22369 comments found.
Hi 
My sticky header and scroll link don’t work, but when I’m logged in everything works correctly. What could be the cause?
Hi,
If it all works when logged in, most likely the issue is related to a bug with an optimization plugin that is modifying the theme’s javascript files incorrectly. These optimization plugins generally only run for logged out users.
The theme uses modern techniques to optimally load theme scripts and there are some plugins out there that will strip out these optimizations and cause them to break. More specifically, Total uses the defer attribute on it’s JS files but adds them in the <head> of the site this can help the site load more optimally. If a plugin removes the defer attribute, the file won’t work as expected anymore because it will cause the script to run before the site has rendered, so elements like the sticky header or local scroll link won’t “exist” when the script is executed. I’ve seen this issue with a few minify/combining plugins.
If you share the URL in question I can tell you exactly what’s going on 
- AJ
Hi! I recently buyed a font awesome pro. I wish use thin icons in your modules with icon. Is that posible? thanks
Hi,
Yes you can use the FontAwesome Pro icons in the theme’s elements.
You will need to download the SVG files for the icons you wish to use.
Then, if you are using WPBakery you can use the theme’s custom button when selecting an icon – https://a.cl.ly/DOuYY704
And if you are using Elementor you would use this option: https://a.cl.ly/E0uvvpGD
SVG uploads are not allowed in WordPress by default, so you will need to first install a plugin like Safe SVG so you can upload the icons you want to use to the media library. Or add some custom code to your site to enable SVG uploads.
It’s also possible to replace the theme’s icons entirely with your icons via a child theme. See here: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/snippets/custom-icons-json/
It’s worth mentioning, that the reason you would upload the individual icon SVGs, is because this way you are only adding the icons you need on your site. If you were to instead use FontAwesome as an icon font, that requires loading a bunch of CSS and all of the icons. This is very inefficient and it will slow down the site and lower it’s page speed scores. Also SVG’s are simple HTML so they render inline, it’s the best way of displaying icons on a site.
- AJ
Hi AJ
In Settings > Permalinks I have a custom structure:
/resources/blog/ category / postname /
Now the issue with this is that it also prepends /resources/blog/ to all other post types too.
PTU has this setting to stop that happening:
With Front (default: true) Should the permalink structure be prepended with the front base (example: if your permalink structure is /blog/, then your links will be blog/{post_type_slug}/ if enabled).
But Just Events doesn’t seem to have this setting, so my single Event URLs are including resources/blog
Can you let me know how to make this adjustment to Just Events URLs?
Thanks
James
Hi James,
WordPress has a couple filters you can use to modify the arguments of any registered post type. Here is a sample snippet for hooking into just_events and changing the with_front to false:
// Modify the just_event post type args
add_filter( 'register_just_event_post_type_args', function( $args ) {
if ( isset( $args['rewrite'] ) && is_array( $args['rewrite'] ) ) {
$args['rewrite']['with_front'] = false;
} else {
$args['rewrite'] = [
'with_front' => false,
];
}
return $args;
} );
I personally would recommend keeping the URL’s much slimmer (site/post-slug/ or site/cpt/post-slug) not just for SEO reasons but also for readability.
- AJ
Hi AJ
These blog posts, eg
https://shorturl.at/NPBoaUse a Dynamic Template for layout. The template includes the Featured Image immediately beneath the date / author meta.
However it’s not showing up.
Any idea why?
Thanks
James
Hi James,
There is no way I could know why it’s not working without logging in and looking. Inspecting the source code I don’t see any image element, so the element itself is not being added to the code. This means either there isn’t any element added to the template or there isn’t any image being fetched.
To confirm, you’ve inserted the theme’s Image element and set the source to “Featured Image” like this: https://a.cl.ly/GGujjg4P
I do see the post has a featured image defined and there aren’t any known issues with theme’s element fetching the featured image so it should be showing up. Can you double check the template and if you still can’t get it working please send me temp access so I can log in and see what’s going on. Thanks! https://my.totalwptheme.com/
- AJ
Thanks AJ
I have opened a ticket for you to look. It’s probably something simple, or something I did and have forgotten !
Got it and replied back
Hi,
I can see in the error log that the security nonce is not validating if you try loading items and check the browser console you will see the following error:
vcex_ajax: atts nonce did not verify
By any chance were you manually overriding the vcex_post_type_grid.php file via a child theme inside a “vcex_templates” folder? If so, the file will need to be updated according to the changes made in Total 6.4 – specifically the following line:
$output .= vcex_get_loadmore_button( 'vcex_post_type_grid', $atts, $vcex_query );
which needs to be:
$output .= vcex_get_loadmore_button( 'vcex_post_type_grid', $raw_atts, $vcex_query );
So the variable $atts needs to be $raw_atts.
This is because in Total 6.4 I modified the security check so it uses the element settings in the check to prevent someone from arbitrarily trying to load more items with different settings (like a different post type for example). Previously I was using a basic nonce which for most cases is fine, these changes hardens things. So if you are getting the error I mentioned from the console, it means that the security didn’t validate so the settings passed to the load more functionality aren’t matching the settings used on the element. The only reason I can think of this happening is if the file was modified via a child theme and it’s not up to date. Please check and let me know otherwise.
If you wish you can email me directly to wpexplorer [at] gmail dot com as well if you want me to log in and look.
- AJThanks very much indeed AJ. Yes, I can see that error in the console. I do indeed have a child theme but can’t see any vcex_templates folders and don’t know how to track this down. Nor do I know how to keep a child theme “up to date” as I am not a coder. I will email you. Thanks again!
Got your email, will reply back to you shortly. Thank you for your patience!
Thanks so much for your email AJ and I have replied with the info you needed.
Hi, AJ I would like to know if it is posible to use jetpack Social to automatically share our new posts to Facebook, Instagram. Is there other options with total?
Thanks in advance
Sonia
Hi, AJ what we want to share automatically are portfolios, not just posts. Is that posible with jetpack social or maybe is there any other plugin to do that? can you help me with that?
Hi Sonia,
Auto sharing posts is not theme territory so you would definitely need a plugin to do this. I’m not familiar with JetPack social but according to their landing page – https://jetpack.com/social/ – it should be possible to do what you want. But from what I understand it shares the post when it becomes published so you have to check a box to share it while it’s drafted.
This free plugin – https://wordpress.org/plugins/social-media-auto-publish/ – has some decent ratings and it also supports custom post types (portfolio).
Personally, I don’t think it’s worth installing and maintaining extra plugins when it only takes a couple minutes to manually post to social media when you publish new posts. I’m also not sure how good of a strategy it is, manual publishing is likely more effective.
- AJ
thank you so much, AJ for your answer. I will take your advice into account
Hi AJ. I thought I’d ask this question here, instead of using the Support portal as I think this might be a question a lot of users have.
How can I make all of the tabs open by default in WooCommerce when they are set to appear next to the image?
There is a setting to have the first tab open by default (when set to use the accordion format). and an option to allow tabs to remain open. But, I want them all to be open when the product page loads.
Many thanks, Nick
Hi Nick,
Having all tabs open wouldn’t make too much sense as it defeats the purpose of tabs/accordion – which is to slim down content.
I’m thinking perhaps what you actually want is to have all the sections visible always. Is that correct?
If so, what you would need to do is use the default WooCommerce tabs then add custom CSS to the site to force them to be visible (similar to the option I have called “Expanded Tabs on Mobile”). Here is the CSS you can use:
.woocommerce-tabs .wc-tabs { display: none !important; }
.woocommerce-Tabs-panel,
.woocommerce-Tabs-panel > h2 { display: block !important; }
Alternatively you can create a custom WooCommerce template, this way you don’t need to have the details inside tabs and you can design the products how you’d like: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/woocommerce-single-product-template/
Now, if you really want an accordion (so the user can close sections) and have them all visible to start, it is possible with a little code added to your child theme functions.php file or via a code snippets plugin: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/snippets/woo-product-accordion-open-all-toggles/
- AJ
Awesome reply as ever! Thank you. Gave me every option I wanted.
Hi. Can you tell me where I can find instructions for setting up Dark Mode? How can I make the toggle switch so it’s not in the menu, but next to the menu like in the screenshot? https://prnt.sc/6PizPeBQk5UD
Hi,
The Dark Mode docs are here: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/dark-mode/
If you want to have the dark mode toggle next to the menu and not inside it you will want to use a Flex header style: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/header-styles/
The Flex Header styles allow for adding content via a ‘Side Content” field: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/header-aside/
The side content will display next to the header on desktop and also on mobile.
I made a little video example: https://a.cl.ly/OAuydqyq
Let me know if you have any issues or questions!
- AJ
Thank you very much for the detailed instructions and video!
Hi AJ
Can you take a look at this for me: https://shorturl.at/rx8xSThe cards are sorted using the AJAX filter, but there are two issues with it.
1. When a filter is active, pagination doesn’t work, it leads to a blank page. I am not sure if this has always been an issue, or whether it is has occurred recently.
2. The filters are not working as intended. If you click any filter to activate it, clicking it a second time should deactivate it. But it’s not behaving. Example, click “Caring” and it correctly shows the 12 items. But click it again, and although the all cards are shown the filter buttons have not reset, and look like they did when “Caring” was active. I think this issue has crept in since I built this page, as I tested it extensively and would have noticed this.
Thank you
James
Hi James,
1. Your site appears to be missing the crucial data-vcex-pagination=”numbered_ajax” data attribute on the Post Cards element. Can you edit the Post Cards and make sure the pagination is set correctly to the “Numbered (Ajax)” pagination type and not just “Numbered”.
2. I see what you are saying, this does appear to be a bug with the filter’s caching function when using one of the multiple selection filter types. As you mentioned, it’s resetting the grid but not the buttons. I will need to hold a cache of the filter buttons as well so they can return back to their previous state as well. I am able to recreate the issue locally and working on the fix right now. I will reply back as soon as the fix is ready!
- AJ
Ok, I fixed the filtering cache issue. Here is a video showing it working correctly now on my test site: https://a.cl.ly/7KurwL7N
Thank you so much for reporting the bug!
If you want the fix now so you don’t have to wait for the official update you can simply delete and re-install the Total Theme Core plugin via the WP admin – I patched the plugin version that gets downloaded when installing it via the Appearance > Install Plugins. You will need to clear your site and browser cache after updating though, because it is a javascript fix and the plugin version is still 2.4.2 since it’s not an official update – so there won’t be any cache busting.
Let me know about the pagination issue!
- AJ
Thanks AJ.
Re 1. , the option to change pagination is not available, see screenshot:
https://ibb.co/p6xZnyrRWhere in the Customizer can I find it? I had a look round but wasn’t sure.
Thanks
James
Hi James,
The option for the pagination is under the Query tab – https://a.cl.ly/YEuEYX52 – this is because depending on what option you select, the Pagination tab may or may not show up, so the setting can’t be in that same tab.
Sorry not sure what you mean about the Customizer….Reading through the thread I’m not seeing any mention of the Customizer.
If what you are wondering is how to update the plugin, what you do is log into the site and go to Plugins. Find and delete the Total Theme Core. Then go to Appearance > Install Plugins and re-install/activate it.
- AJ
Thanks AJ – it all works. No idea why I was looking in the Customizer !
Just remembered why I looked in the Customizer, it’s because of this wording on the Pagination tab (I realise I should have been looking under the Query tab) – but anyway this is where my confusion arose:
https://ibb.co/p6xZnyrRHi AJ, I’m using a navigation bar in conjunction with Post Cards as described in the Total docs. It shows taxonomy terms for a custom post type, and I’ve set it up with the Ajaxed filter mode, as shown in this screenshot https://prnt.sc/_bpBlVxVVnZH so that clicking one of the nav buttons filters by the custom post type’s category.
This has been working for a year or so, but recently it’s started sporadically failing, with the result that it shows all categories in the post type and is no longer limiting to the categories selected with the query in the Post Cards UI. I also have “show post count” enabled, and this no longer works either, just shows (-) next to the button label.
This feels like it’s got to be a caching issue, because when I use Chrome the page loads broken, but it fixes itself when I reload. Oddly, when i do the same in incognito, reloading the page does not fix the problem. Except sometimes when I turn the Siteground cache off and on again, refreshing the page in incognito mode does fix it. In all cases, the page loads broken whether the SG cache is on or not, so the only thing that’s sporadic is whether it works or not in incognito. WUT? Oh, and if that’s not interesting enough, the whole problem is sporadic, i.e. sometimes it works as intended, just as it has for months and months, until now.
FWIW, the site is using the free CloudFlare plan’s CDN, but I put it in development mode and that seemingly has no effect on this issue. Any insights?
Hi,
Can you share the URL in question?
AJAX functionality is generally not cached by the server, if you are seeing the (-) and not the counters most likely what’s happening is that the server is timing out or crashing. AJAX generally also by-passes CloudFlare because it needs to send the direct request to your database to get results in “real time”.
It actually somewhat makes sense if the issue only happens sometimes, because more likely your server is running out of resources or blocking the request.
Now, the counter functionality is somewhat intensive I would recommend you first try disabling that option. This requires actually sending a second request to the server that loops through all your posts in order to calculate how many are in each category – this is done when the page loads and also after each request. If you have many posts and/or terms it’s possible your server is timing out or throttling the requests.
A good way to tell if the issue is server related is to open the browser console and refresh the page until the issue happens and when it does check the error logs and if you see a 500 error, it means it’s a server error. Also the theme does record it’s own errors in the console which could be helpful.
If you aren’t on a high end server, you may want to consider not using AJAX because of the whole fact that it by-passes caching. Instead just link to the categories directly. You can create a dynamic template to insert a menu at the top of all the archives – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/dynamic-templates/ – for example this demo which uses a dynamic template for the blog with a navigation bar to link to each category: https://totalwpthemedemo.com/boomerang/blog/
Ajaxed filtering may seem cool, but in reality it’s not the best solution in terms of site speed, accessibility, seo and server resources. I generally recommend linking to cacheable pages whenever possible.
- AJ
Thanks for the thorough answer. I’ve turned off the document counts for simplicity’s sake, and if this helps, I can likely convince the client to do without those. I tried setting the navbar’s filter type to Simple Show/HIde and flipping back and forth between that and Ajax, but either way it seems to choke, with the loading spinner churning away for a painfully long time. I don’t see any 500 errors in the browser console, but I’m not too experienced in using that feature, so I may be missing something. The URL in question is https://westhamptonma.gov
I understand the speed and SEO differences for having dedicated pages for this, but the use case here is to give users a way to see a quick look at these doc types without having to navigate away from the main page. SEO isn’t important at all for this application, and instantaneous loading isn’t crucial either, just as long as it’s not agonizing to use. The client has low traffic and doesn’t want to spring for premium hosting just for a feature or two, but to me it seems like there should be something fixable, as just loading this one query shouldn’t feel like it should take 10-15 seconds.
Note that I think you’re onto something regarding server processing speed, because if I turn the doc counts back on, the problem with showing unfiltered content and (-) counts comes back, BUT something I didn’t notice is also happening: it usually eventually loads if you wait long enough. It’s double-digit seconds, so I never did wait it out until now, and I’m sure no regular user would either, but if there’s a way to make the query happen faster, I think I could find something that’s good enough.
To clarify one bit of background: if I have the Filter set to Ajaxed, it takes forever to load if I click the filter buttons, but the initial page load seems reasonable most of the time. If I have it set to Simple Show/Hide the page loads quickly enough, and it filters quickly, but if I hit Load More, it takes forever to run that query and redraw the list of posts. Either way, the query seems to be the problem, and choosing Ajaxed or Show/Hide just puts the painful loading time in different moments.
Hi,
Oh, I remember this site
Ajaxed means that each time you click a filter it will send the request to the server to get the posts for the filtered item. When you use the simple show/hide it’s only going to filter items already on the page. The later is generally only if you have a set number of posts without any pagination (load more). If you have a lot of posts and you need pagination, then you would want to use AJAX to fetch the posts.
I’m not seeing any errors in the console and the items do load but it does take a long time. Unfortunately that’s just server related, it means the server is taking a lot of time to process the ajax request: https://a.cl.ly/nOuOOx7G
In WordPress ajax requests are sent to admin-ajax.php it’s possible there are other plugins on your site that are running in the WP admin when not needed that could be slowing things down. But it’s also possible it’s just a slow server response. Troubleshooting why it’s so slow can be a bit tricky and may require disabling plugins to see if any of them are causing the slowness and/or reaching out to the hosting company to see if they can assist. But there isn’t anything that can be done from the theme’s perspective as it’s just a basic request for posts using a WP_Query.
It’s also very possible, depending on what server your site is running on that this isn’t “slow” but rather the default server speed (which is slow).
And yes, for this specific page it wouldn’t make any sense to have standard (non-ajaxed) pagination or filtering because there is a lot of other content, so it would be weird.
- AJ
Hi AJ
I’ve made a single blog template using Dynamic Templates. I like the “Blog grid” element as a quick way to show latest articles in the sidebar. However I notice the date does not have a calendar icon, so it’s not consistent with the “meta” element seen in the content.
Any way of adding it? Or, I suppose I could create a custom card for the latest articles instead? Would that work?
Thanks
James
Hi James,
I think creating a custom card is best as it’s the easiest and you will have full control. Also the Post Cards element is slightly faster. Plus, when you use elements like the Blog Grid it means you can’t enable WPBakery Slim Mode – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/wpbakery-slim-mode/ – which really slims down the backend as a lot less elements are registered.
To create a similar custom card can be a bit tricky if you aren’t sure how to do it because of that left aligned image. But it’s very simple to do using the theme’s Icon box with some shortcodes and dynamic variables.
Here is a video example showing how I would setup the custom card: https://a.cl.ly/4guEGzx6 (i’m just doing it on the homepage, you would of course create a custom card)
Here is the code if you want to copy/paste into a custom card – https://gist.github.com/ (past via the WP classic editor in “code” mode).
Alternatively you can use the Blog List 1 default Card style
- AJ
Hi AJ Hope you’re keeping well.
I’d like to use one of your demos: https://totalwpthemedemo.com/modern-agency/ for my existing website: https://quantumleapgolf.com/
But if I use the demo importer function, Im guessing it will chnage the entire website, and i dont want to do that.
I think (still figuring it out) that i’d just like to use the homepage design from the demo.
If i didnt have you to direct me, i would set up a temporary sub-domain and import the demo into that. Then i could copy the page code across into a new page on my current website and take it from there.
Is that about right? Or is there a better way?
Thansk again AJ. All the best, Tony
Hi Tony,
You are 100% correct, you wouldn’t want to import a demo into an existing site. But if you want to replicate any demo page you can use the Demo Inspector Tool – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/demo-page-inspector/ – so you can paste in any demo page and it will spit out the code used for that page which you can copy/paste onto your site – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/how-to-add-demo-inspector-code-to-your-site/
I would recommend not overriding the homepage of your site yet, rather create a new page and edit it and once happy delete the old homepage and rename the new page and set it as your new homepage.
Couple things to mention:
1) When you copy over the page content it will not include the images, post types, etc. So it may not look exactly the same but it will give you the general layout to work with.
2) This specific demo is using a transparent header set for the homepage only – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/overlay-header/
- AJ
Hi AJ
Thank you for your help. Your demo inspector tool is brilliant – love it!
I’ve drafted up my new homepage based on the demo – please see here: https://quantumleapgolf.com/test/ (password = test)
You’ll see I’ve used the Portfolio Grid element as you do in your demo, looks great but I’ve not been able to make it work properly. Of course it’s intended to link to portfolio items, but I want to link it to specific pages. If you click the first one you’ll see it works. That’s only because I’ve ‘fudged it’ by using a 301 redirect to send it to the required page – but of course that’s not good practice.
So… how can I keep the new home page looking like it does but with the 6 images (currently displayed with the potfolio grid) linking directly to the required pages?
Thank you in anticipation, Tony
Hi,
Instead of the Portfolio Grid you can use the Post Cards element. Set the Card Style to “Image” then you can add the hover effect via the Media tab.
I will actually update the demo to do the same, since the Post Cards is the newer/preferred element. I made a video of me making the changes so you can see how it’s done: https://a.cl.ly/6qunAel7
For linking to pages choose “Page” as your post type and then use the “Query specific posts” setting to show specific pages: https://a.cl.ly/nOuO4kyO (in WordPress pages are technically posts as well under-the-hood).
- AJ
Thank you AJ – spot on!
Hi AJ
Is it possible to use the Header builder for mobile only?
I have a tricky design to build, and the desktop header is absolutely fine using standard headers (no header builder needed) but the mobile design can only be achieved with the header builder.
I know I could do BOTH desktop and mobile in the header builder, but I don’t want to change the desktop header as it works so perfectly.
Thanks
James
Hi James,
Once you define a template for the Header Builder it’s applied always, so it’s not possible using that functionality. But it’s 100% possible to create a template to use on mobile and hide the default header on mobile.
I had some snippets already to show you how to hide the header on mobile and also how to insert template content on the site, but not a dedicated snippet for what you were asking so I added one.
See here: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/snippets/mobile-header-template/
Let me know if you have any issues or questions!
- AJ
Thanks AJ, that looks great. Just one other thing, I would need to hide the top bar on mobile too – is that included in this script or if not can you tweak the code to include hiding the top bar on mobile?
You can hide the top bar on mobile using the existing settings under Customize > Top Bar > General > Visibility.
Is there a way to order WPbakery templates in alphabetical order when choosing a template to add in frontend editing. I have a lot of templates and it takes a long time to find the one i need every time. Thanks.
Hi,
Re-ordering the templates depends on how they were created. I had a look at the code in WPBakery and if your templates were created using the Templatera plugin, there is no way to sort them. However, if your templates were creating without templatera and just using the WPBakery popup that looks like this – https://a.cl.ly/Z4u42QQ9 – these are actually already sorted alphabetically by default.
This is an inconsistency in the plugin, I will let the Templatera plugin developers know and hopefully in their next update they can have the Templatera templates also sorted alphabetically.
I can suggest that they add a search field as well, but I’m not sure that’s something they would do as it’s a bit niche.
May I ask why you have so many templates?
I generally do not recommend using templates (at all) for a couple reasons:
- These are just patterns so they can’t be edited globally, if you are adding hundreds of “templates” on a site and you ever want to update all of these sections you will still need to do so manually.
- For most sites it’s simply not needed to re-use the same design so many times that you need to store them as templates. If a site has many sections that use the same layout, there are methods in WordPress and in the theme that can be used to create these in a more dynamic/global way.
If you would like to share some examples, perhaps I can suggest more future-proof and easier to manage alternatives (if possible).
For example, I have seen sites where the user was creating templates that they inserted in every single post (and they had hundreds of posts). Something that would have been much better done via a Dynamic Template and controlled globally – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/dynamic-templates/
- AJ
Hi AJ,
Thanks so much for your reply.
I create templates in both ways – I sometimes save a layout I’ve been working on as a template and sometimes I create from scratch in WP page builder.
On this website we run courses using The Events Calendar. Most of our templates are for course descriptions i.e. content. We run many different types of unique courses. With the events calendar we are unable to simply duplicate a course (event) and so each event must be manually added. To save time I made templates for each course and then when I create a new event (course) I add the template for that course in page builder. This means that when something changes on all our One Day Glassblowing classes for example or if I need to add a new image or change text – I just alter the template, and this changes all instances of this template on event posts. Sometimes we don’t run a course for a couple of years, but the template is still there for when we do.
So currently the way I use templates does mean that I can effect changes globally for specific events as the templates are used for global content than layout although I tend to use the same layout for courses.
I haven’t investigated dynamic templates yet, but do you think this will work for supplying global course ‘content’?
This is why there are so many templates. I haven’t found a better way to do this, and this is why it’s hard when adding the relevant course template to my event – scrolling through them is a bit of a pain. As a workaround, I just recently changed the date of my most used templates (One Day Glassblowing etc. ) to put them at the top of the template list when adding in page builder (as the ordering appears to be by date).
Again, thank you for taking the time to reply.
Hi,
If I understand correctly, this changes things…I thought you were doing this: https://a.cl.ly/jkukjDg1 – which just creates “patterns” that can’t be edited globally.
Based on your information, it sounds like you are using Templatera and inserting the templates via the Templatera element. This way you can still edit them globally. In which case the dropdown you want to change is this one: https://a.cl.ly/NQuXn1RJ
Correct?
If so, it’s possible to modify this field in various ways. In fact you can turn the field into a searchable field. I wrote some code that you can add to your child theme or a code snippet plugin that will turn the dropdown into an autocomplete field. This way you can start typing and it will search the templates and return the ones who’s name matches your search.
Here is a new snippet with the code: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/snippets/templatera-select-autocomplate/
And here is a video of the code in action: https://a.cl.ly/rRuRdoqr
This will be much easier than sorting alphabetically as long as you know the name of the template you want to add
I hope this is what you were referring to and you find this helpful, if not please let me know!
- AJ
Hi AJ, That’s exactly right! and a searchable autocomplete would be great.
I did put the snippet you provided into my child functions file and it did make the template field into an autocomplete/searchable field, however on my site it didn’t work – i.e. when i add anything it just gives me back ALL the templates in the same order (date) as before. For some reason it isn’t working at finding templates.
Thanks for your help. - Kim
Hi Kim,
Sorry about that, I did make a little mistake in the code. I’ve updated the snippet: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/snippets/templatera-select-autocomplete/
I forgot to pass the variables $search_string in the second function and $value in the 3rd function.
Sorry about that!
- AJ
Thanks AJ – Works perfectly – you’re a star!
Hi AJ, I’m posting this in Comments, rather than on your support site, in case it’s useful for someone else using The Events Calendar from Modern Tribe.
A couple of years ago, you provide a nice little code snippet that allowed me to override TEC’s default single event template with a Dynamic Template from Total. That code still works perfectly on the site you designed it for, but when I paste it into functions.php for a new site, and swap out the template ID for the one in use by the new site, it doesn’t work. No idea what I’m missing, can you provide any insight? Here’s the code:
// Set template for singular events.
add_filter( ‘wpex_single_template_id’, function( $template_id ) {
if ( is_singular( ‘tribe_events’ ) ) {
return 53500; // I’ve added the ID from the new site here and triple-checked to make sure I have the number right
}
return $template_id;
} );
Unfortunately I’m stuck with TEC instead of your light and tidy calendar plugin, since I need functionality that they have and yours doesn’t (yet?).
Hi,
I’ve tried many times to get the Events Calendar plugin to work with dynamic templates but because of how it’s coded it’s nearly impossible. The plugin has changed a lot over the years, so I’m not 100% what could be going on, but I think in order for the dynamic template to work using the code you mentioned requires setting the Display > Events Template to “Default Page Template” like this: https://a.cl.ly/Z4u42QqZ
Which was how the plugin worked originally, before they introduced the new and default “Events Template” option.
Let me know if changing that setting doesn’t work!
- AJ
Aw, that sounded so promising, just the kind of janky maneuver that always seems necessary with TEC. . . but nope, hopes dashed. For what it’s worth, the site where the template redirect is actually working is using Default Events Template, not Default Page Template anyway.
Got any other ideas? Happy to provide a login if that’s helpful.
Wait, stop the presses. . . I just noticed my FTP program was waiting at the “do you want to overwrite the remote file” prompt Geez. Once I said YES, it worked! Thanks for saving the day.
(as always)
Hi AJ,
I am interested in implementing a toggle button that disables a row’s self-hosted video background upon clicking it. This way I can go from having a looping video to a static image if a visitor would prefer it.
Is this possible to implement this with a theme button element set to “link type: toggle element” and specifying the row’s ID?
At the moment I am only able to toggle the actual row’s visibility itself rather than the video component, even though there are the following options for toggling it under Row Settings > Video tab > Visibility dropdown:
Toggles
Hidden Toggle Element
Visible Toggle Element
Persistent Hidden Toggle Element
Persistent Visible Toggle Element
This leads me to believe that it is possible to toggle just the video background and I’m simply missing a step in the process.
Thanks for your assistance!
- Scott
Hi Scott,
You are correct, the Video element provides the ability to select the Toggle Element class as one of the visibility options, but you aren’t able to give the video background a unique ID to target it.
The ID must be added to the video background, not the Row. If added to the row it would hide the whole row, so you would need to add 2 rows (one for the video and one for the static image). Which you can do, but if the row has any text inside it, you would be adding duplicate text in the source code which you wouldn’t want for SEO reasons.
The reason for adding the visibility setting to the video background, was primarily so that you can hide it on mobile (which several customers requested) and I forgot to exclude the Toggle Element visibility options.
Since I forgot to hide those options and I see that having the ability to hide the video via a button would be useful, I will go ahead and add a new field so you can give your video a unique ID, this way you can target it.
I am planning to release an update either today or tomorrow and I’ll be sure to add the field so you can define a unique ID for the video background.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention!
- AJ
Followup: I added the option so you can enter the Unique ID for your video when choosing one of the Toggle visibility options. I recorded a video showing it work now: https://a.cl.ly/kpuxZkK9
Also, I’ve updated the Toggle Element javascript so if it detects a video inside the toggle-able element it will pause/play it when it’s hidden/shown.
Sorry for all the replies…
I also added an option to the Button element that will allow you to create a playback toggle button, so if you wanted to create a custom play/pause button for the video background, you can do that as well.
Here is a video example: https://a.cl.ly/o0u0LB8g
This would be preferred over swapping between a video and static background image, as the later requires loading an extra image that may never be shown to the end user.
The new button on click action will also work with the theme’s Video element if you want to disable the controls and add a custom play button elsewhere – not sure how useful that is, but it will work!
I will try and get the update released asap. There are a couple other small things I want to do before testing and publishing the update. Fingers crossed it will be available tomorrow, if not, hopefully the following day.
I can keep you posted if you wish.
- AJ
Hi AJ,
Thanks so much for your replies. I really appreciate your consideration of including this feature, and explaining how these updates work.
The initial video background toggle capability is wonderful, but it’s also great to be able to create a play/pause toggle button for the background video. That’s a fantastic feature.
If you could keep me posted, I would be most grateful.
Thank you very much AJ!
- Scott
Hi Scott,
I’m zipping everything up to release the update so you should see it shortly!
- AJ
Thanks AJ!
- Scott
Dear AJ, how are things? I hope you feel fine!
As a long time customer of yours I wanted to say thank you for all the hard work you put into the TOTAL theme, amazing!
Last week I put up a site for a new project and tried to filter post cards which works great in general. But now I try to filter posts in the category “country” and as a child category “city” with two dropdown menus. So you could pick “Italy”in the first dropdown and then “Rome” in the second and would see all posts with the category “Rome”.
I found this snippet which works in general but I don’t know how to add the condition Country/City: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/snippets/advanced-ajax-filter-example/
Could that work without a plugin? It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that. It would be great to avoid bloat and yearly costs and I would be extremely grateful if you would pinpoint me into a direction where I can figure it out in detail. Sorry the site is not online yet so I can’t show it to you yet.
Thanks so much! All the best, Oliver
Hi Oliver,
It is possible to do what you are asking but it’s actually quite complicated. There are 2 methods of doing this:
1) You use ajax so when a country is selected it sends a request to your server to grab the list of cities to generate the dropdown for the city.
2) You add a dropdown for all child categories (cities) which are hidden by default. Then you use javascript to show them based on which parent category is selected.
The second option is probably the best and what I would recommend, unless you have thousands of cities which could slow down the page.
Now, I would also highly recommend you add a filter button to your grid, this way when selecting a country it won’t automatically filter items. By providing a filter button you ensure the user makes the selection they want before filtering. The sample snippet shows how to add a button.
You could use chatGPT to help with the code and it should be able to give you the code. I was going to do this for you but I don’t understand how your site is setup. I assume you have a custom taxonomy named “country” and then another taxonomy named “city” – but you said “child category”, so that doesn’t make sense because you can’t assign a term as a child of a different taxonomy. So maybe you have a single taxonomy called “location” where you add both the countries (as parent) and the cities as chield terms.
- AJ
Hi AJ, thanks so much for reply! I agree it’s more complicated than I was anticipating. I even prompted chatGPT for quite some time it but I couldn’t make its code work, probably the JQuery/JS part wasn’t fitting, I’m not sure.
We were thinking about it and found a work around using landing pages for each country and a simple city filter, that’s working out for us. If you are interested in the code chatGPT produced, let me know and I’ll send it you.
Thanks for your always great support! I hope you feel fine and everything’s good. Best wishes, Oliver
In the latest theme update, the “image gallery” stopped appearing. In other words, in the card, the “image grid” is not working! :/ How can this be resolved?
Hi,
Sorry I’m not sure what the problem is. Are you saying you are using the Image Grid inside a custom card to display the current post gallery but it’s not working?
If so, nothing should have changed that would break the image grid element when used inside a custom card. I tried testing and recorded a video (still working for me) – https://a.cl.ly/4guEND09
If this is not the issue, can you please explain? Thank you!
If you can share your custom card code I can also test your exact card to see – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/share-page-content-troubleshooting/
- AJ
Here’s the classic mode of the SN CARD:
css_animation="none" wpex_shadow="shadow-2xl" css=".vc_custom_1698242922850{background-color: #f7f7f7 !important;border-radius: 10px !important;}"]vcex_image source="featured" lazy_load="false" caption="true" align="center" overlay_style="category-tag" img_size="full" onclick="post_permalink" img_hover_style="opacity" border_radius="3%"vcex_image_grid post_gallery="true" vertical_align="bottom" columns="3" hover_animation="float-shadow" columns_responsive_settings="tl:3|tp:3|pl:3|pp:3" columns_gap="1" css=".vc_custom_1698590349722{margin-top: 5px !important;padding-right: 1px !important;padding-left: 1px !important;}"vcex_page_title html_tag="h2" link_to_post="true" bottom_margin="0px" css=".vc_custom_1698590400945{margin-bottom: 3px !important;padding-top: 3px !important;padding-right: 5px !important;padding-left: 5px !important;}" text_align="center" after_text="`{`sc name=``seta```}`" text_transform="none" font_size="md" color="#515151"vcex_post_excerpt bottom_margin="0px" length="get_the_excerpt" css=".vc_custom_1698584357538{padding-top: 5px !important;padding-right: 5px !important;padding-bottom: 3px !important;padding-left: 5px !important;}" text_align="left" font_size="12px"ver mais - sc name="right"vc_column_text css=".vc_custom_1698585093382{margin-top: -5px !important;margin-bottom: 5px !important;}" text_align="center" font_size="sm"/vc_column_textsharethis-inline-buttons/vc_columnvc_row[vc_column_text css=".vc_custom_1699734777522{margin-top: -7px !important;}"]::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Cheers SIlva Nuno
Hi,
I was able to recreate the issue with the Post Gallery. It’s a bug specifically with categories. The issue is fixed for the next update but also patched for the live plugin download.
If you log into your site and delete the Total Theme Core plugin, then go to Appearance > Install Plugins and re-install and activate the plugin it should work.
Sorry for the troubles and thank you for reporting the bug!
The theme has new validation for the license, it’s possible it was originally copied and pasted incorrectly on the site and it worked before but with new checks it’s now showing the invalid warning. You should try re-adding your license.
You can view your licenses on ThemeForest here: https://themeforest.net/item/total-responsive-multipurpose-wordpress-theme/6339019/support
And you can also log in here – https://my.totalwptheme.com/ – to view and manage your licenses. But don’t share your licenses in the comments. This is a public forum so anyone can read your messages.
If you have any issues with adding the license let me know.
I double checked my license manager and I don’t see your domain as being registered.
- AJ
Aug 2025 update error failed: Host: There was an active maintenance page in the public_html in your file manager. I have now renamed this to ”.maintenanceoff” so your site will show as being live again. Renaming this to remove the “off” will revert the site back to maintenance mode. Latest theme update made the site unusable, white screen, the host were helpful and gave me this message and fixed the file. This is not a good update and I can’t go on using that version and will have to stay with older version.
Hi,
This is Aj the theme author.
No one else is having any issues updating the theme, so it sounds like you may be running into a site specific error.
A white screen generally means there is a PHP error (on most servers it will show a useful error message and not just a white screen). Usually these errors are caused by updating the theme on a very old server that is not using a modern version of PHP, limited server resources or a 3rd party plugin conflict.
When your site was showing a white screen, I assume you reverted back to a backup? Did you by any chance check your server error logs to see what errors may have been recorded?
What version of the theme are you currently using and what version of PHP? It’s possible if you are using a very old version of the theme and or PHP that you need to proceed with more caution updating as mentioned in the guide here: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/update-theme/ (disabling the theme and all plugins, upgrading the server and then updating the theme and plugins).
If you would like help updating, I can totally update the site for you. I would need both WordPress admin and FTP logins (FTP since you said you have server errors, I need access to see and troubleshoot them).
Since your support license is expired you can’t submit a ticket the traditional way, but you can email me directly at wpexplorer [at] gmail dot com for assistance with the update.
- AJ
I forgot to mention… The . maintenance page is a WordPress file that gets created whenever an update takes place and is deleted when the update is finished. If the server crashes during the update process the file may remain and needs to be deleted manually. Which is what your hosting company did for you. This is a built-in WordPress function unrelated to the theme.
It’s very possible that your server timed-out during the update process and so the theme simply wasn’t fully uploaded to the server, resulting in a broken theme. If this in fact what happens, it could be a good thing because it means that there isn’t any actual conflicts/errors but rather you just need to ensure your theme is simply updated fully.
Thank you very much for your feedback and advice. I shall think how to proceed next, I’ll ask the host what they think, whether to try again, it’s never happened before. Monteroy 12.7.6 Mac.
I’ve updated the php to 8.3 from 8.1 so I’m hoping that will help if I try again.
ps. the original white screen, did have a little red message saying ‘maintenance update failed…’ so there’s hope. I’ll give it a few days to settle get back to the host next week now I’ve done the php update and try again. Thanks for your feedback and offer of help.
Oh your PHP was already up to date, the worry would be if it was very old like 7.1 – but anything over 8.0 is fairly modern.
Again, if you would like you can send me logins and I can update for you. Just email me directly to wpexplorer [at] gmail dot com.
- AJ
Today the update went fine, all sorted, PHEW, weird. All as normal. Thank for your feedback and the host were on hand too.
Awesome! Thank you for letting me know
- AJ
i’m still having issues – database connection errors – which ionos are looking into – and a woocommerce PayPal card payments hanging they want me to try a different theme called storefront – BUT what will happen to your theme and all the settings and CSS etc and configuration i have spent years refining – can i just switch themes and then expect total to work again when i switch back
i’m getting some SPAM orders now as well, so had to change and switch off guest – so have to have an account
what a mess i seem to be in now ….....
Hi,
- Database connection errors are not theme related, that is a server issue. Hopefully the hosting company is able to assist with this.
- In terms of orders not working, the Total theme does not change how WooCommerce process orders. This means any issue would be unrelated to the theme. You can test switching themes, but it’s not going to make a difference as you are still using WooCommerce in the same way. Especially if the issue is with Paypal which opens up in it’s own window. Asking the customer to try with the default WooCommerce theme is just a standard support response to try and weed-out issues since many themes do customize WooCommerce functionality – but in my theme I purposefully do not modify the plugin’s functionality to ensure full compatibility with 3rd party plugins and prevent issues.
- Generally when troubleshooting an issue like this, it’s best to create a staging version of your site. This is a duplicate test site so you can do things like test different themes, settings, plugins…etc. Most of the good WordPress hosting solutions have a built-in function you can use to instantly create this. By setting up a staging site you can also put WooCommerce in test mode – https://woocommerce.com/document/woopayments/testing-and-troubleshooting/testing/
- If your site is getting spammed, it’s very possible it’s causing server issues. Perhaps your server is consuming too many resources or getting throttled. Now, generally bots can’t full fill orders so they usually submit the form and it gets added in WooCommerce as “pending” or “failed”. I’m assuming that’s what is happening on your site? If so, I would recommend installing a security plugin such as Wordfence (free) – https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence/ – and you may need to also add a WooCommerce captcha such as this one – https://wordpress.org/plugins/recaptcha-woo/ – Also I don’t know if ionos has this functionality, but it would be a good idea to look at your visitor logs and if your site is getting spammed from a specific IP address to block that IP address from accessing your site.
- AJ
ps: It may be worth running a check to make sure your site hasn’t been hacked as well. If you install the WordFence plugin you can run a scan for this.
Brilliant thank you again for such a comprehensive reply and taking the time
yes, the orders are flagged as ORDER FAILED – just every minute or so – i did try a recaptcha and got the data base errors – i have recaptcha v3 on some of the plugins as part of thier settings
PayPal gave me some code for the failed card errors attack
// wayne added code from paypal to stop fake orders spam 9 sep 25 // Disable Store API endpoint to stop carding attacks function disable_wc_endpoint_v1() { $current_url = $_SERVER[‘REQUEST_URI’]; if (strpos($current_url, ’/wp-json/wc/store/v1/checkout’) !== false) { wp_redirect(home_url(’/404.php’)); exit; } } add_action(‘rest_api_init’, ‘disable_wc_endpoint_v1’);
I added via the theme editor and got the error
An error occurred while saving your changes. Please try again. If the problem persists, you may need to manually update the file via FTP.
they say use code snippet plugin
just wondered what you thought of the code
ok, ignore last message – PayPal have sorted it all out and i added woocommerce recapture – also the 3.1.0 plugin is supposed to stop some of this spam – SO i think i’m all done and good now – thanks you so much for the support – also it was useful to quote and show you comment on the theme as they did not have to go down that route / rabbit hole THANKS
