
Yes, the PHP_INT_MAX is the “priority” and this constant returns the highest integer possible. But anything over 10 would work since Total uses the priority of 10.
Well, you could always consider Elementor for a future project with Total I am actually considering making some Elementor demos for Total. While 90% of customers still use VC, there are a lot of people that really like Elementor. I am waiting to see how nice Gutenburg turns and maybe even shift Total in that direction (depending how people react to it and customer requests for it).
- AJ
Looks like I coded most things as shortcodes in my infinite wisdom, so I might carry things over the Elementor anyhow. Just have to brush up on my flex (was piggybacking the vc grid).
Bigger question, does Total not do specific JS loading? I have all the components loading all the time. Here is a totally blank page with a paragraph of text for example, this is with visual composer diabled. I haven’t used slider pro at any point
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fkl9626mhwh7o3z/Screenshot%202018-04-22%2013.28.40.pngBy default the theme does load all the JS but in 1 file which is fairly small so it’s more optimized (you load 1 file once and it gets cached for the whole site so there are less requests). But looks like you have minify disabled under the main Theme Panel – https://wpexplorer-themes.com/total/docs/minify-javascript/ – this is enabled by default.
- AJ
I purposefully disabled minify for development, makes debugging easier. Is there an easy way for me to nix some of the components I will never use? Might be another feature suggestion add advanced options in theme panel where one can mark off some dependencies.
The issue with that is then the theme would have to dynamically create the minified js file based on your selections and sooo many customers already have enough issues with server permissions and have hardcore security functions in place it would turn into a massive headache (won’t work for most people or would require server edits) for a small micro-optimization that may save 0.01 second loading time on first time view (because the file will be cached after).
Not to mention actual security concerns with dynamically creating js files.
That said, if your plan is to basically use Elementor and you are going to be using the header builder you could remove all the theme’s javascript completely if you don’t need any of it (enable minify JS then dequeue the main js file). But like I said, this is not really going to do much in terms of actually optimizing the loading time.
- AJ
ps: I am revising some things though for future updates so that certain files are dynamically loaded as needed only as well as I am considering moving away from the current lightbox script to a slimmer one with only 1 skin. But I will still try and keep as much in 1 core js file because if people are visiting more then 1 page of your site it’s going to be better.
Sorry, I am used to developing themes from scratch using underscore and in places where broadband was not very, well, broad. I always trimmed until everything was under a couple hundred kb so it’s hard to lose the habit.
On the suggestion, I was not talking about creating page specific files necessarily but making it so that in minification (since you are already parsing the js files) it only includes scripts used in the website (or marked manually, which would obviously be easier).
In order to have the scripts used on the website only it would still need to be parsed and cached on the user’s server (needs to scan the site for any scrips you may need – almost impossible actually and very inefficient, would be best to do so on a per-page basis).
What I can do is move some out for example the masonry javascript so it’s only loaded when there is a masonry grid on the page, but because it’s fairly small and a lot of customers use it, loading it globally more often then not will be more efficient then adding extra server requests on subsequent pages.
That said, I will take a closer look to see if anything can be extracted and better optimized Always welcome the suggestions for making the theme better!
- AJ
Yup, that’s why I suggested to have the easier method of listing the theme’s scripts under a minify settings panel as Scripts to exclude where people can manually choose the ones they know they don’t use.
edit: just looked at your enqueue scripts and realized that you actually include pre-minified js file. *headslap I assumed you were doing minification before enqueueing.
Hahah sorry to ramble on about it.. I suppose the easiest thing is for me to dequeue the ones I know not to use since I’ll use an external minifier to begin with.
Just let me know how that works out and if you do have any further suggestions. I am always open to making the theme better and more optimized
- AJ
#content-wrap .elementor-section-stretched.elementor-section-boxed > .elementor-container {
max-width: 90%;
width: 980px;
}
what you have for vc
body.wpex-responsive .container, body.wpex-responsive .vc_row-fluid.container {
max-width: 90%;
}
.container, .vc_row-fluid.container {
width: 980px;
}
wp_dequeue_script( 'wpex-isotope'); wp_deregister_script( 'wpex-isotope'); wp_dequeue_script( 'wpex-sliderpro'); wp_deregister_script( 'wpex-sliderpro'); wp_dequeue_script( 'wpex-sliderpro-customthumbnails'); wp_deregister_script( 'wpex-sliderpro-customthumbnails'); wp_dequeue_script( 'wpex-owl-carousel'); wp_deregister_script( 'wpex-owl-carousel'); wp_dequeue_script( 'wpex-typed'); wp_deregister_script( 'wpex-typed'); wp_dequeue_script( 'wpex-countup'); wp_deregister_script( 'wpex-countup');
also, I haven’t looked at all the dependencies but I think tocca and sidr are worth updating (probably others too like images loaded since they are both quite a bit old (unless you are using non-versioned headers) and have since adapted for browser engine changes, esp. for mobile. Tocca probably does better throttling now.
Hi,
Yes, this dequeue will work as long as you don’t have the minify JS setting enabled in the Theme Panel.
- Tocca will most likely be removed soon. It’s used for image Overlays only which I can probably use custom JS for instead, plus Tocca can conflict with some 3rd party plugins.
- Sidr has some custom code for Total which is why it hasn’t been updated, but also I will likely be stripping out this script as well in the future in exchange for my own code for the sidebar style mobile menu. I have made my own custom tweaks to it to optimize it.
- imagesLoaded will be updated in the next update, good catch
- AJ
Hello AJ, sorry if Idisturb, I asked for something I just fixed! Thank you for your patience,
Bob
Thanks for letting me know, I hope you are having a nice weekend!
I would need an option to have a background image (of a row) display set to “fixed” and “cover”. Is there is no Extra Class Name for this? Do I miss something? How could I combine bg-fixed and bg-cover? It doesn’t work up to now.
Hi,
Actually when you are using the fixed background option when editing a row it is set to cover style automatically – https://cl.ly/qtQI
This is a newer option I think maybe in the docs I do mention using the “bg-fixed” class, but it’s the same thing. This class applies both “background-attachment: fixed” and “background-size: cover;”.
- AJ
How do you update the theme without overriding everything?
Hi,
Whenever you update the theme it should override all the theme files.
If you are referring to your theme settings like the ones in the Customizer, these are never overritten, these are saved in your database not in the theme files themselves.
But, if you made any manual edits to the theme files these will be overritten so you will want to move your customizations to a child theme – http://wpexplorer-themes.com/total/docs/child-theme/ – one should never edit a theme’s core files and Total has all the hooks and filters you would ever need for advanced edits. If you need any help with that I can help.
And here is the docs for updating the theme – http://wpexplorer-themes.com/total/docs-category/updates/ – the best way is entering your license under Theme Panel > Theme License so you can update via the WP dashboard.
If you have any issues with the update or followup questions let me know so I can assist you.
- AJ
Hi AJ, I know I don’t have a support package purchased but I have a small query that I hope you’d be able to answer. If I require more help, I’ll be sure to purchase the support package as well. I have a Revolution slider on my home page that I wanted to make full screen. This means that the homepage menu would overlay on that – very similar to what you have on your theme demo page. Right now I’ve tried setting up the slider in full screen mode and it works only when I disable the header. However, I need the menu on the page and hence the header would have to be enabled. I’d really appreciate it if you can help. Thanks.
Hi,
No problem the support license is primarily for submitting private tickets to help pay for my support staff and extra time required for private tickets (these are normally more complex and time consuming) I always answer ALL comments.
Regarding your question, this is what you are looking for: https://wpexplorer-themes.com/total/docs/overlay-header/
Setting the header to Overlay will place the header in an absolute position so anything added below it (your slider) will display under it.
- AJ
Thank you AJ. I appreciate the help.
No problem, if you need anything else let me know.
1) Disabling breadcrumbs is not working. It has been disabled in all places, but it is still appearing.
2) The logo is set to full width, but doesnt appear full width on mobile or desktop.
Total Theme
Hi,
1. Do you have any 3rd party plugin that may be adding the breadcrumbs? Such as Yoast SEO? I double checked and the on/off settings are working correctly when I test for the built-in crumbs.
2. There is no “full width” option for the logo, the logo simply displays as it was uploaded. Can you share the URL so I can see what you mean?
I do see you are missing the “purchased” tag for this theme so make sure you have a valid license and you are logged in with the correct account used to purchase this theme and/or that you are commenting on the correct item, sometimes people accidentally leave comments for a different theme then the one they are actually using.
- AJ
Hello
1. I enabled breadcrumbs and then disabled them. Once I did that, it never went away.
2. Can I share privately?
3. My client purchased the theme and sent to me to customize.
1. Sounds like you either have breadcrumbs enabled on the page settings – https://wpexplorer-themes.com/total/docs/page-settings-metabox/ – or they aren’t coming from the theme.
2. You can submit a private ticket here – https://wpexplorer-themes.com/total/docs/how-to-request-support/ – but you need a valid license.
3. Technically your client is the one that has purchased support so they are the ones that can make requests. If you need additional help to support your client than you should purchase your own license as well so you can access our support.
We have a lot of customers that do client work and their clients purchase the theme in this case all they have to do if they want help from us is own 1 license so they can access the support. It is expensive and time consuming to provide support which is why it can only be provided to verified customers. Thank you for understanding.
- AJ
Hi AJ,
I’ve got some right real s**t happening on one of my blog posts.
They’re all set up the same, to show sidebar widgets – but on this one single blog post, nothing is showing.
I also noticed that the next/previous links were not working either, and the Featured Image is duplicated at the bottom.
Page in question is at (https://) (NSFW) midlandsmaidens-escorts(dot)com – scroll down to the ‘latest from the blog’ section and the latest post ‘Last Weeks Statistics’ is the post in question – all the other posts are showing the correct widgets.
Another strange thing – just tried publishing a ‘test post’ and that one published as normal, complete with widgets.
Dunno, must be the Friday 13th bug.
Nope – problem is still there after publishing another blog post.
‘Last Weeks Statistics’ is still there, together with another one – ‘Backpage is Closed Down’ if you can make any sense out of this – I certainly can’t.
Hang on – found it – it was a rogue plugin.
For info purposes, it was ‘Post Tags and Categories for Pages’.
Whew, now I can get on with my posting!
Oh great! I’m glad you were able to figure it out, thanks for the heads up. Hopefully you are having a nice weekend.
- AJ
I want to buy this theme, but I have a question, http://totaltheme.wpengine.com/tinyfolio/ for the homepage, if I have more than 100 photos, what will happen? Do you have pagination? can you show me what it will be ?
Hi,
First of all I hope you are having an nice weekend.
So the demo you are referring to is setup via the built-in portfolio post type – https://wpexplorer-themes.com/total/docs/portfolio/
The homepage was simply setup via the Portfolio Grid page builder module and pagination is disabled since there aren’t enough items but you can enable it – https://cl.ly/quAM
Now…the portfolio post type is best used when you have items that require content. If you ONLY want plain images on the homepage and you have a bunch I would recommend instead using the support Real Media Library plugin and an image grid builder module instead like this – https://wpexplorer-themes.com/total/docs/real-media-library-integration/
Let me know if you have any other questions,
- AJ
Thanks for your reply, another question before purchasing, http://totaltheme.wpengine.com/tinyfolio/portfolio-item/french-macaroons/ for this page, do you only have one format? Do you have the picture on left and text on right?
Hi,
This page – http://totaltheme.wpengine.com/tinyfolio/portfolio-item/french-macaroons/ – is just the default basic portfolio layout. If you want to move the image to the left you can with some CSS but you can also design your own custom layouts for the portfolio items via the page builder using a dynamic template. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGYuBjqkj8Q
This will allow you to make any layout you want. A lot of customers actually use the dynamic template combined with custom fields plugins like this one – https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/ – to display dynamic data for their modules as well.
There is a bit more info about the portfolio post type here – https://wpexplorer-themes.com/total/docs/portfolio/ – and you can also completely rename it if needed – https://wpexplorer-themes.com/total/docs/renaming-post-types/
Or you can even create any number of new post types if you prefer – https://wpexplorer-themes.com/total/docs/adding-custom-post-types/
- AJ
Hello,
Is there a way to rearrange how the categories show on “Post Grid” Element? (Post Grid—> Include Categories).
Thanks
Hi there,
This is AJ the developer. I hope you are having a nice weekend. Thank you for your patience.
Unfortunately the Post Grid doesn’t have an include categories option – https://cl.ly/quPM – so I am not sure what you are referring to. Can you please explain? Thanks!
ps: Usually a plugin like this can be used to re-arrange category displays in WP – https://wordpress.org/plugins/taxonomy-terms-order/
- AJ
Thanks!
Is there an option for making a menu-button aligned to the right, and the rest of the menu aligned to the left? Example: https://www.dropbox.com/s/p1wcuvz8r5rn1wr/Image%202018-04-13%20at%208.40.37%20PM.png?dl=0
Hi,
This is AJ the theme developer. First of all I hope you are having an nice weekend
So there isn’t a built-in option for this but it’s not very hard at all to do. There are a couple ways.
1. You could add a button to your menu like this: https://wpexplorer-themes.com/total/docs/header-one-menu-button/ – then you can use some CSS to move the default header one placement and float the button to the right (I can help with the CSS if needed).
2. You can add a button via a hook – http://wpexplorer-themes.com/total/docs/action-hooks/ – then position it absolutely and add some CSS to ofset the menu based on the button width.
- AJ
Hi AJ. I did figure it out with Option 1after testing with a demo install to see how it was setup. I just need to float the button to the right. Can you advise on the CSS to use there?
Hi,
This is going to depend on how you moved the menu to the left, can you share the URL so I can see?
But usually something like this would work:
#site-navigation .menu-button { float: right; }
But your menu has to have been edited so it extends all the way to the end of the header otherwise it will not work for obvious reasons.
- AJ
I used a demo that already had the button in the navigation. Adding this CSS to Customize worked perfectly! Thank you so much AJ
