Hi,

This is AJ the theme author.

It’s definitely still possible, I recorded a test video: https://a.cl.ly/llupP41l

Now, the Custom CSS panel actually uses the built-in code editor in WordPress to keep things fast, slim and consistent. If it’s not working, you may want to double check and see if there are any plugins installed that are modifying the default WordPress code editor.

You can also open the browser console and see if there are any errors, it’s also possible if you have some permission issues on the server that the code editor scripts aren’t being loaded properly.

Additionally, if you recently updated your theme try clearing your browser cache. Depending on how your site is setup, it’s possible that cache-busting isn’t working correctly and your browser may just be loading old scripts and not the updated theme scripts.

If you still have issues let me know so I can help investigate further!

- AJ

Hi AJ,

You’re right, that search does work. My problem was that I didn’t have the cursor active inside the editor when I pressed Ctrl+F, which means the regular browser search was used instead of the little search bar in the top of the editor.

The regular browser search only highlights words that are currently visible on the screen, and ignores any words in the editor that needs scrolling to be seen. In the old version this was not an issue.

I preferred the old panel, but I’ll learn to live with it

Hi Chris,

I’ve already fixed all PHP 8.5 debug warnings and errors already for the upcoming update – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/upcoming-update-changelog/

But, I would be a bit careful upgrading to PHP 8.5 this “early” if you use any 3rd party plugins as many are not yet compatible and technically WordPress core compatibility for 8.5 is currently still marked as “Beta”.

- AJ

Hi,

1. Theme’s like Total aren’t subject to conflicts with SEO plugins such as Rank Math SEO because those plugins work primarily by parsing the post content which is outside the scope of the theme. In fact I have Rank Math SEO as a recommended plugin – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/recommended-services-plugins/#toc-seo – as I have tested it before and it does work quite well. Although I personally prefer Yoast SEO.

What’s more important is the page builder you are going to use (if any). For example, if you plan on using the bundled WPBakery page builder (most users do) to build your pages, it is compatible according to their docs – https://rankmath.com/compatibility/wpbakery/ – same goes for Elementor if you choose to use that builder instead – https://rankmath.com/compatibility/elementor/

2. The theme by default displays breadcrumbs in the page title area like this example – https://totalwpthemedemo.com/base/dont-just-stand-there-do-something/ – with many options in the Customizer to modify how the breadcrumbs display. But for most sites you would likely disable the breadcrumbs in the customizer and instead add them wherever you want them by creating a custom template – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/dynamic-templates/ – for your blog. For example the Consultative demo, I recorded a video showing how it’s done on that demo: https://a.cl.ly/mXuOwdA5 – as you can see, if you create your own template for your posts you will have complete control over the design and can add the breadcrumbs anywhere you wish.

3. The Patterns are WPBakery patterns specifically. I have plans to create Elementor versions, but very few of my customers use Elementor so I haven’t done that yet. But Cards and Dynamic templates work technically with WPBakery, Elementor and Gutenberg. However, my theme only adds custom elements to WPBakery and Elementor specifically for building custom cards. Gutenberg is significantly more limited.

4. The theme does have a Table of Contents element. You can see it in action in the documentation site. I recorded a video showing how it’s added into my Docs Post Type single template: https://a.cl.ly/WnuPo2lN – Unlike other themes (or SEO plugins) where you may have to insert it to every single article, with Total you can add it to your Dynamic Template and it will be added on every article. Which, for many blogs it’s best to have a TOC on every post for consistency. If you want to remove it for a specific post there are ways of doing that , which I could assist with.

5. Generally I don’t recommend you use ANY page builder for standard posts, I highly recommend you use the default WordPress editor (Classic or Gutenberg) for your actual articles and only use a page builder (WPBakery/Elementor) for standard pages, dynamic templates, header builder/footer builder and custom cards. I did not add the Icon Box for use in Gutenberg because that would be very niche as most users would never need that. However, I have added some more useful elements such as the Notices into Gutenberg so you can use them right in the editor when creating posts. Here is a sample video from one of my doc articles: https://a.cl.ly/jkuNxdPg

I am open to adding more of the theme Elements for use in Gutenberg as users request them, but in order to keep the theme fast and optimized I would only do it if it makes sense. For example the currently included elements “Alert, Button, Divider Dots” make sense to have as they would be useful when creating articles, but elements like Icon Boxes don’t make much sense for articles – those make more sense for use in pages like a homepage or a services page.

—

Let me know if you have any other questions!

- AJ

a href=”{{permalink}}” class=”wpex-search-modal-(...)

Hi,

This is Aj the theme author.

The search template should definitely be using {{permalink}} – you can see variables returned by the server under Total/inc/search/ajax.php on line 65 – which looks like this:

if ( $permalink = \get_permalink() ) {
    $results[] = (array) \apply_filters( 'totaltheme/search/ajax/post_data', [
        'title'=> \wp_strip_all_tags( \get_the_title() ),
        'permalink' => \esc_url( $permalink ),
        'tag' => \sanitize_text_field( $tag ),
        'excerpt' => ( $excerpt = \totaltheme_get_post_excerpt( $excerpt_args ) ) ? \wp_strip_all_tags( $excerpt ) : '',
    ], get_post() );
}

When I inspect your site source code I see javascript that is for some reason modifying the template and changing the {permalink} to {url}. See here: https://a.cl.ly/4gupombe

I’m not sure why this code was added, but it will definitely break things.

To modify the search template, you don’t need javascript either. You can hook into ‘totaltheme/search/modal/result_template’ like this example snippet: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/snippets/modal-search-thumbnails/ – which shows how you can register new variables and also override the default result template.

One thing to mention though, if you are using WPRocket it means you care about speed, in that case AJAX is NOT the way to go. Ajax requests are uncached and hit the server every time. This will add extra stress on the server which can slow down the site for everyone. If you truly want a fast site I highly recommend you disable AJAX under Customize > General Theme Options > Search Modal > Live Results (toggle off).

You can still have the nice popup search but it will render like this demo instead: https://totalwpthemedemo.com/poppy/

- AJ

Oh, sorry I made 2 mistakes in my reply!

1. The [span] shortcode doesn’t accept a ‘color’ parameter, instead you would use a classname. Ideally your colors would be in the color palette – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/color-palette/ – then you can use the classname like such:

[span class="has-palette-ID-color"]

If you just want to use blackscale colors, the theme has some options though built-in: https://totalwptheme.com/css-framework/text-color/ – so you could use wpex-text-gray-600 which is similar to 808080.

2. The text needs to be defined in a param. So this is the proper usage:

Eye level is the best [span class="wpex-text-gray-600" text="level"]

Of course the theme’s Custom Title field will allow HTML though if you really prefer that’s totally fine

- AJ

Awesome! Thank you AJ! I noticed my support has expired – I need to purchase a new license – 33 purchased so far!!

No worries about the support, I’m always here to help

Thank you for all the purchases, customers like you have allowed me to keep the theme supported and updated for so many years!

- AJ

Hi,

This is Aj the theme author.

If you recently updated the theme from a very old version, this could be a cached warning in WPBakery. You can simply disable WPBakery (or even delete the plugin) then go to Appearance > Install Plugins to update it.

Total has built-in code to prevent those notices, but if your theme was very outdated (prior to the new code added in the theme) it’s possible that before updating the theme those notices got cached. It’s also possible that those notices can show up if the theme was temporarily disabled. Disabling WPBakery temporarily should clear that up.

Additionally, make sure that you have WPBakery Theme Mode enabled in the Theme Panel. If this is disabled, the theme will assume you are using your own custom plugin license as noted in the docs: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/activate-wp-bakery-page-builder/

Let me know how I can be of further assistance!

- AJ

ps: It’s also a good idea to compare your current theme version with the changelog here: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/changelog/. If the theme license isn’t properly registered or if there are server-related issues you may not see the update notifications in the dashboard, which can make it seem like everything is already updated even when it’s not.

Hi,

As you mentioned the shortcode uses the core pll_the_languages function, which is the Polylang function recommended for displaying their language switcher anywhere. So if there is an issue with their function you’ll want to report it to them so they can fix it.

Now, I was testing locally and I notice that if the category doesn’t have any translated posts it will redirect to the homepage, but as soon as you add a post it does work correctly.

I recorded a quick video: https://a.cl.ly/X6uyPEov

This issue is also reported here: https://github.com/polylang/polylang/issues/174 – which unfortunately was tagged “wontfix”.

I think this is perhaps the same issue you are having. In which case the code provided by cfaria on Gihub seems to work well:

// Allow polylang redirection to existing terms even if there are empty
add_filter( 'pll_hide_archive_translation_url', '__return_false' );

But it’s not something I would add to the theme as it’s un-intended plugin behaviour.

If this is not the issue you are having, you may need to reach out to Polylang for further troubleshooting.

- AJ

BTW, this is a sample of a product page that I’m having trouble with: https://dogsofcourse.com/events/virtual-nose-work-camp-winter-2026/

Hi,

This is Aj the theme author. I hope you had a nice weekend!

By default it should remain open like on my demos – https://totalwpthemedemo.com/bolt/product/black-shoe/

When inspecting your site, I don’t see the theme’s Off Canvas cart enabled, so I’m assuming you’ve temporarily disabled it.

In terms of the cart auto closing, my only guess is that a 3rd party plugin is creating a conflict.

I can see that you’re using a custom setup for your product variations, including a custom AJAX add-to-cart button and a custom popup when items are added to the cart. This setup may be causing the conflict.

The theme’s Off-Canvas Cart is configured to automatically open when an item is added to the cart or when the cart button is clicked, and it only closes when the user clicks outside of the off-canvas area. It’s possible that another script is triggering a focus change or an external click event, which could cause the cart to close automatically. That’s likely what’s happening here.

- AJ

ps: I noticed in your custom CSS you have some code that looks like this:

button {
    margin-bottom: 20px !important;
}

This adds a bottom margin to all buttons, so it’s going to break certain layouts, such as buttons on the cart/checkout pages. I’m not sure where you wanted that bottom margin specifically, but it would be a good idea to target only that button and not all site buttons. This code can also break buttons used for elements like sliders, carousels, close buttons (like on popups, mobile menus), etc. If you would like I can assist with tweaking this code, I just need to know which button you want to target.

Thanks AJ, I’m going to bring in my dev to look at it, but if he can’t pin it down, I may be back! Thanks as always for being so thorough on your response.

Hi,

It sounds like you may be experiencing an issue with max string length on your server. Can you try the fix suggested here: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/fix-backend-issues-on-godaddy/

I’ve personally only experienced the issue with shared (not the managed WP) Godaddy servers (hence the doc article name) but it can definitely happen on any server.

- AJ

Hi AJ,

This fix worked, thank you!!

Josh

Glad it was an easy fix Josh, I hope you had a nice weekend!

Let me know if there is anything else I can assist with.

- AJ

I entered 2 support tickets and have not heard back from you

Sorry for the delayed reply.

I’ll respond both here and on the latest ticket.

I can see that you’ve already added some custom CSS to address the issue. I made a small tweak to it to also include a background color, since it wasn’t very clear which option was currently selected.

The root of the issue is that, by default, WooCommerce applies a blue background with white text to select fields on hover. In Total, that blue background is replaced with the site’s accent color to better match the design. In your case, the accent color is set to white, which results in both the background and text being white.

I’ll be adding a fix for this in the next theme update (thanks for bringing it to my attention). The text color should be pulled from the “On Accent” color instead, which will prevent this type of issue.

That said, there is another configuration issue on your site, which is that both your Accent and On-Accent colors are currently set to white (see here: https://a.cl.ly/Kou2XygQ)https://a.cl.ly/Kou2XygQ). The On-Accent color is used for text displayed on top of accent-colored backgrounds, so this setup can lead to white text on a white background in other areas as well. If you’d like to keep white as your accent color, I recommend changing the On-Accent color to a contrasting option such as black or dark gray.

Based on your site though, I would say your Accent color would be better set to orange though (#FF7F00) which you are using as an accent color in various places.

– AJ

Hi Aj, Thank you so much for getting back to me! I followed your instructions, and it looks like most of the issues are resolved. I believe the main culprits were the “Featured Image” and “Image Banner” elements, although both are still causing some trouble. For example, when I change the image size to thumbnail in the element settings, the entire page either doesn’t load or shows a 503 error. Another issue is that the logo in the header doesn’t load fully. I’ve created an admin account for you — please check your email. Thank you!!

Hi,

I tried using the password reset but I’m not getting the email (checked SPAM).

Now, based on what you’ve said, it sounds like there is an issue processing images, more specifically cropped images – if selecting a size is causing issues.

When inspecting your site it appears that images are being “optimized” through a 3rd party plugin as they are using javascript to lazy load and they are linking to a CDN (sp-ao.shortpixel.ai). My guess is that whenever you switch image sizes it’s trying to re-generate and save that image on the CDN (shortpixel) and timing out or it’s crashing as it tries to load it.

Can you try disabling any image optimizing plugins to see if you still have issues?

Which, by the way, using JavaScript to lazy load images is old-fashioned. Modern browsers can do this on their own, so adding JavaScript actually slows things down instead of speeding them up.

In regards to the logo being cropped off, this is an issue with the image itself being cropped by that shortpixel plugin. See here: https://a.cl.ly/z8u2jZer – it seems like shortpixel is cropping the original images. My guess is this is some sort of “optimization” for images that are larger than their “rendered” size, but it’s simply cutting the image in half, not actually resizing it properly.

My personal recommendation would be to disable the Shortpixel plugin completely. If you want to optimize your site images you can temporarily install a plugin that will optimize and convert them to webP format then remove the plugin after it runs. For future images you upload to your site you can optimize them prior to upload using a free service such as this – https://tinypng.com/

Then, if you need a CDN, because the server is slow or you want to limit server usage, you can use a free CDN such CloudFlare.

That’s just my personal preference. I would rather have my images optimized once and not constantly running and/or paying for a service – which in most cases is simply unnecessary.

From what I can tell, your site is currently on HostGator, which depending on the plan could be a budget solution. I don’t personally recommend that hosting, although if you are going to use it, you should at least make sure you are on the WordPress specific plan. The WordPress hosting plan also supports CloudFlare built-in according to their docs – https://www.hostgator.com/help/article/cloudflare-cdn-overview

If you are currently paying for shortpixel, it may be worth instead switching to a better hosting solution that doesn’t require any extra image optimization services. These are the hosting services I’ve used and recommend: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/recommended-services-plugins/#toc-hosting

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns!

-AJ

Thank you so much for your help and advice AJ! It’s very helpful!!

Hi James,

Yes, that’s expected behavior with YouTube videos.

Because it’s a YouTube embed, those UI elements are controlled by YouTube and can’t be fully disabled. WPBakery loads the video inside an iframe, so we don’t have control over what YouTube chooses to show.

YouTube sometimes shows those overlays only on initial load or before the video is fully cached, then fades them out. From what I understand there is no way to reliably hide them :/

The only way to guarantee a completely clean video background is to use a self-hosted video.

That’s generally recommended anyway, since YouTube can throttle playback, change behavior, or force new UI at any time. With a self-hosted video, the behavior is fully under your control and only impacted if the site itself has issues.

AJ

HI,

This is AJ the theme author.

If you log into the site here – https://my.totalwptheme.com/ and click on the License Manager at the top of the site you can then un-register your license from the site it’s registered to.

I had a look and because you have logged into the site before I was able to locate your license and unregister it for you so you don’t have to. You should be able to properly use it on the live site now.

The license manager won’t automatically un-register a license as that would require constantly pinging your site to see if it’s currently live or not – this puts strain on both of our servers and can also cause issues on sites that are in the process of migrating servers or performing server updates. Licenses need to be managed manually.

Additionally, the reason you may not have seen a duplicate license error in the past is because the theme didn’t make these checks in the past and they were recently added in the last update as I discovered there were quite a few sites illegally distributing the theme with a license manually coded into the theme which in the past would have worked. I added additional checks so the theme will validate the license every so often to ensure it’s properly registered to the current site.

Let me know if you have any issues now or if there is anything else I can assist with!

- AJ

Hi AJ, thank you very much for the fast response and helping out. The problem is now solved. Regards Hermann

Hi,

The Dynamic Templates are translatable by default via the included wpml-config.xml file, which Polylang uses as well. If you check your Polylang settings you should see it’s enabled for translation: https://a.cl.ly/X6uyLg05

I just tested and it’s working correctly: https://a.cl.ly/NQuGm2wx

- AJ

.

Hi again,

You’re right. I just noticed that we hadn’t properly assigned the GR to EN translation.

Thank you, and sorry for the inconvenience.

HI,

This is AJ the theme author.

These errors would suggest that your server is not allowing outgoing connections – you will need to reach out to your webhost so they can fix the issue.

Regarding the Base demo – this is a fairly large demo and often errors are caused by server limitations as well. Please double check the server recommendations in the main Theme Panel under “System Status” on the bottom right – https://my.totalwptheme.com/

If you would like any extra help with setup or installation you can also submit a private ticket here – https://my.totalwptheme.com/ – and I can log into the site and help you get everything up and running.

I do want to mention that the Base demo is the basic theme without ANY customization so it’s not really useful to import that specific demo as the only thing that is imported that might be useful would be specific page layouts that you may like which you could just use the demo inspector to copy/paste into your site without having to deal with importing all the sample data and then having to delete stuff you don’t want (pages, images, menus, widgets, etc). See here: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/demo-page-inspector/

The demo importer is more useful for highly customized demos that make use of Customizer settings and dynamic templates to create unique layouts and designs different from the “base” (default) theme design. For example: https://totalwpthemedemo.com/biz/ or https://totalwpthemedemo.com/consultative/

The Base demo also includes a WooCommerce shop which will import a lot of images and products which you would have to delete after importing. So depending on the site you are creating this may also just add extra work for you.

The base demo is provided mostly just to show all the different default parts of the theme and standard design before making any changes via the customizer, theme settings, templates, etc.

Let me know if you have any questions and how I can be of further assistance!

- AJ

Hi Alice,

That sounds like a WooCommerce bug.

I’ve seen that notice before with other plugins that have nothing to do with WooCommerce. Basically, WooCommerce has a system built-in to detect if a plugin is a WooCommerce add-on and if so, it checks the version to see if it’s defined as compatible with the current version of WooCommerce. It sounds like WooCommerce thinks the plugin is add Woo-addon (which it’s not) – maybe there is another plugin with a similar name that is.

You should be able to dismiss and ignore that notice.

That said, collecting testimonials on your own site is generally not recommended, as there’s no way to independently verify them. Instead, it’s usually better to link to reviews on third-party platforms such as TrustPilot, Yelp, Google Reviews, or Facebook.

- AJ

Thanks AJ. I’ll look into TrustPilot since I’m looking for reviews from users who have actually used our online spreadsheet. Best, Alice

Hi,

This is AJ the theme author.

Total includes code to hide those notices from WPBakery that ask for a license, if you are seeing those notices then your theme is very outdated or you have disabled WPBakery Theme Mode in the Theme Panel which allows you to add your custom WPBakery license: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/activate-wp-bakery-page-builder/

If WPBakery Theme Mode is disabled in your Theme Panel you probably just have to enable it to suppress the WPBakery notices.

Otherwise, if Theme Mode is enabled and you see the notices, likely your theme is outdated. What you will want to do is temporarily de-activate WPBakery and update your Total theme, then you can proceed with updating the bundled plugin.

Here are the related docs:

• https://totalwptheme.com/docs/changelog/
• https://totalwptheme.com/docs/update-theme/ (if your theme is very outdated it’s important to read the extra precautions on this guide)
• https://totalwptheme.com/docs/update-plugins/
• https://totalwptheme.com/docs/bundled-product-license/

The reason you temporarily disable WPBakery, is because the plugin may cache those notices to activate a license and it can prevent the plugin to be updated through the theme’s system. This is only required when your theme is significantly outdated and so the relevant code doesn’t exist in the theme or if for some reason the theme was temporarily de-activated while WPBakery was enabled, allowing that notice to come through.

If you have any questions, issues or you want some help updating your site, let me know so I can further assist!

- AJ

Hi,

Sorry for the delayed reply, I don’t know why ThemeForest didn’t alert me of this new reply! Glad I saw it though as I was looking for a reply from someone else.

What you would do is edit your previous Image Grid element and choose to display items from the post gallery using the on/off switch – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/using-post-gallery-image-galleries/#h-display-your-image-gallery

Of course I would recommend you have a backup just incase. One good idea would be to duplicate the Image Grid where you currently have them all manually selected and then remove the images and then enable the Post Gallery toggle. Then save the page and compare both grids and make sure they look the same, then delete the old Image Grid.

The reason I suggest this is that WPBakery handles gallery images differently than the Metabox. In WPBakery, when you add or remove images from the Image Grid, it sends a request to WordPress that includes all currently selected images. This triggers a separate response for each image (those are the admin-ajax requests you see), which can be very slow to process. It’s fine for a few images, but not for a large number.

The Post Gallery, on the other hand, is coded differently and doesn’t send these extra requests. The initial gallery load uses PHP to loop through the images and display the thumbnails (not ajax) and when you click to add/remove images it doesn’t have to send extra requests to WordPress. You will notice the difference, since clicking the “Add/Edit Images” button in the theme’s Post Gallery metabox only opens the media library, it doesn’t not pre-load and select the images assigned to the gallery – which is what WPBakery does. As a result, it handles large image sets much more efficiently and performs significantly faster.

- AJ

Amazing, thanks AJ! That worked

Awesome!

Hi,

The demo importer is located under Theme Panel > Demo Import. If you don’t see it, then you’ve probably disabled it in the main Theme Panel or you have not enabled the included Total Theme Core Plugins (Appearance > Install Plugins).

Here is the link to the docs as well for the demo importer as it may have some extra useful information: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/importing-sample-data/

Let me know if you still have issues or if I can help with anything else,

- AJ