Uncharted Posted October 17, 2013 Report Share Posted October 17, 2013 (edited) I just bought a template through this site, unzipped the files, and used an FTP client to upload all of the files to a hidden folder within the public_html directory because I want to be able to customize the template while having the site "live." However, I am only able to view a few basic URLs such as images and text pages and I'm not able to view the template on the site. I believe it should be a lot easier than it is based on reading many reviews about website templates and how they are easy to use, but not getting the answers I'm looking for to fix the issues. Any help would be greatly appreciated and hopefully sooner than later before I regret this purchase as opposed to sticking with a custom designer. Thanks. Edited October 17, 2013 by Uncharted Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrea Posted October 17, 2013 Report Share Posted October 17, 2013 The first thing would be to make sure you have all the files and folders uploaded in the proper directories. If you can post the link to the online version here so we can look at it, we can probably help you out more specifically. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncharted Posted October 17, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2013 (edited) The first thing would be to make sure you have all the files and folders uploaded in the proper directories. If you can post the link to the online version here so we can look at it, we can probably help you out more specifically. Thanks for the response Andrea. Here is the link: http://www.templatehelp.com/preset/pr_preview.php?i=37119&pr_code=O6Ud0y1Y2bLnw8zG39UkQBl2G4TJ2B I currently have uploaded four folders--documentation, screenshots, sources_M3PXy7m1Dw, and theme1424. Edited October 17, 2013 by Uncharted Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrea Posted October 17, 2013 Report Share Posted October 17, 2013 This is a Wordpress Template. Do you have a Wordpress site already? I haven't bought any WP templates, but I've used the themes. I imagine it's the same principle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncharted Posted October 18, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 18, 2013 (edited) Yes I have that installed and it can be accessed already through my domain name/blog I see this information here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Integrating_WordPress_with_Your_Website ... But I feel like other steps need to be done before I start doing that, correct? Edited October 18, 2013 by Uncharted Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newseed Posted October 18, 2013 Report Share Posted October 18, 2013 (edited) Typically, if the theme is built right you should not have to unzip the files. You would login to your WP admin, click on Appearance and then Themes. At top, click on Install Themes. Chose to Browse your computer and find the zip file. The rest is self-explanatory. If by chance that the zip file is not a installable type then you will need to unzip that file and find the theme folder. FTP into your site and go to the /wp-content/themes/ folder and upload your theme folder there. Once done, go back to your WP admin and click Appearance and then Themes. Locate the theme and activate. Edited October 18, 2013 by Eddie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
administrator Posted October 18, 2013 Report Share Posted October 18, 2013 Hi, Ahh ... that would explain your earlier confusion - you need to upload this template into Wordpress for it to work. Eddie's instructions seem to be dead on. Stef Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncharted Posted October 18, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 18, 2013 Typically, if the theme is built right you should not have to unzip the files. You would login to your WP admin, click on Appearance and then Themes. At top, click on Install Themes. Chose to Browse your computer and find the zip file. The rest is self-explanatory. If by chance that the zip file is not a installable type then you will need to unzip that file and find the theme folder. FTP into your site and go to the /wp-content/themes/ folder and upload your theme folder there. Once done, go back to your WP admin and click Appearance and then Themes. Locate the theme and activate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncharted Posted October 18, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 18, 2013 OK so I uploaded the theme to the blog portion of the site and it looks OK although there is some additional text at the top of the blog that I dont know how to clean up, but figure I can do that later. However, that is only a portion of the template. The actually site itself is not loaded. I assume that is in the Documentation and/or sources_M3PXy7m1Dw folder? Does that just need to be FTP to the public_html directory? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrea Posted October 18, 2013 Report Share Posted October 18, 2013 Do you have the link to the files that you are working on - not the original template? What are you trying to do - start a whole new site that didn't exist before, or add the Wordpress part to an existing site? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncharted Posted October 18, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 18, 2013 I am creating a whole new website. I bought a template that I expected to use as the site's template and then edit it from there. The information that was given to me only helped me load a theme for the WordPress blog, which has been accomplished. Other than that, there is no site loaded. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newseed Posted October 18, 2013 Report Share Posted October 18, 2013 The odds are that all the necessary files for the template are there. What you might be missing is the data. Some templates will include a XML file (.xml) containing stock data that you can import. That file should build all the pages for you. Thereafter, you will have to replace the necessary images and content with yours. Just check the other folder within that zip file you have on your computer to see if there is such a file. If so, you will need to login to your WP admin and from the left menu area, go to Tools and then Import. It will ask you what kind of import you want to do. You will find several options. Click on the 'Wordpress' option. On the next page just click on 'Browse' and find that .xml file. Just click 'Upload file and import' button. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrea Posted October 18, 2013 Report Share Posted October 18, 2013 With Wordpress installed, look into your directory, and you'll find a folder called wp-content. In there, is one called themes'. That's where the template needs to go into. Once that is done, log into your Wordpress panel, go to Appearance - Themes - and there you should see the default theme and your template. Then just activate it. Hope this helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncharted Posted October 19, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2013 Typically, if the theme is built right you should not have to unzip the files. You would login to your WP admin, click on Appearance and then Themes. At top, click on Install Themes. Chose to Browse your computer and find the zip file. The rest is self-explanatory. If by chance that the zip file is not a installable type then you will need to unzip that file and find the theme folder. FTP into your site and go to the /wp-content/themes/ folder and upload your theme folder there. Once done, go back to your WP admin and click Appearance and then Themes. Locate the theme and activate. I am starting everything over again and going through this step by step again. I will try to explain all of the issues because I feel like this is very basic and should not be as hard as it has been. First off, after downloading the template, it contains the following 4 folders... 1) Theme1424 (this appears to be the WP stuff) 2) Sources (this includes the folders: plugins, PSD, and uploads) 3) Screenshots (5 jpgs and and html file) 4) Documentation (includes folders: css, images, js) This is the example of the template: http://livedemo00.template-help.com/wordpress_37119/ These are the details of the site: http://www.templatehelp.com/preset/pr_preview.php?i=37119&pr_code=O6Ud0y1Y2bLnw8zG39UkQBl2G4TJ2B 1.) I just did what you told me to as far going into WP admin/Appearance/Themes and uploading the zip file that was downloaded after purchasing it from from this website. This was the response I got: "Unpacking the package…Installing the theme…The package could not be installed. The theme is missing the <code>style.css</code> stylesheet. Theme install failed." 2.) So then I found the theme folder (only the theme folder) and FTP it over to wp-conent/themes/ and then changed to the recently uploaded theme and this is how it looked: http://topeka-hoops.com/blog/ Obviously this looks nothing like what the template is supposed to look like and the other folders--Sources/Screenshots/Documentation are not loaded. My question is, where do they get FTP to? And why is the theme so off? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncharted Posted October 19, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2013 The odds are that all the necessary files for the template are there. What you might be missing is the data. Some templates will include a XML file (.xml) containing stock data that you can import. That file should build all the pages for you. Thereafter, you will have to replace the necessary images and content with yours. Just check the other folder within that zip file you have on your computer to see if there is such a file. If so, you will need to login to your WP admin and from the left menu area, go to Tools and then Import. It will ask you what kind of import you want to do. You will find several options. Click on the 'Wordpress' option. On the next page just click on 'Browse' and find that .xml file. Just click 'Upload file and import' button. I have no idea where the .xml file would be located. I have no issues with replaces images and content once it gets to that stage. I just want the template to be uploaded. That seems like the easiest part while the customization of it will take a lot more effort, which is concerning given how difficult this stage is going. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncharted Posted October 19, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2013 Hi, Ahh ... that would explain your earlier confusion - you need to upload this template into Wordpress for it to work. Eddie's instructions seem to be dead on. Stef While Eddie's help is greatly appreciated, there are still issues. It seems like it's more than just changing the theme. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncharted Posted October 19, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2013 With Wordpress installed, look into your directory, and you'll find a folder called wp-content. In there, is one called themes'. That's where the template needs to go into. Once that is done, log into your Wordpress panel, go to Appearance - Themes - and there you should see the default theme and your template. Then just activate it. Hope this helps. Yeah I understand that part, which does help, but the issue is uploading the files correctly. I tried to detail all of the issues in the aforementioned posts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
falkencreative Posted October 19, 2013 Report Share Posted October 19, 2013 Have you checked the documentation files that came with the template? Usually that will provide installation instructions. In most cases, installation takes a bit more than simply uploading the theme files and uploading the theme. Like others said, some themes (depends on the theme author) come with sample content that you can import in. I'd suggest checking the documentation for instructions in case that is included. I imagine you'll have to follow other steps to get things set up like the demo site, probably including changing the home page to be an actual page rather than just a list of recent blog entries (there's likely a "Home" template for that specific page), updating widgets, etc. Every theme is a little different. But the documentation that's included with the theme is the first place to start. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncharted Posted October 19, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2013 Have you checked the documentation files that came with the template? Usually that will provide installation instructions. In most cases, installation takes a bit more than simply uploading the theme files and uploading the theme. Like others said, some themes (depends on the theme author) come with sample content that you can import in. I'd suggest checking the documentation for instructions in case that is included. I imagine you'll have to follow other steps to get things set up like the demo site, probably including changing the home page to be an actual page rather than just a list of recent blog entries (there's likely a "Home" template for that specific page), updating widgets, etc. Every theme is a little different. But the documentation that's included with the theme is the first place to start. Yeah I did, I'm good to go now! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncharted Posted October 19, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2013 THANK YOU to everyone who offered their help. It was a very frustrating, stressful time, but I have now figure it all out and I'll be in running within the month. Thanks again. You all have a special expertise that is beneficial to the rest of us. Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrea Posted October 19, 2013 Report Share Posted October 19, 2013 Glad you're up and running. It is so frustrating than when something isn't working as expected and one cannot figure out why. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncharted Posted October 19, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2013 Glad you're up and running. It is so frustrating than when something isn't working as expected and one cannot figure out why. Kinda like now when the WP database isnt connecting.. It was working fine for a while last night and now nothing. The database name, user, password, and host all appears to be correct. Trying to talk to the host about it, we'll see what happens....sounds like it's an Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrea Posted October 19, 2013 Report Share Posted October 19, 2013 Who is your host? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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