Customizing Solar

Solar allows you to customize the theme’s styles. From your site’s Dashboard, navigate to Appearance → Customize.

In the Customizer you can:

• Set a custom header, background image, title, site description, and site logo.
• Manage custom menus.
• Manage widgets.

Customizing the Homepage

Solar supports two different blog layouts: Default and Grid.

Default Layout

Solar will display posts in a single column with a sidebar by default. The column width is 770px, and the sidebar width is 370px.

If you hide widgets from the blog index, content will display in one centered column.

Grid Layout

To display posts on the blog index and archives in a grid, go to Appearance → Customize, click on “Theme,” and select Grid from the dropdown menu, then press Save.

The blog index and archives will now display posts in two columns with a sidebar. Column and sidebar widths are 370px.

To display posts in three columns without a sidebar, go to Appearance → Widgets and hide widgets for the posts page.

Featured Images

Featured images enhance the presentation of your post. On single posts, featured images are displayed in the top, above the title and post content. Featured images should be at least 770px wide. If you upload a larger image, it will be resized to fit the space.

 

Post Formats

Solar supports all post formats: Standard, Aside, Image, Video, Quote, Link, Gallery, Status, Audio, and Chat.

Quote Post Format

Quote posts use the Featured Image as background image. You can change the text color to contrast against the Featured Image:

1. Select the post text in Visual Editor.
2. Change Text Color.

This way you can put lighter text on darker images, or darker text on lighter images.

To cite the author of a quote, write their name below the quote text. Switch to the Text Editor and add <cite></cite> around author’s name:

<blockquote>Recognizing the need...</blockquote>
<cite>Charles Eames</cite>

Link Post Format

To create a link post, first you will need to select the Link post format.

After adding your link text, link it to the desired URL. To add the link source or title, add <cite></cite> around the source name:

<a href="http://www.wordpress.com">How To Start Blogging</a>
<cite>WordPress.com</cite>

Widgets

Solar supports four widget areas: one Sidebar and three Footer areas. Widgets can be configured under Appearance → Widgets. If no widgets are assigned to the Sidebar, content will be displayed at full width. If no widgets are assigned to the Footer, these areas will display only footer credits.

Custom Menus

Custom Menus can be created under Appearance → Menus. In Solar, there are two menu locations: Primary and Social.

The Primary menu is located in theme’s header area. This menu can contain custom links, pages, categories, tags, or posts.

The Social menu automatically creates links to your social network profiles, and supports the following social networks:

Facebook, Vimeo, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Dribbble, LinkedIn, Google+, and Behance.

Additional Post Styling Options

Two Columns

You can display content in two columns by wrapping a div element with class “twocolumn”, and then a paragraph element with the class “half-width” around your content:

<div class="twocolumn">
<p class="half-width">Your text goes here</p>
<p class="half-width">Your text goes here</p>
</div>

Drop Caps

Drop caps allow you to stylize the first letter in a post or page. Simply wrap the first letter in a span with “dropcap” class.

<span class="dropcap">D</span>rop cap examples.