Thank you for your advices, AJ. Best regards

By the way, I’ve tried to insert your custom code on CSS, but the Form Shortcode element didn’t show.

This code isn’t CSS, it’s PHP, in fact it could potentially break your site if you add it into the CSS field, so be sure to remove it.

The snippet would be added in your child theme functions.php file (if you are using a child theme) or you would use a “Code Snippet” plugin (there are many free ones).

- AJ

Hi,

This is AJ the theme author.

It sounds like WPBakery Slim Mode was enabled on your site – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/wpbakery-slim-mode/ – and your site is using older elements.

Slim Mode is never enabled by default or with an update, but it will be enabled if you import certain demos as I have it enabled on most newer demos to keep them faster.

But I also add a notice under Tools > Site Health to recommend enabling Slim Mode, so perhaps someone saw that and enabled it on the site.

Can you check and see if that’s the issue? If not please let me know so I can further investigate!

Now, if the issue is related to WPBakery Slim mode and want to make use of the functionality you have a couple options:

1. You can replace the elements that re removed when Slim Mode is enabled with alternatives (like the Post Cards to display testimonials/portfolio items).

2. You can re-enable certain elements you are using on the site via a little custom code. There is a sample snippet in the docs, I linked to above.

- AJ

That was it! Thank you AJ!

Hi Paul,

This hero section is a slider. So you would use a plugin like Depicter (free on WP.org and I my recommendation) or Slider Revolution (included with the theme).

Slides are such an advanced functionality and most the time people want each slide to behave differently, so this functionality is generally best done via a plugin instead of bloating up a theme (many slider plugins have much more code then the Total theme itself).

Now, technically you could do it without a plugin using these 2 theme functions:

1. Using the Post Cards and creating a custom post type named “Slides” to add your slides to. Ideally using custom fields for the data (title, excerpt, button link, image) – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/how-to-add-custom-fields/ – And then create a custom card for the layout/design – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/custom-card-builder/

2. You could add a section on the page with a row for each slide and then use the theme’s Toggle functionality to create the buttons to go through each slide – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/toggle-elements/

Where you may have some trouble if you try creating this layout using WPBakery is making the image extend out to the side. On your example site, this is done by inserting an image then positioning it absolutely with a fixed width: https://a.cl.ly/jkuBjGby. WPBakery doesn’t allow for absolute positioning inside the builder as it can create a lot of issues when trying to move items around or clicking on them to edit them. Thus, it will require custom CSS to achieve the same sort of extended image to the side.

I’ve added to my to-do list the idea of creating a new element specifically for left/right layouts where the image can extend beyond the container edge. I will look into updating the existing Feature Box element -https://totalwptheme.com/elements/feature-boxes/ – to support this functionality (if possible)

I think having a simple left/right text and image element, where the image can extend to the edge of the screen would be very useful for a lot of users.

- AJ

ps: For modern websites sliders are generally discouraged due to accessibility, usability, site speed and SEO concerns. I would recommend using a static hero section only.

WordPress doesn’t have the ability to only export categories, you would need to use a plugin such as – https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-all-export/ – or export/import it directly from the database.

HI,

Correct, you will need to purchase a separate license for the separate domain.

- AJ

Hi,

I hope you had a nice weekend.

What you are asking for is a fairly complex functionality. It’s simple if you know what you’re doing, but if not, it can be quite intricate. I would do this by creating a post type called something like user_docs. Each post in this post type would be named after the corresponding user. For example, if you have a user with the username john-cena, you’d also have a post with the slug john-cena.

Then you can restrict access like this:

// Restrict access to user_docs posts so users can only access their own
function restrict_user_docs_access() {
    if ( is_singular('user_docs') ) {
        // Redirect to home if user is not logged in
        if ( !is_user_logged_in() ) {
            wp_redirect( home_url() );
            exit;
        }

        global $post;
        $current_user = wp_get_current_user();

        // Compare post slug with current user's login name
        if ( $post->post_name !== $current_user->user_login ) {
            // Redirect unauthorized users to homepage (or another location)
            wp_redirect( home_url() );
            exit;
        }
    }
}
add_action( 'template_redirect', 'restrict_user_docs_access' );

For your link you could create it dynamically like this:

// Shortcode to generate link to current user's user_docs page
function user_docs_link_shortcode( $atts ) {
    // Only show to logged-in users
    if ( !is_user_logged_in() ) {
        return '';
    }

    $current_user = wp_get_current_user();
    $username_slug = $current_user->user_login;

    // Get post by slug and post type
    $post = get_page_by_path( $username_slug, OBJECT, 'user_docs' );

    if ( ! $post ) {
        return ''; // user post doesn't exist
    }

    $url = get_permalink( $post->ID );
    $link_text = isset( $atts['text'] ) ? esc_html( $atts['text'] ) : 'My Documents';

    return '<a href="' . esc_url( $url ) . '">' . $link_text . '</a>';
}
add_shortcode( 'user_docs_link', 'user_docs_link_shortcode' );

Shortcode usage: [user_docs_link text=”Go to My Docs”]

My Total demos login is locked behind my IP address for security reasons, so unless you are using my static IP address you won’t be able to log into my demos and you should see a 403 server error if trying to access the login page.

Not sure why you are trying to log into my demo

- Aj

ps: Those snippets were created with chatGPT.

ps: I am available for hire if you want me to code something exclusively for you email me at wpexplorer [at] gmail dot com – depending on what you want, you may want to setup some advanced custom fields as well for the post type for defining the user docs and then displaying them automatically – rather then having to build each page with a page builder.

Thank you! It is good to know that you are available for hiring! About the login, it was just a click on the “user login” link at the top bar of the demo. I thinnk i wanted to know if a front end login form would appear

Were you able to fix the issue? If so, what was it? Thanks!

- AJ

Yes! The link URL in card settings was incorrect as you suggested. Removing it entirely solved the issue. Thanks!

Glad it was an easy fix, thank. you for letting me know!

- AJ

Hi James,

There is no built-in way in WordPress to set a default taxonomy value, it would require custom code. But it’s not something I would recommend, especially not with what you are doing.

What you are trying to do isn’t what taxonomies are intended for.

In your case, it would make more sense if you had a taxonomy “Event Categories” that you use to organize your events and then you have a specific category named “Hide from Homepage” (or whatever). Then you exclude that category in your homepage query.

This yes/no functionality just doesn’t make any sense as a taxonomy. If you specifically wanted to have the user select yes or no, then you would use a custom field: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/how-to-add-custom-fields/ – and it would make more sense as a single checkbox “Hide from Homepage” and then your homepage query would exclude that custom field like such: https://a.cl.ly/NQum9BOX – assuming your custom field is a checkbox named “exclude_from_home” and when checked the value saved is 1.

In general when working with a database you want to avoid saving useless data. For example, if the default is “yes” there is no point to save that value into the database. It makes more sense to only save “no” values into the database. Otherwise you not only bloat up the database with default values (which are assumed, you don’t need to store them) but you also create a lock in effect, where in the future if you want to change the default you then have to manually edit every post.

- AJ

Thanks for the great advice, AJ!

ps: I wrote a little doc for this if you want to bookmark it: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/dynamic-template-mega-menu/

Hi AJ,

Wow, that is looking great.I will experiment with it and fihure out how to use it. This is giving a lot of options.

Thanks!

- Bjorn

I will also try the header menu’s. I never used it before but it is looking promising as well.

So, unfortunately there is no such thing as a responsive background image in web design. When you use an image as background it has to fill up the row, in order for there to not be any cropping the image would essentially need to have the exact same proportions as the row itself – which is going to be impossible for most cases.

Now, your image actually has all the text on it. Which means you don’t need to use a background. You can simply insert the image into a row and stretch the row. Like this: https://a.cl.ly/nOur7R62

The only time to use the image as a background would be if it’s just a background and any text is added as actual text on top of the background.

Now, because the text is on the image though, it could get a bit small for smaller screens, in which case you could consider making a mobile version of the image and inserting 2 images and have one display at “Hidden on Phones” and the other at “Visible on Phones” for smaller screens.

The alternative is to not use an image with text (that’s a bit outdated) and rather add the text directly on the site (you would need access to the font used for the image though so you can upload it to your site for use). The tricky thing would be if you want to have the picture of the guy in the exact position as you have it now as created by the whole image. This is nearly impossible, which is why designs generally move away from this sort of thing and rather you would position the photo of the man in it’s own column to the side, or as a full background where it doesn’t matter if it crops a bit, or on the bottom right in a way where wouldn’t matter if text goes over him.

While you can always add multiple rows and show/hide things, generally it’s best to try and focus on making your design “responsive” so you aren’t doing that – most modern designs allow for fluid layouts.

I’m currently working on making many new Total demos so I don’t have any good examples of using a person as a background image, but here is a good one on SquareSpace showing how you could use a person in the background but it looks good across all devices: https://bloom-fluid-demo.squarespace.com/ (it really comes down to the image itself)

- AJ

-AJ thank you so much for not only showing me how to fix the problem but educating me on it. Can I buy you a coffee, drink, or something?

You are welcome

If you ever come to Vegas you can buy me a drink for sure!

I would be very appreciative if you went to your downloads – https://themeforest.net/downloads – and give the theme a positive rating, that helps me the most out of anything. Even if you rated it before, leaving a new rating bumps it up to the top which is nice. Thank you!

And of course let me know if you need help with anything else,

- AJ

Hi James,

Can you share the URL? It’s hard to know what’s going on without inspecting the code. Perhaps you can share it privately? https://my.totalwptheme.com/

From what I can tell, it looks like you may not have enough items for the carousel to create a loop. For example, if you’re showing 3 items at a time and want it to loop, you typically need at least double that amount. This is because the carousel script needs enough content to ‘wrap around’ and create the illusion of an infinite loop.

Now, you are also using the “auto width” setting, which makes it so each item can take up as much space as it needs. This could cause some issues as well depending on the images and if they are lazy loading.

Personally though, I would recommend against carousels – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/why-you-shouldnt-be-using-carousels-on-your-website/

For your site a horizontal scrollbar may be best – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/horizontal-image-gallery-with-scrollbar/

- AJ

Hi AJ

You were right – when I added more images the arrows showed up and there was an infinite loop.

I will perhaps use the horizontal scrollbar, or just add more images.

Thanks

James

Hi,

This is AJ the theme author.

Usually when this happens it’s because the site has switched from http to https which is technically a different domain. You can simply log into here – https://my.totalwptheme.com/ – click on “License Manager” and click the trash can next to any license to de-register it.

If that doesn’t work please let me know!

- AJ

Hi,

Are you referring to the WooCommerce user account page? If so, there isn’t any theme options to modify this because if the theme changes the way the WooCommerce account page works it can break 3d party plugins so it’s best for themes to not change that.

What were you looking to modify?

- AJ

Im looking to customize login page as well as register. I will have 2 different register pages for different types of users. One type of users sets up events via eventon which you recommended and the other is regular buyer.

Can you share a link so I can see the pages?

Also when you say “customize” this is a pretty broad word – are you looking to change the design (colors), the layout, add extra fields, add extra text, etc. What do you want to change exactly?

Depending on what you want to change, like if it’s just the design of the forms (colors) you may be able to do that via the Customizer – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/styling-forms/ – but if you are looking to make changes to the actual forms, such as adding extra fields this would require custom code (assuming the Eventon plugin allows for this).

- AJ

Hi,

This is AJ the theme author.

I hope you had a nice weekend, thank you for your patience.

I had a look and your site is showing the default mobile menu on small screens like this: https://a.cl.ly/xQumQGro

Did you fix the issue, or is it not working like this for you?

- AJ

I’ve put it on my todo list for the next plugin update I’m trying to figure out if it should be automatically added always or something you need to enable on a per-taxonomy basis via a new setting.

Great thanks – it would be really helpful. I can’t see a reason for it to be optional, it’s not optional on standard Posts after all. Thank you!

The reason for making it optional would be because if you have a lot of taxonomies it can get overwhelming. For example if you have a custom shop and add taxonomies for color, brand, gender, size, condition, age group, dimensions, availability…etc And these are all automatically added to the admin dashboard, it could break the layout and significantly slow down the admin page.

I know most people will likely be working with 1-2 custom taxonomies, but I need to think about every case scenario.

- AJ

Hi James,

In web design when you have columns in a grid there is no way to ‘center’ them because technically the empty columns still exist and they take up that empty space.

To do what you want is only possible using a flex container, which you can do with the Post Cards element: https://a.cl.ly/GGu9ywJB

But flex containers, because of how they work they will stay at the same columns for all screen-sizes. If you want them to stack you will need to target your grid with custom CSS, example:

@media (max-width: 600px) {
  .your-custom-grid-class .wpex-post-cards-entry {
    flex-basis: 100%;
  }
}

Where ‘your-custom-grid-class’ is a custom class added to the Post Cards.

I will put on my todo list to add an option where you can select a breakpoint for the items to stack (or ability to select columns at different breakpoints) but it’s much more complex than you can imagine.

- AJ

I’ve updated the flex container so it can grab all the inline style tags and move the code outside of the flex container so it’s all in one place like this – https://a.cl.ly/yAuRn4qL – this will keep the inner HTML cleaner and prevent issues with the :nth-child selectors.

If you want here is the updated file – https://a.cl.ly/Kou5NQpl

You can unzip and replace via FTP under plugins/total-theme-core/inc/vcex/templates

If you try it out and have any issues let me know and thank you again for reporting the bug!

- AJ

Thanks, AJ. That’s a really elegant solution. And so quick! C

No, thank YOU for reporting the bug!

Hi,

This is AJ the theme author.

This is a bug in their plugin that I reported over 5 years ago, I guess they never bothered fixing it. Please see here: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/w3-total-cache-css-minify-issues/

By the way, all of the theme’s CSS and Javascript as well as that of most plugins are already minified by default. I can’t think of any modern WordPress theme or plugin that doesn’t offer their scripts already minified. By using a 3rd party plugin to minify already minified scripts, just creates duplicate copies of your files, uses up server resources and can introduce issues (if the plugin is incorrectly coded as is this case). So for the most part you should never have to enable minify functions.

Also some plugins include options to “combine” scripts and I want to mention this incase you are using those functions…combining scripts is an outdated practice which actually slows down your site. So if you are combining your CSS/JS you should disable that as well.

- AJ

ps: Actually the theme has code that’s supposed to automatically exclude the files mentioned in the article above, from being minified. So either W3 Total Cache changed how their plugin works (I will double check to see if I need to update the code in the theme) or there is a different bug in their plugin. I”m looking at it now. Either way, minifying the already minified theme scripts is completely useless as mentioned previously. So you should actually exclude the entire theme’s CSS and JS from w3 Total cache’s minify functions.

I had a look and I do need to update the code used to automatically exclude the theme files from the W3 Total Cache minify function and I’ve patched the file for the upcoming 6.4 update – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/upcoming-update-changelog/

Thank you for bringing this to my attention!

Hi James,

I was able to recreate the issue and I’ll patch it for the next update.

For the meantime you can set your bottom padding using utility classes – https://totalwptheme.com/css-framework/padding/ – so you can add the classname “wpex-pb-20” for a bottom 20px padding instead of using the custom CSS tab.

Thank you for reporting this!

- AJ

Here is the patched file: https://a.cl.ly/xQumER97 – if you want you can extract and replace via FTP under plugins/total-theme-core/inc/vcex/templates – this prevents the ACF element from outputting any code if there aren’t any fields or a fallback. The issue was that it was previously spitting out the inline CSS and main div even if there was nothing to show.

Thanks AJ !

HI,

There is no “custom CSS file” – are you referring to the Custom CSS panel at Theme Panel > Custom CSS?

If so, this is actually part of WordPress core, which can be found at Appearance > Customize > Additional CSS. I just have a separate panel added inside the theme which makes it easier to use since it’s a much larger field and you don’t have to load up the whole customizer to add a little CSS.

The WordPress custom CSS function works as a custom post type and it’s “attached” to the active theme.

So if for example you rename your child theme or switch from the parent theme to a child theme it would seem like this is ‘lost’ but really it’s just not being pulled from the database, switching back to the previously active child theme or theme name would “bring it back”.

This is the only reason I can think of for “losing” the CSS.

Do you remember perhaps renaming the theme, changing to a child theme or renaming your child theme?

If you didn’t, I have no idea how it could get deleted (there is no theme function that would delete it). But if you have backups of your site (which you should), you should be able to locate the old CSS inside one of your database backups as WordPress stores this inside the wp_posts table as a custom_css post type.

Now, I haven’t had any other customers report this issue before. But if it’s something that’s happened to you and you are worried, for your peace of mind it may be best to place your custom CSS inside a child theme’s style.css file instead and disable the Custom CSS panel. This can also keep your site a little slimmer and working with a style.css file also means you can open it with your favorite editor via FTP (I use Visual Studio Code) so there are some added benefits.

- AJ