Hi,

Are you using the latest version of the theme? Most of the integration for Elementor was added somewhat recently.

The color palette should work in Elementor. When you add a color in the theme’s Color Palette, it will show up in the Globbal color picker in Elementor. Sample video https://a.cl.ly/7Ku5eAz2

The main “integration” is that you have access to all the theme’s extra elements in Elementor: https://a.cl.ly/4guBQPXZ

For dynamic templates, it works exactly the same as WPBakery so the docs are the same regardless of the builder – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/dynamic-templates/ – the reason you would use Dynamic Templates is primarily if you are using the free version of Elementor which doesn’t have access to the theme builder.

If you are using Elementor Pro, the theme is coded to work with their Theme Builder, so that’s an integration.

You are correct there are some overlapping features, especially when using Elementor Pro.

To be honest if you are using Elementor Pro, I personally would recommend you just use their free Hello theme. Elementor Pro has everything you should need to build a website.

The reason to use a theme like Total is to access extra functionality f you didn’t want to pay for Elementor Pro because Total has a single 1 time purchase cost unlike Elementor Pro which is membership based. If you already are paying for Elementor Pro, it makes way more sense to use their free Hello theme and build everything from scratch.

I am working on updating my theme demos to make them more modern and I will be creating elementor versions of them as I do this. I will also look to see if it’s possible to make the WPBakery patterns – https://totalwptheme.com/patterns/ – available in Elementor, but from what I understand, this may not be possible in the free version without introducing a whole new system that will bloat things up.

Personally I’m not a huge fan of Elementor, I find it to be much more bloated, slower and worse for SEO. I don’t want to really push/promote a page builder that I find to be inferior. I want my customers to have the best and fastest website possible.

- AJ

Hi,

I will add an option to select an image size in the next update. This is a great idea

If you’d like, I can let you know when the update is ready and share a beta version of the theme so you can try it out and not have to wait for the official update.

However, I strongly recommend that you aren’t uploading massive images to your site to start with. Any image you define as a featured image should be a size that you would never mind displaying in full on the site. There are several reasons for this:

• Increased server processing
• Higher disk storage usage
• Larger backup files
• Longer site migration times
• Greater bandwidth consumption
• Slower Media Library performanceimes
• Unnecessary resource usage for social sharing images

I also never recommend any sort of image optimization plugins because they introduce a lot of extra bloat and require server resources to function. Rather, optimize all your images prior to uploading them to your WP site. The best and most robust free solution is squoosh.app (you can install it on your computer so it does everything locally) but I also like https://tinypng.com as it’s less complicated (no advanced settings).

- AJ

ps: I noticed your username doesn’t exist on the support site – https://my.totalwptheme.com/ – can you click the “Continue with Envato” button on the login page of the site so it creates your account, this way, I can see your email and be able to message you directly to share the beta version of the theme with the new setting if you’d like.

private browser window did the trick, thanks!

Hi,

I hope you are having a nice weekend. I just wanted to touch base to make sure you were able to sort out the licensing issue as well.

- AJ

yes, I did get it taken care of, thank you!

Hi Frank,

In terms of how the Chatbot works, this is going to depend entirely on the service you use.

Personally, I think a chatbot will just add extra bloat to your site and slow down loading times. If people need to find answers they know how to use Google/AI – I don’t see any benefit having the extra scripts and services loaded on your site. But of course, you could always add one and track it to see how many users are using it.

Traffic has dropped a ton for everyone :/

SEO isn’t as important as it used to be since users are shifting away from the traditional way of visiting/browsing the internet (largely by Google prioritizing AI). Having a strong brand presence on social media (YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, etc) is going to be the number one way to generate leads.

- AJ

Thank you AJ for your thoughts and insight. Always, very much appreciated! I guess I’ll start uploading Shorts to my YouTube channel of recently photographed properties. Can never have too much online marketing. Cheers!

Hi,

In the license manager you can click the “disconnect” button on the far right of the table to free up the license so you can register it on another site.

- AJ

Thank you!

HI,

I am working on updating older demos first because the older demos are too old looking. I’ve recently updated this one – https://totalwpthemedemo.com/corporate/ and I’m currently working on updating this one – https://totalwpthemedemo.com/law-firm/

But I’m still focusing on WPBakery based demos because almost every customer uses WPBakery. But if there is any demo a user wants the Elementor version of they can request it and I”ll make it.

Of the few users that are using Elementor, they seem to be using Elementor Pro – which has it’s own demos.

I’ve noticed you’ve been requesting new demos for quite a while, which made me curious. Looking at our records, it appears you’ve only purchased one license back in 2020, and it’s currently registered to a site that won’t load.

Are you primarily using the theme for client projects and having your clients purchase their own licenses? I’d love to better understand how you’re using the product and what you’re hoping to get from the new demos.

-AJ

Hi AJ, I haven’t switched to the Total theme yet due to some limitations I encountered earlier. Now that Kadence has been acquired by Liquid Web, I’m considering migrating to a more stable theme that meets my feature requirements. A few years ago, I tried using the Total theme but faced challenges designing the single post template. However, I’m glad to see that it’s now compatible with Elementor, which will allow me to create some great layouts for my blog.

I can recommend some demos but I would rather not post the links here, I can send it to you via direct message.

Hi,

I’m actually using AI for updating current and making new demos, if you want to suggest topics you can do that, but I’m not going to be replicating other existing sites. I’m using various tools, but mostly these two:

• https://replit.com/
• https://redesignr.ai/

Both fantastic tools if you want to try them out.

If you prefer using Elementor, my recommendation would be to just purchase Elementor Pro and just use their own builder tools. You may even want to just use their free Hello theme. This way you are locked into Elementor but not any specific theme or Elementor add-ons.

Regardless of how you setup your site though, make sure you are only using a page builder like Elementor for the main pages and custom templates. Do NOT use a page builder (Elementor, WPBakery, Divi…etc) for your blog posts. If you do, you will be locked into that page builder and it could require a lot of work to fix your site if you ever decide to switch builder or the builder plugin is sold/deprecated.

When using a page builder for main pages (home, about, services, contact) and for your dynamic templates (single post design, archives, etc) – even if you switch themes or builder it shouldn’t be a lot of work to re-do those things. But if you use a builder for every blog post and you have tons of blog posts, things get very time consuming if you ever have or want to switch. This is where a lot of people go wrong and create a lot more work for themselves in the future.

Of course, with AI tools it’s much easier these days to swap themes/builders but you still don’t want to ever create a lock in effect on your site. So basically, use complex page builders like Elementor/WPbakery for primary pages that require complex designs and custom templates, but use Gutenberg for standard posts or custom post types that have many items.

All that said, if your site is mostly a blog – it may be best to just use or create a custom block theme for your site with the exact design you want and not rely on any 3rd party builder or theme. I do create custom block themes and I could make you one, but I’m not sure if that’s in your budget (pricing starts at $1,500). You send me the design you want and I make you a custom block/Gutenberg theme with that design.

- AJ

ps: I noticed on your site that you have both a link on your logo and a “Home” link in your menu – that’s actually an accessibility issue. I would recommend removing the home link from the menu or the link on the logo.

I need the headings to display only the title, without the image. In general, how can I display only the heading with the name of the heading in categories?

Can you create a separate setting for categories? 1. Header only. 2. Header + background image.

Hi,

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

You can disable the automatic category background on the page header title via the Theme Panel setting “Taxonomy Thumbnail Page Header”. See here: https://a.cl.ly/d5uqZpPQ

For more advanced control, you can disable the page header title for your categories under Appearance > Customize > Blog > Archives & Entries. Then you can create a dynamic template for your archives – https://a.cl.ly/bLu9Wwg9 – this way you can add whatever you want to your template for a custom category design. More info here:

• https://totalwptheme.com/docs/dynamic-templates/
• https://totalwptheme.com/docs/category-taxonomy-template/

You can see an example of a custom template here: https://totalwpthemedemo.com/law-firm/category/family-law/ – notice how the template includes a custom title design with a “From the blog” text and a divider line.

Let me know if you have any questions or issues!

- AJ

Hi,

The vulnerability is only in Version 7.0+ which I don’t include with the theme – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/changelog/ – I’m still only bundling the 6.7 version because of all the bugs and issues in version 7+. Once the version is more stable I can include that updated version with the theme. So, the vulnerability doesn’t exist in the version included with the theme and isn’t a concern if you haven’t updated to version 7.0+ via a different method.

Additionally, I will stop bundling Slider Revolution starting the next theme update. I will still provide updates to customers that previously had the plugin installed but it won’t be available to download by default.

The Slider Revolution plugin has made various changes in version 7+ that makes the bundled license almost useless, such as limiting the number of sliders to 3 and putting a lot of functionality behind add-ons only available to registered sites. Additionally the plugin seems to always have security concerns, it’s becoming very bloated and in general most sites never need a complex slider plugin. Actually it’s generally recommend to never use sliders – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/why-not-use-sliders/

Ideally, if you can update your sites to replace sliders with static content and delete the plugin that would be the best. Not only will you speed up your site, improve your SEO and accessibility but you’ll also have one less plugin to worry about updating.

- AJ

Hey there!

Ok, I was actually confused.

The new Slider Revolution version 7.0 is treated as a separate plugin so version 6+ actually did have a new security patch.

I’ve updated the version included with the theme. To update simply log into your site and delete slider revolution, then go to Appearance > Install Plugins and re-install it, that will download version 6.7.55.

Sorry for the troubles!

- AJ

Hey AJ, I figured out that the Annual Report single page is being routed through Total’s generic singular template (wp-content/themes/Total/singular.php). So my question is, inside Total’s singular.php rendering path, why is the associated WPBakery template no longer being injected after updates?

Hi Charlotta,

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

Sorry, but I’m really not understanding the issue. Can you submit a private ticket with site logins so I can see what you are referring to? – https://my.totalwptheme.com/

I”ll try and answer some of your questions though:

• Yes you can still use WPBakery templates assigned as your dynamic template. Technically the theme will render a template from any post type, it just checks for the defined ID. You don’t have to switch your template to a Dynamic Template, the main reason to do that would be so you can delete the Templatera plugin and have 1 less plugin active on the site.

• The Post Types Unlimited plugin is for registering custom post types and taxonomies, it has nothing to do with Dynamic Templates. That said, using my plugin instead of other post types plugin or registering post types using code makes it much easier to manage your post type because of all the added settings – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/adding-custom-post-types/#section-total-settings

• I assume “Annual Report” is a post type added by a plugin and that you have added some custom code to define your template as per the snippet you linked. Is that correct? If so, some plugins hook into WordPress functions to modify the singular display and if it runs before the theme checks for the assigned template it can cause things to break. If this is just a post type you added yourself, it should work as nothing has changed recently that would change this behaviour. If you look at singular.php you can see the following check on line 34:

<?php
// Display singular content unless there is a custom template defined.
if ( ! wpex_theme_do_location( 'single' ) ) :

This check renders your custom defined template if set, if not, it renders the default singular.php layout (image, title, content, comments, etc). So if it’s not rendering the template you defined, it means it’s not technically set for some reason.

Anyway, if you open a private ticket so I can see how the site is setup I will be able to help you get this fixed up asap.

- AJ

Hi,

I am aware of this and the updated WPBakery will be included in the upcoming theme update which will be released ASAP – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/upcoming-update-changelog/

- AJ

Hi Jana,

Did you perhaps enable WPBakery Slim Mode? https://totalwptheme.com/docs/wpbakery-slim-mode/ – when enabled older elements like the Blog Grid aren’t registered to slim things down as there are newer alternatives such as the Post Cards element, which is the preferred way to display posts as it gives you full control over your design via Custom Cards – https://totalwptheme.com/docs/custom-card-builder/

- AJ

Hi AJ, yes, thank you, that’s exactly the kind of simple thing I was looking for, but couldn’t find

Let me know if you have any other issues or questions!

- AJ

we are having 4 license but we couldn’t download the theme, can you guide us?

Hi,

This is Aj the theme author. This sounds like a security error on ThemeForest, can you try in a new browser? If that doesn’t work I highly recommend you contact Envato to let them know of the issue, in the meantime send me an email directly to wpexplorer [at] gmail dot com and I can email you the zip file!

- AJ

Hi,

Yes, you can use [site_name] and for the year you can use [current_year]. This is the default copyright text used by the theme (unless you imported a demo).

Copyright <a href="[site_url]">[site_name]</a> [current_year] - All Rights Reserved

- AJ

ps: I snapped a tendon in my right elbow so I’ve been working with one arm and it’s been quite difficult, I see you still have an open ticket which I will get to ASAP. Thank you for your patience.

What error are you getting?

- AJ

Hi,

This is Aj the theme author.

The troubleshoot button was removed several versions ago. It sounds like you are trying to activate the license on a very very old version of the theme. 2-3 years ago the license manager used to be a on a different domain and if your theme is very outdated it will try and make the request to activate to the old domain and crash.

You’ll want to manually update the theme first by downloading the Total.zip from ThemeForest and re-installing it. Then you should be able to activate the license. I have some extra tips for updating old sites on the docs: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/update-theme/

I see your username is missing the purchased badge, if you can log into the account used to buy the theme you can submit a private ticket with the site’s WP and FTP logins and I can update the theme and bundled plugins for you – https://my.totalwptheme.com/submit-help-request/ – just be sure you have a server backup just incase anything goes wrong.

- AJ

Hi,

This is AJ the theme author, I apologize for the delayed reply.

You can always manage your licenses here: https://my.totalwptheme.com/license-manager/

I think you may have already figured that out as I see you registered for the site on April 30 and your license appears to be properly registered to a live site. If not, please let me know!

- AJ

Hi,

I apologize for the delayed reply.

Unfortunately your code was stripped by the Envato comments so I’m not sure what you are trying to do. Can you share your code via an online code editor such as PasteBin – https://pastebin.com/ or Gist – https://gist.github.com/ (I prefer Gitst, but you need an account).

Now, if you are adding a shortcode in the Customizer for the header aside area, keep in mind that if you use a custom field it’s only going to work if that specific page/post has the custom field. Do you want the button to show up only if that post/page has the field? Or are you trying to get the value of the field targeting a specific post or page? Or are you trying to use an ACF theme options panel field?

Either way, it definitely sounds like you need to register your own custom shortcode for use as you need to grab a URL and also format it into a button. I can help you with the code for this, but I need to know exactly what you want to do. Thanks!

- AJ

Hi,

For security reasons the theme uses what’s called as a nonce in WordPress – https://developer.wordpress.org/apis/security/nonces/ – this nonce is generated based on the Post Card settings (shortcode attributes) and added to the grid like this – https://a.cl.ly/P8uoDvKb

When sending the AJAX, which is done with javascript, the theme uses this nonce to validate that the request is coming from your site and that there aren’t any extra or different parameters sent with the request. For example if your grid is set to display portfolio items, someone can’t just make an arbitrary request for posts from a different post type.

This helps prevent potential abuse and/or malicious requests.

Now, in WordPress these nonces last 12-24hrs. This means, if your page HTML is being cached for longer than the nonce will no longer validate. Any page where you are using the theme’s Post Card’s AJAX (filter, load more, ajax search) will need to have their cache set to clear every 12hrs so the nonce is properly refreshed on the frontend.

If you are referring to the option “Render with AJAX” – this is intended to help with some caching issues if your site uses longer caching times, but they still need to be under 12hrs.

I personally use WPEngine for my hosting, which has built-in full page cache and it refreshes every 10 minutes other popular hosting solutions like Pressable clear every 5 minutes. As long as you have a good server, there isn’t much need to cache your pages for very long because they should be able to re-build very quickly.

Looking at the plugin you mentioned – https://wordpress.org/plugins/cache-enabler/#description – it appears their very first option is so you can set an Expiration. You can try using 12, but it may be best to use 11 to be extra safe.

- AJ

Hi,

This is AJ the theme author.

Total Theme Core 1.7.1 is very old and you would only get this error if your theme is also very very outdated and it’s trying to download a version of the plugin that no longer exists.

You’ll want to first update your theme, then you can update the Total Theme Core plugin and bundled plugins like WPBakery and Slider Revolution to the latest version included in the theme: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/changelog

Since your site is very outdated I recommend you follow the extra precaution steps when updating the theme as noted on the docs: https://totalwptheme.com/docs/update-theme/#h-extra-precautions-for-cautious-users-or-extremely-outdated-installations

If you run into any issues or need help updating your theme let me know. Once it’s updated, I highly recommend updating your site whenever a new version is released so you site doesn’t get so outdated.

Revslider Note: There is a newer version of RevSlider that’s not yet included in their theme because their last massive update had many bugs so I was waiting to ship it once it’s more stable. But also, I am considering no longer bundling the plugin with the theme for new installations for various reasons including: the plugin is no longer sold on CodeCanyon and they have changed their licensing drastically, the plugin keeps getting more and more bloated and can really slow down sites, generally sliders are not recommended for most sites, and you can create sliders with the theme if you really needed them using the new Carousel Container added in the latest version of the theme.

- AJ