A live version of this help file can be found here.
Once you’ve activated Checkout, you’ll be forwarded to the Getting Started page (Appearance → Getting Started). Here, you can view the help file, browse frequently asked questions, and activate your theme’s license to enable Typekit fonts and seamless theme updates.
Activating Your License
We strongly recommend that you add your theme’s license key in the Getting Started page. By adding your key, you activate the beautiful Typekit fonts we’ve added for you as well as seamless theme updates. With theme updates enabled, you’ll get a notification in your dashboard whenever there is an update available. You can then update right in your WordPress dashboard, keeping your site healthy and secure.
You can find your theme’s license key by signing in to your Array dashboard and visiting the Downloads page. Click the View License link on your theme to view the license key. Copy this key and enter it into the sidebar of your Getting Started page and click the Activate License button. Your license key should now be active!
Below is a list of recommended plugins to install that will help you get the most out of Checkout. Although each plugin is optional, it is recommended that you at least install the Array Toolkit and Easy Digital Downloads to create a website similar to the Checkout demo.
These plugins are also listed in the Plugins tab of your Getting Started page, and you can install the plugins directly from there.
When you first activate Checkout, it will look like simple blog with your existing posts. This is expected since Checkout needs you to setup several pages before it will look like the demo. Optionally, you may install our Checkout demo data, which will populate your site with the pages you see on our live demo. This can give you a head start in setting up your site, since these pages have already been created and have the appropriate templates applied accordingly. Once you get your site setup and get the hang of it, you may delete the unwanted posts or pages as you see fit.
Before installing the demo data, you should first install the Array Toolkit and Easy Digital Downloads (as mentioned above in the Recommended Plugins section). If you do not first install these plugins, the demo data will not import sample portfolio or download posts.
Download the Checkout demo data here. You can install this XML file by going to Tools → Import → WordPress and click Choose File. Upload the xml file and follow the steps to import. When the demo data is finished importing, you should have several new posts and pages to work with going forward. Hooray!
One of the first steps you’ll want to do when setting up your site is customize the appearance with your site title or logo, header images, header color, link colors etc. This can all be done by visiting Appearance → Customize.
Create a social icon drop menu to let visitors know where to find you.
Checkout ships with three homepage templates: Homepage EDD Shop, Homepage Portfolio and Homepage Widgets. Each template does something a little different, so we’ve provided a quick breakdown below. Please note, to change a template’s settings in the Customizer, you must be currently viewing the page template. For example, if you’d like to change the number of downloads to show on the Homepage EDD Shop template, you need to be viewing a page with that template assigned.
To get an idea of where each element on this homepage template comes from, view this template’s Homepage Template Visual Guide.
To use this template, create a new page and choose the Homepage EDD Shop template in the Page Attributes Box. See the Setting Your Front Page section below to learn about making this your homepage.
To get an idea of where each element on this homepage template comes from, view this template’s Homepage Template Visual Guide.
To use this template, create a new page and choose the Homepage Portfolio template in the Page Attributes Box. See the Setting Your Front Page section below to learn about making this your homepage.
To get an idea of where each element on this homepage template comes from, view this template’s Homepage Template Visual Guide.
To use this template, create a new page and choose the Homepage Widgets template in the Page Attributes Box. See the Setting Your Front Page section below to learn about making this your homepage.
Setting Your Front Page
Once you’ve decided on which homepage template to use and you’ve created the page, we need to tell WordPress to use this page as your front page instead of your blog posts.
Before we can do this, we need to make sure we have a page that will display our blog posts. Create a new page called Blog (or whatever title you want) and publish the page. You do not need to add any content to this page since it will only display your blog posts.
Now that we have a Home page and a Blog page created, go to Settings → Reading (or Appearance → Customize → Static Front Page). In the Front Page Displays setting, select A static page and set your Front page to your newly created Home page and your Posts page to the Blog page and click the Save button. You may now start adding portfolio items or products to the homepage.
Checkout uses the Subtitles plugin to add subtitles to posts and pages throughout the theme. Subtitles add a nice touch by introducing the page with a little intro text.
To add subtitles, you’ll first need to install the Subtitles plugin. Once installed and activated, you’ll see there is now a Subtitle field under your post and page titles. Any time you enter a subtitle, it will be output into the header of your post or page. No other action is required to use subtitles.
To add testimonials to your site, you first need to install the Array Toolkit. One installed and activated, you will see a new Testimonials menu in your WordPress dashboard.
Testimonials are output in a few places. All three of the homepage templates output testimonials toward the bottom of the page. Checkout also comes with a Testimonial template which displays all of your testimonials. To create this page, simply create a new page and apply the Testimonials template.
To create a new Testimonial, go to Testimonials -> Add New. For the title of the post, use the name of the person who is giving the testimonial. Optionally, you can use the subtitle field to give the person a title, as seen here. Finally, add your testimonial text into the post editor and choose a featured image to represent the testimonial. Your testimonial should look something like this once complete.
A carousel gallery allows you to showcase several product or portfolio images in a slider as well as a pop-up lightbox. Carousel galleries are available on all posts, downloads and portfolio items.
The carousel gallery is super simple to create and uses WordPress’s built-in gallery function. To create a new carousel, click the Add Media button on your post. Click Create Gallery and select the images you’d like to add to the carousel. Once you’ve selected and arranged your images how you’d like, click Insert Gallery and insert the gallery at the top of your post editor, like this. Finally, in the Format box on the right side of your post editor, select Gallery. You can now publish your post or continue to add content below your gallery.
Checkout comes with a Team template that lets you showcase your team members. To create the Team page, first create a new page and apply the Team template. You may choose to add content to the page, which will appear below the team members, or leave it blank. On the Checkout demo Team page, we’ve added a contact form into our post content. To do this, you’ll need to install the Contact Form 7 plugin, create a form, and add the shortcode to your Team page.
Once you’ve setup the Team page, you need to add team members to it. Checkout uses a Gravatar widget to provide team member profiles. A Gravatar is a social profile and avatar that you can use across many sites. You probably already have a Gravatar, but if you don’t, it’s super easy to create one. Head over to Gravatar and create a profile if you don’t have one. Once you’ve created an account, you’ll be able to add an avatar, a brief bio and links that you’d like to share.
Once your team’s Gravatar profiles are setup, head to Appearance → Widgets and add a Gravatar Profile widget for each team member to the Team Page Widgets section. If your team members are already users in your WordPress site, you can select them from the user list. If not, you can simply use the Custom Email Address option and enter the email associated with their Gravatar.
Aside from displaying your portfolio items on the Homepage Portfolio template, Checkout also comes with a Portfolio page template that displays all of your portfolio items in a grid.
To create a Portfolio page, simply create a new page and assign the Portfolio page template.
Create A Portfolio Item
To enable the Portfolio, you must first install the Array Toolkit. Once installed and activated, you will see the Portfolio Items menu in your WordPress dashboard. Click Add New to create a new portfolio post. Feel free to use a mix of images, galleries, audio or video in your portfolio. If you’d like to create a carousel gallery for your portfolio item images, check out the Create A Carousel Gallery section.
Portfolio items are output on the Portfolio page template and the Homepage Portfolio template.
Easy Digital Downloads is a free plugin that enables you to sell digital goods on your website. This plugin powers the ecommerce store in Checkout. If you would like to sell goods on your website, you will need to install this plugin.
If you have any general questions about Easy Digital Downloads, please visit the EDD Docs page. Here, you can learn how to use EDD, browse frequently asked questions and post in the support forum with specific questions.
Easy Digital Downloads Quick Links
Getting Started with EDD
When you install and activate Easy Digital Downloads, it will create a few key pages for you: Checkout, Purchase Confirmation, Purchase History and Transaction Failed. These are important pages that will ensure your checkout process works. These pages will automatically be assigned, but you can modify these settings in the EDD settings.
Download Templates
Checkout outputs product downloads in several different areas throughout the theme. By default, your downloads are always available via the download archive located at yoursite.com/downloads. This page does not need to be created, nor is there a page in your Pages section for this, since it’s an archive page.
Checkout also comes with a Downloads template. This template is very similar to the download archive above, except you can customize the header title and subtitle and add content above the download grid. Another benefit is that you can change the URL to this page template to anything. Instead of having to use yoursite.com/downloads, it can be yoursite.com/albums, yoursite.com/ebooks, or whatever you’d like.
Checkout also outputs your downloads on the Homepage EDD Shop page template. You can control the number of downloads output on the Homepage EDD Shop template by viewing this page in the Customizer and going to Appearance → Customize → Homepage Settings → Download Section. Please note that you must be viewing the page with the Homepage EDD Shop template applied to see the template’s settings in the Customizer. To reduce clutter and distractions, Checkout only shows theme settings when they are relevant to the current page.
Checkout lets you sell your digital goods as a standalone store, but you can also use Checkout as a multi-author marketplace that allows users to submit files for sale. This is made possible by the Easy Digital Downloads Marketplace bundle.
The Marketplace bundle is a collection of extensions that have been specifically chosen for users that wish to setup a marketplace with Easy Digital Downloads. These extensions add features like Frontend User Submissions, Reviews, Recommended Products and Wishlists, allowing you to create a single or multi-user marketplace. All of the extensions in the Marketplace bundle have been designed to work seamlessly with Checkout.
Getting Started With Front End Submissions
Front End Submissions is the plugin that allows authors to register and sell products on your site. If you don’t need all of the plugins in the Marketplace bundle, you can purchase Front End Submissions on it’s own.
Front End Submission Pages
Upon activating Front End Submissions, it will create two new pages for you: Vendor and Vendor Dashboard. The Vendor page displays a grid of each vendor’s products. We’ve included a Vendor page template that adds a sidebar profile for each vendor. The sidebar will display the vendor’s avatar, their profile info and a contact form. See an example here. The Vendor Dashboard page allows your vendors to manage their products, add new products, view earnings and more.
Learn more about the Front End Submission basic setup and configuration below.
To create a Pricing page, start by creating a new page and assigning the Pricing page template in the Page Attributes box. This is all you’ll have to do here. The widgets we assign in the following steps will be output with this page template.
Variable Pricing Table Widget
The Variable Pricing Table widget allows you to display a pricing table based on a download’s variable pricing options. For example, if you have a product with 3 price options, the widget will output 3 different price tables, one for each of your price options. Let’s create an example variable price product to use in the Variable Pricing Table widget.
[mailbag_mailchimp] For Campaign Monitor, use the shortcode [mailbag_campaign_monitor]. See the plugin screenshots for examples of implementation.