Sketch Featured Content
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Hi Eleanor ,
If you have a premium or business plan, you can add css via the customizer.
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Whoops, here’s the link to the customizer:
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Dear @garysixtyeight,
So I cannot use the CSS customisation mentioned above in a free site?
Regards
Eleanor -
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So I cannot use the CSS customisation mentioned above in a free site?
@eleanortabone: Sorry for the confusion. What @garysixtyeight said is correct in that CSS becomes available to use once a site is upgraded to Premium or Business.
With your site as it is now, you could continue to group your portfolio items into Project Types. You already have Cooking in the menu, so adding the other three types could be a good option.
As an alternative, the other thing you could do is only use portfolio items for the larger categories. Then they would all show in the grid below the slider.
Inside of your portfolio items, you can use the Display Posts shortcode to make your blog posts appear. For this to work, you will need to use Blog Posts for the rest of your content.
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Dear dcoleonline,
Thank you for your help!
I like your ideas!
However – could you please detail/explain further how undertajke your second option?
I.e. using portfolio items for the larger categories.Thank you
Eleanor
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could you please detail/explain further how undertajke your second option?
I.e. using portfolio items for the larger categories.Sure!
So earlier you said this:
I have created 4 parent projects – Cooking, Arts, Where to Next?, Lifestyle and Fitness….What I want is the 4 main projects visible on my homepage.
Use portfolio projects for those, and make everything else a blog post.
When you go to edit the content of each portfolio project, you will insert the Display Posts shortcode into the editor. This way, when someone clicks on one of the main projects from the home page, they will see a list of blog posts that fit that topic.
So any new content that you write on your site should be in a blog post. I recommend assigning those blog posts to categories.
Right now, I see that you have several posts in a category called Books.
If you wanted to display those posts inside of a portfolio project with the Display Posts shortcode, it could look something like this:
[display-posts category="books"]You can further customize the code based on your preferences, but that’s the basic way of doing it.
So the idea again, is that visitors would click on one of the four main options (portfolio projects) and then inside they could see a list of your posts which correspond to the main topic they selected from the home page.
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Dear dcoleonline,
Thank you for your explanation.
However, If you have a look at my site – arts portfolio – you can see I have done this.
Breaking it done into Fiction/Non-fiction.
However, after colouring my site (adding pictures), I am unsure how I should proceed.I would appreciate some advice. Do you think I should have just 4 projects on my homepage or keep my homepage as is?
With the potential to create more pages like ‘cooking.’
What do you think?Any one else out there, feel free to comment and offer your opinions.
Regards
Eleanor -
I would appreciate some advice. Do you think I should have just 4 projects on my homepage or keep my homepage as is?
With the potential to create more pages like ‘cooking.’I’d recommend making it as quick and easy as possible for visitors to get to the content of your blog posts. Right now it takes a click in Arts, then another click on a portfolio item, then another click on a blog post before actual content can be read.
Instead, I’d recommend using the display posts shortcode right within the Arts portfolio item so that visitors can click Arts and then click the blog post they want to read.
You might even link to blog post categories right within your menu. To do that, visit My Site > Customize > Menus > Primary. Then on the right, click on Categories. Next, click Add Items. Finally, click on the name of the category you want and it will be added to your menu. On the left side of the screen, click/drag it into the order you like. When a visitor clicks on a category in your menu, they’ll see all posts within that category.
Here’s an example of what they would see:
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Dear dcoleonline
Thank you so much!
That is a great idea. I appreciate your advise.
The only issue I’d like to raise is; I have two categories for books “non-fiction” and “fiction”.
I’d like to ensure readers can differentia between the two. How do you suggest I do this?Can I ask, at this point in time, what is your overall opinion of my site?
-Homepage
-Content
-Layout
-WritingI really want to start promoting my site and need to use it on my CV, so hoping to get it going soon.
Thank you again for your help.
Regards
Eleanor -
I have two categories for books “non-fiction” and “fiction”.
I’d like to ensure readers can differentia between the two. How do you suggest I do this?One thing you could do is make a drop down menu from Arts that includes both Fiction and Non-Fiction. That way, visitors can click on the one they want, and then select a blog post from there.
Can I ask, at this point in time, what is your overall opinion of my site?
Overall, I think your site looks really nice and has interesting content for travelers and potential travelers. It might be nice to add an About page, for people who want a quick overview or to know more about you as the author.
On the technical side, one thing I noticed is that the file size of some of your images is a bit large, so it takes quite a while for them to load the first time.
Specifically the featured images for Northern/Southern Suburbs and CBD. They’re all .PNG files which tend to take up more space than .JPG files. They’re also a lot larger than they need to be. They’re about 3000px or more on either side, when they really only need to be about 1100px on either side per the details at the bottom of the Sketch theme guide. If you can save those images as a .JPG file and make them smaller, that will help the page load faster. You might check out an online image editor like aviary.com or pixlr.com and even an image compressor like tinypng.com to decrease the file sizes.
Also when using the display posts shortcode, it defaults to showing the posts in a list format. This adds the bullet points you see to the left of each post. If you want to remove that, you can add this within your shortcodes:
wrapper="div"This will make the posts display in HTML div tags rather than as a list so that the bullet points will be removed.
I hope this helps!
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Dear dcoleonline,
I really like and appreciate your opinions and ideas.
Thank you.
Following this.
I have some questions (sorry):
1. How do I make all feature images the same size?
2. How can I show posts in a grid layout?
3. How can I liven up post layouts?
4. How can I create the above mentioned drop down menu for Arts – Fiction and Non-Fiction – if they the drop down’s are portfolio’s?
5. Should I scale all images to 1100px?Regards
EleanorP.S.
I will probably have future questions. -
How do I make all feature images the same size?
On your Home page, they are all the same size. If you wanted to adjust all of the images though, you would need to make them all the same size on your computer using a photo editor, and then upload them to replace the existing featured images you have.
How can I show posts in a grid layout?
I’m afraid the Sketch theme doesn’t offer a grid layout for posts. It only does that for the portfolio items. Here’s an example of the blog page from the theme demo.
How can I liven up post layouts?
I’m not clear on your goal for this. Are there specific changes you’re wanting to make? Let me know more of your thoughts on this.
How can I create the above mentioned drop down menu for Arts – Fiction and Non-Fiction – if they the drop down’s are portfolio’s?
You can do this from My Site > Menus > Primary. Click the Add Items button and look for the Projects section on the right. Click it and look for the Fiction and Non-Fiction projects. Click each of them to move them to the left side in your menu editor. Then put them just below Arts and move them to the right until they stick in place. This will create the drop down.
Should I scale all images to 1100px?
You can, but it’s not necessary. The images that were loading slowly caught my attention when I visited the site the other day, so that’s why I looked further into them. It looks like they were all screenshots. If you have others that were screenshots and if you notice them load slowly, it might be good to resize them. A good way to test the loading speed is to clear your browser cache so that your browser has to download all of the site files again. Then visit the site to see which images load slowly and make corrections based on your findings.
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Dear dcoleonline
Thank you for your thorough, follow up:
Regarding the question:
How can I liven up post layouts?
I feel my post pages e.g. https://eleanortabone.wordpress.com/2016/06/19/blue/ are a bit boring… Meaning how can I liven them up to engage/increase followers? Should I add more pictures/change font?But wait… There’s more questions:
1. How do I add my social links to the social links menu?
2. In my recipe collection I have a few recipes pertaining to Easter. I’ve tiled them Easter edition. https://eleanortabone.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=596&action=edit How do suggest I group these recipes together? Should I make an Easter portfolio?
3. Why is there always such large gaps in recipe posts. One between the title and recipe and one between description and notes? It does this for every recipe I post using the shortcode…
4. Why is the font for this post different? And how do I change it back? https://eleanortabone.wordpress.com/2015/12/13/chickpea-capsicum-and-spinach-frittata/
5. Why do Sometimes my numbers not go the next line down? E.g. No.5 https://eleanortabone.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/turkish-gozleme/
6. I am crediting my images. In your opinion do you think the position of credit looks good? I’d prefer it under the image… E.g. https://eleanortabone.wordpress.com/2014/01/09/fat-free-honey-soy-garlic-marinade-based-pork-loin-chops/That will do for now, only joking.
Thank you again!Regards
Eleanor -
How can I liven up post layouts?
If you have more relevant images to add, that could appeal to some visitors. However that isn’t always necessary.
We have a full guide with tips on attracting more visitors that should come in handy.
How do I add my social links to the social links menu?
You can do that by adding Custom Links to the Social Links menu from My Site > Menus. Just enter the name of the network in the Link Text field, and the link to your profile on that network as the URL.
There’s also information on setting this up in the Sketch theme guide.
How do suggest I group these recipes together? Should I make an Easter portfolio?
So there are lots of options. I’d definitely recommend putting the posts in the same category, though. That way if you make a portfolio item, you can display the posts from that category within the portfolio.
Why is there always such large gaps in recipe posts
Here’s the outline of the Recipes shortcode you linked to in question #2:
[recipe] [recipe] [recipe-notes] [/recipe-notes] [recipe-ingredients] [/recipe-ingredients] [recipe-directions] [/recipe-directions] [recipe]You have three instances of [recipe] there. You should only have one per recipe. Also, there is no closing [/recipe] shortcode, so the theme doesn’t know to contain everything inside of the recipe box. Think of [recipe] and [/recipe] like bookends. You need the first one at the beginning and the last one at the end for it to work properly. You can see the example here as well to see how it was formatted.
Why is the font for this post different? And how do I change it back?
You have this code at the beginning of your recipes shortcode in the HTML:
<span style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;">At the end you have this:
</span>Remove those bits of code, and the font will match the rest of your site.
Generally code like that is copied over into your site if text has been pasted from another website into the Visual Editor. If you need to paste from another site/program, try using the Plain Text mode.
Why do Sometimes my numbers not go the next line down? E.g. No.5
If you’re going to use sub-headings, I’d recommend choosing a heading size for that text. This will make content below the heading move below the heading. When editing from the Dashboard, you’ll find the font style options (paragraph/heading, etc) just below the Add Media button.
I am crediting my images. In your opinion do you think the position of credit looks good? I’d prefer it under the image..
I’m actually not seeing the image load there. You’ve set an image URL as the title. Could you change that to a regular title and if it doesn’t load the image, let me know? If it loads the image with the credit, I’ll have a look.
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Dear dcoleonline
Your explanations are so wonderfully explained, thank you!I do have a few questions regarding your answers.
1. Can you please explain further – “So there are lots of options. I’d definitely recommend putting the posts in the same category, though. That way if you make a portfolio item, you can display the posts from that category within the portfolio.”
2. You recommended “use sub-headings, choosing a heading size for that text. This will make content below the heading move below the heading.” However when I do this the whole recipe font changes… What am I doing wring?
3. For the credit – https://eleanortabone.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/iconic-australian-anzac-biscuits-2/Thank you again.
Regards
Eleanor -
Dear dcoleonline
I do have some more questions:
1. Should I make all the book review pictures the same size? For example in the Fiction portfolio – the pictures aren’t the same size so they don’t line up. It’s very frustrating.
2. I have linked my social media accounts but how do I make a new tab open when a viewer clicks on it?
3. Is there a shortcode for reviews? As you see all my book reviews have the same layout but my restaurant reviews alter. What are your suggestions? What do you link of the restaurant review layouts?
4. For some restaurant reviews I included a gallery, should I make all those pictures the same size to ensure they line up?Thank you
Eleanor -
2. You recommended “use sub-headings, choosing a heading size for that text. This will make content below the heading move below the heading.” However when I do this the whole recipe font changes… What am I doing wring?
If the heading formatting is getting carried over into your paragraphs of text below headings, you might need to hit “return/enter” one or two times to get your cursor out of the heading and return to regular text formatting. If that doesn’t work, switch to the HTML tab in the editor and make the fix there by moving the closing heading tag to where it should be.
3. For the credit – https://eleanortabone.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/iconic-australian-anzac-biscuits-2/
I’m not seeing an image credit here:
https://eleanortabone.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/iconic-australian-anzac-biscuits-2/
Have you tried using the image caption feature? That should place the words under the image automatically. You can see how to add a caption here:
https://en.support.wordpress.com/images/image-settings/ -
1. Should I make all the book review pictures the same size? For example in the Fiction portfolio – the pictures aren’t the same size so they don’t line up. It’s very frustrating.
Yes, you should make your images all the same width if you want them to line up on this page:
https://eleanortabone.wordpress.com/portfolio/fiction/
2. I have linked my social media accounts but how do I make a new tab open when a viewer clicks on it?
- Open the Customizer‘s Menus panel
- Click the gear icon at the top right.
- Make sure “Link target” is checked. https://cloudup.com/ccWQh-Tk-kD
- Click the Social Links menu to open it.
- On each menu item, check the box next to “Open link in a new tab”
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3. Is there a shortcode for reviews? As you see all my book reviews have the same layout but my restaurant reviews alter. What are your suggestions? What do you link of the restaurant review layouts?
4. For some restaurant reviews I included a gallery, should I make all those pictures the same size to ensure they line up?
I’m not sure where to find your book or restaurant reviews. Could you please provide a link to both of those, so I can take a look and make suggestions? Thanks!
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