Ready to start customizing your site with Ignite Plus? Follow this guide to learn how to use each of Ignite Plus' features on your site.
If you need help installing Ignite Plus, please follow this tutorial first: How to Install & Activate Ignite Plus.
Table of Contents
Introduction
This guide will teach you how to use each of the new features added with Ignite Plus. The tutorials are newbie-friendly, so every step is explained in detail.
It's recommended that you follow along with your site as you read.
Custom Colors
Ignite uses an orange accent color throughout its design, and a darker shade of the orange for hover effects on buttons and other elements.
Ignite Plus adds an option to change both the main accent color, and the darker alternate for hover effects.
Changing these colors will allow you to match your site to your brand's colors (or simply pick a color you like).
Follow this tutorial to learn how to change these colors with Ignite Plus:
Tutorial: How to Change Your Colors
New Layouts
Ignite has a right-sidebar and left-sidebar layout. Ignite Plus adds the following six new layouts:
- Narrow
- Wide
- Two-column - right-sidebar
- Two-column - left-sidebar
- Two-column - narrow
- Two-column - wide
The layout is applied to all pages on your site. However, every Post/Page can also use its own layout.
Follow this tutorial to learn how to change to a new layout:
Tutorial: How to Change Your Layout
Flexible Header Image
The header image is a large image displayed at the top of your site, spanning from one side of the screen to the other.
It's great for displaying a welcome message on just the homepage, or an interesting graphic across the site.
Learn how to add a header image to your site with this tutorial:
Tutorial: How to Add a Header Image
Featured Sliders
Featured Sliders can be used to replace Featured Images with sliders, like this:
Ignite Plus integrates with the Meta Slider plugin to add Featured Sliders. Like with Featured Images, every Post and Page can have a different Featured Slider.
Follow this tutorial to learn how to add Featured Sliders to your site:
Tutorial: How to Add Featured Sliders
Featured Videos
Just like Featured Sliders replace Featured Images, Featured Videos can be used to add videos in place of Featured Images.
This gives you a simple and beautiful way to publish videos on your site.
Ignite Plus will responsively embed videos from any of the following sites:
- Youtube
- Vimeo
- Dailymotion
- Animoto
- Funny or Die
- Hulu
- TED
- WordPress.tv
- Blip
- Vine
While not video sites, you can also embed SlideShare presentations and SoundCloud tracks with Featured Videos.
Tutorial: How to Add Featured Videos
Use New Fonts
Ignite includes five fonts. Ignite Plus includes 728 fonts in total.
With the increased selection, you can choose the font that perfectly complements your content.
Follow this tutorial to learn how to apply a new font to your site:
Tutorial: How to Use Your New Fonts
Background Images
Ignite Plus adds an option to change the background of your site to an image, rather than just a color.
You can upload any image you'd like, and it will serve as the new backdrop for your site.
To learn how to add a background image to your site, follow this tutorial:
Tutorial: How to Add a Background Image
Background Textures
The Background textures feature lets you add a texture to the background of your site. It's great for adding depth and interest to the look of your site.
Ignite Plus comes bundled with 21 textures.
Follow this tutorial to learn how to add a texture to the background of your site:
Tutorial: How to Add a Background Texture
Navigation Styles
When visitors scroll down your site, the menu immediately disappears out of view. Ignite Plus adds a "fixed" option to the nav bar that keeps the menu visible at all times:
There is also an additional navigation style, that hides the menu when visitors scroll down, and displays it again immediately when they begin to scroll up. This can make your site easier to use and navigate.
To learn how to make your menu fixed to the top of the screen, follow this tutorial:
Tutorial: How to Change Navigation Styles
Premium Widgets
Ignite Plus adds the following Premium Widgets:
- Recent Posts +
- Recent Comments +
- About Me
- Social Icons
The Recent Posts + widget is just like the default Recent Posts widget, but it also displays a thumbnail image for each post. The thumbnail image comes from the post's Featured Image
The Recent Comments + widget is like the default Recent Comments widget, but it also displays a thumbnail image for each commenter. The commenter's avatar is used as the image.
The About Me widget is perfect for displaying an image of yourself or your business, and a short bio/description.
Lastly, the Social Icons widget lets you easily add your social icons to the sidebar with the same style as the icons in the header and author box.
Tutorial: How to use the Premium Widgets
New Widget Areas
If you followed along with the Ignite Getting Started guide, you'll remember that the sidebar is a "widgetized" area. In other words, it's a part of the site where you can add any type of content you want by adding widgets.
Ignite Plus adds four new widget areas to your site:
- Before Main Content
- After Post Content
- After Page Content
- Footer
Each widget area can display any widgets you'd like (or none). If you want to learn how to add widgets to one of these new widget areas, check out the tutorial below:
Tutorial: How to Use Your New Widget Areas
Author Social Icons
Ignite Plus allows you to add social icons to the author box.
These social profiles are specific to the author, so if you have multiple authors on your blog, each author can promote their own profile.
Follow this tutorial to learn how to add your own social icons to the author box:
Tutorial: How to Add Social Icons to the Author Info Box
Footer Menu
Ignite Plus adds an optional menu to the footer of the site.
The footer menu is perfect for pages on your site that are necessary, but don't require visibility in the primary menu. For instance, your Terms of Service and Privacy Policy pages.
Follow the tutorial below to learn how to setup the footer menu:
Tutorial: How to Add a Footer Menu
Conclusion
If there's anything else you want to change about your site that wasn't covered, check for an article about it in the sidebar to the left. Otherwise, there's probably a free plugin available for it on wordpress.org .
Check out our WordPress Resources page to find awesome plugins and tools we recommend, and if you want to try using CSS to customize Ignite Plus, we've got some pre-written snippets for you to get started with in the Ignite CSS Snippets Collection.