At its core, Qoo Bracelet is about sharing different types of content. It leverages the post format functionality in WordPress to accomplish this. Qoo Bracelet supports the following post formats, each of which is intended to be used for a distinctive content type:
Each post format represents a “collection”, with two special exceptions:
“Standard” and “Aside” posts make up one collection called “Articles”.
“Image” and “Gallery” posts make up one collection called “Photos”.
Each post format and the “collection” it represents has a distinctive visual style in the Collections theme, both when viewing individual posts and when viewing the “collection” archive.
Homepage
The Homepage is an optional page template that showcases the latest post from each “collection”. Read more on setting up the Homepage below.
The Stream
The “Stream” view shows your posts in chronological order (newest at the top), regardless of which “collection” it belongs to. It is similar to the standard “posts” view of other WordPress themes. This view acts as the homepage if a static front page has not been set up.
Collection Archive
Each “collection” has an archive view that shows only posts that are using a correlated post format. For example, the Photo Archive shows Image and Gallery posts, and the Video Archive shows Video posts. Each archive has a distinctive visual style.
Single Post
Each post format has its own, distinctive visual style in the single post view.
Where Collections really shines is in how it features the specific type of content that makes each post format special. Some post formats require the content to be entered in a particular way so that Collections can recognize and extract it, others do not. Below are instructions for setting up each post format so that its special content can be featured successfully.
A note about Featured Images
Some of the post formats in Collections use featured images, and some do not. The formats that do use featured images are:
The following formats do not support featured images, and will not display one even if set:
Featured content: the post text.
Standard and Aside posts are created in the normal way: add a title, add some content, and publish! Aside posts are visually different from Standard posts, however: when viewing them individually or in the Articles archive, Aside posts do not display the title, because they are intended to be short, informal blurbs. Note, though, that the title is displayed in Stream view, so it is still important to add one!
Post signature
On Standard posts, a “post signature” is shown at the bottom of the single view. The text in the signature comes from the “Display name publicly as” field in the profile of the author of the post. Here’s how to change it (assuming you are a site administrator):
Featured content: a URL.
There are two ways to enter a URL that Collections will recognize:
The featured URL will be hyperlinked to an icon at the bottom of the single post view.
Link post title
In addition to a URL, Link posts should have a descriptive post title, so that the posts can be differentiated in the Link archive view.
Featured content: a quote.
There are two parts to a correctly-assembled Quote post: the quote itself, and the quote attribution.
The quote
The quote attribution
Putting it together
You can add more content below the quote and attribution, and it will be kept visually separate, as long as it’s not inside the blockquote.
Quote post title
In addition to a quote, Quote posts should have a descriptive post title, so that the posts can be differentiated in the Quote archive view.
Featured content: a single image.
There are several ways to include an image that Collections will recognize and feature:
The image that Collections uses for the featured content will not show a caption.
Any images inserted into the content below the first line will remain in place and behave as in a normal post (including displaying captions).
Featured content: a series of images.
There are two ways to include a gallery that Collections will recognize and feature:
The images that Collections uses for the featured content will not show captions.
Any galleries inserted into the content below the first line will remain in place and behave as in a normal post.
Gallery cover image
In the Photo archive view, a gallery post is represented by a “cover” image. This image comes from either the post’s featured image, or the first image attached to the post.
Featured content: an audio clip.
There are three ways to include an audio clip that Collections will recognize and feature:
Any audio clips inserted into the content below the first line will remain in place and behave as in a normal post.
Audio metadata
In the case that the featured audio clip has been uploaded to the media library, WordPress will extract any embedded metadata in the audio file (eg. from the ID3 tag in an MP3), including the song title, artist, and the album art. The song title will be displayed in lieu of the post title, and the album art will appear instead of the post’s featured image.
For audio clips that don’t have embedded album art, the album cover will use the post’s featured image, if available.
Featured content: a video.
There are three ways to include a video that Collections will recognize and feature:
The WordPress media player script does not currently support the .mov format for video files. Adding a .mov file to a Video post will result in the generation of a link that a reader can use to download the file.
Any videos inserted into the content below the first line will remain in place and behave as in a normal post.
Video cover image
In the Video archive view, a video post is represented by a “cover” image. This image comes from the post’s featured image.
Since the Image, Gallery, Audio, and Video post formats in Collections all utilize features from the WordPress Media Library, it’s important to have a good understanding of this functionality. Here are two good video tutorials on the subject:
Any time a file is uploaded to WordPress while creating or editing a post, it becomes “attached” to that post, regardless of whether that file is actually “inserted” into the content. Collections looks for these attached files in Image, Gallery, Audio, and Video posts as one of the ways to determine the special content to feature.
To attach a file to a post:
Collections will select these attachments in the order they were uploaded, starting with the oldest. To change the order:
For reference, these are the image sizes used in Collections:
Homepage section background
(these are the minimum recommended dimensions for Video featured images)
Image and Gallery single view
Image archive view
Gallery archive view
Audio album cover (single and archive view)
(these are the minimum recommended dimensions for Audio featured images)
Video archive view
(note that the minimum recommended dimensions for this image are larger than this and are listed above in the Homepage section background)
Collections offers the ability to customize certain parts of the theme through the Theme Customizer. Changing these options is the easiest way to alter the theme. While you cannot customize every part of the theme with the customizer, the important optional features in Collections have been made available in the Theme Customizer.
If you are looking to make changes that are not documented here, please refer to the Advanced filters section and review how to make theme customizations.
By default, Collections uses the Stream view as the homepage. However, you can also use the special Homepage Template by setting up a static front page:
The Homepage Template includes an About section at the bottom. It has a search box, a link to the Stream view, and a place to add a welcome message or other content. Next to this content you can include a small avatar image that is styled the same way as the comment section avatars:
Add a welcome message
Add an avatar
Disabling the Homepage About section
Disabling Fast page loading
Footer text
Collections allows for the addition of arbitrary text in the footer of the theme:
Limited HTML can be used in the footer text area, including the following tags: a, abbr, acronym, b, blockquote, cite, code, del, em, i, q, strike, and strong. All other HTML tags will be stripped from the text. Not all HTML tags have been specifically styled for the footer and may require custom CSS.
Social profile links
Social profile links for Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Flickr, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and RSS can be added to your site’s footer. The social links look like the image below:
To add a social profile link, follow these steps:
Styles
Collections offers three custom styles that a user can add to post content. The styles are implemented via the Styles dropdown in the second row of buttons in WordPress editor. To reveal the second row, click Show/Hide Kitchen Sink in the first row.
Note is a block-level style, meaning it will create a separate block of styled content from whatever text it is applied to.
To add the Note style, follow these instructions:
Quote Attribution is an inline style, meaning it will apply special styling to the specific letters you select, but won’t change the layout. This style has special meaning in the Quote post format.
To add the Quote Attribution style, follow these instructions:
Raised Cap is an inline style that adds a stylized first letter to a paragraph. It is recommended that this styling is only ever used for the first letter in a post or page. Overuse of this styling in a single page of content can be confusing to the reader.
To add the Raised Cap style, follow these instructions: