Testers Wanted

fisicx · Apr 26, 2018

My new theme is nearly ready for launch but I need some testing doing. All you need to do is send me a PM with your email address and I'll give you a login to the test site. Your job is to test the theme functions.

If you don't fancy fiddling with the backend, comments on the theme would be appreciated

This is it: http://tradesman-theme.co.uk/

If you fancy installing and playing with the setup process here's the download page: http://tradesman-theme.co.uk/download-and-install/

Jeff FV · Apr 26, 2018

Just spotted a typo on your features page, under analytics:

and thay want their

Should be they not thay

fisicx · Apr 30, 2018

It's now they.

Got a feature needs testing. Should only take you a couple of minutes. To be useful a tradesmans site needs testimonials. So this this theme delivers: http://tradesman-theme.co.uk/testimonials/

Ideally your customers will want to say thank-you or vent their spleen and they can do just that: http://tradesman-theme.co.uk/new-testimonial/

Is the form sufficient? Are there too many or two few fields? Does it break if you try to do something daft? If you do submit successfully is the thank you message OK or would you like to see a link to see all testimonials/add another testimonial?

Ta muchly.

Nico Albrecht · May 2, 2018

I personally like the word estimate more than quote you are using. Also what price point are you planning to sell it , the site is very basic but functional. I personally wouldn't spend more than £20 for that template.

fisicx · May 2, 2018

Thanks Nico. You can edit the widget contents so changing from Quote to Estimate takes but a few seconds.

It is a basic theme but a lot of testing over a number of years has shown that simple layouts out performs a site with lots of funky features. For example, banners, hero images and animations just don't work despite their prevalence.

It's a free template. No need to pay anything. I make my money by offering support. It's a business model that is working well for me.

As an aside, even with all the built in functionality it still a very compact theme that scores green on the Google PageSpeed tests - something many WordPress theme fail to do.

Nico Albrecht · May 2, 2018

I prefer clean simply stuff over a bloating site and for free it cant be faulted.

TODonnell · May 2, 2018

Maybe put a logo on 'er. The centered title looks insufficient. I know it's a demo, but appearances matter.

fisicx · May 2, 2018

You can add a logo in the settings. It's centered because more and more people use phones and tablets to browse and the centered looks better on these devices.

And a load of testing has shown that a logo is mostly irrelevant. But I do agree the header needs a bit more something

Simon.P · Jun 9, 2018

are you selling this theme as it is on the live site @fisicx ?

Is there any way to include more copy on the homepage aside from the 170 characters under the H2 "Get the theme". I like the way you can show images on the home page (and was planning on using them for different services) and hoping to keep the copy i am ranking well at the moment below it.

Do you need a plug in to re-write to urls for the post pages? I currently rank well for some of my service pages so would like to retain that.

Hoping to build it up in Xampp if possible and when ready pop it on my domain.

webit · Jun 9, 2018

I would use recapture on the form rather than a x+y box - we used to have that on a few sites and still got a shed load of spam.

fisicx · Jun 9, 2018

Simon.P said:
are you selling this theme as it is on the live site

It free. I make money from people asking for new features.

Simon.P said:
Is there any way to include more copy on the homepage aside from the 170 characters under the H2 "Get the theme".

It's a standard widget area. You can put whatever you want in there. Including 1000 words of perfect prose if you want.

Simon.P said:
Do you need a plug in to re-write to urls for the post pages? I currently rank well for some of my service pages so would like to retain that.

You shouldn't do do this. All the homepage does is display your latest posts with a featured image if it exists. The URLs won't change.

webit said:
I would use recapture on the form rather than a x+y box - we used to have that on a few sites and still got a shed load of spam.

Depends on how the maths capture is configured. This one is very robust and blocks most spam. The rest is nuked by akismet, honeytrap and the speed detector. I think four levels of anti-spam is sufficient.

Simon.P · Jun 9, 2018

Thanks @fiscix
I will give it another go.

Simon.P · Jun 9, 2018

As far as i can see, to display content below the latest posts (which would be my services) would require customisation. I say this, because what you suggested above will appear at the lower part of every page and post and that's not what i was after.

I have looked everywhere, but cannot find where to change this H1:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SYurdESlVwl4Egnmrh0tUDkJ5aPYbU97/view?usp=sharing

Is there a way to ensure the latest posts (my services) would appear in the same layout each time? I would like to keep the services i am trying to sell the most of at the top.

UKSBD · Jun 9, 2018

What I do with similar themes is edit the single.php file and page.php file so that you don't use the title as the H1 heading but instead let the end user create their own as they add the content.
It's far more flexible that way.

UKSBD · Jun 9, 2018

A couple of other observations.

The category pages use the last post title as the title

When revising a page the title and category is stripped so you have to remember to add them back.

Simon.P · Jun 9, 2018

I nosed through the files and found the following within home.php

Code:

<h1><?php echo get_option('hometitle', 'The Tradesman Theme'); ?></h1>

I entered what i wanted for the H1 and it worked. Is it ok to leave it like this?

fisicx · Jun 10, 2018

Simon.P said:
As far as i can see, to display content below the latest posts (which would be my services) would require customisation. I say this, because what you suggested above will appear at the lower part of every page and post and that's not what i was after.

How about I create a shortcode that displays your latest posts above, below or even in between whatever content you want on the homepage.

Simon.P said:
I have looked everywhere, but cannot find where to change this H1:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SYurdESlVwl4Egnmrh0tUDkJ5aPYbU97/view?usp=sharing

Go to the customiser and look a the 'homepage' section.

Simon.P said:
Is there a way to ensure the latest posts (my services) would appear in the same layout each time? I would like to keep the services i am trying to sell the most of at the top

Just make then sticky posts. That way they will always be at the top.

UKSBD said:
What I do with similar themes is edit the single.php file and page.php file so that you don't use the title as the H1 heading but instead let the end user create their own as they add the content.
It's far more flexible that way.

You can already do this with the theme. It's got built in SEO so you can change the titles and descriptions.

UKSBD said:
The category pages use the last post title as the title

When revising a page the title and category is stripped so you have to remember to add them back.

Good spot. I'll fix this.

UKSBD · Jun 10, 2018

fisicx said:
You can already do this with the theme. It's got built in SEO so you can change the titles and descriptions.

Yes, but I like to use a different SEO title, what would be post title and H1 tag

ie.
SEO title For obvious reasons

Title you give the post for anchor text reasons

Add my own H1 tag so I have more control

Basically just removing the automated H1 so I have total control when writing the post/page

fisicx · Jun 10, 2018

OK got it.

Not sure this would be a widespread feature but because the theme is free you can do pretty much whatever you want with it.

Simon.P · Jun 10, 2018

fisicx said:
How about I create a shortcode that displays your latest posts above, below or even in between whatever content you want on the homepage.

That would be great!

fisicx said:
Go to the customiser and look a the 'homepage' section.

I did try that, but no joy:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dFbTDVSN6-0OsiF3G0de5BDAFk0Xmqh3/view?usp=sharing

fisicx · Jun 10, 2018

http://tradesman-theme.co.uk/recent-posts-with-content/

You will need to download and install the theme again. This should also fix your homepage title bug.

Simon.P · Jun 10, 2018

That's great, thanks @fisicx ! Do i owe you anything for amending that?

Simon.P · Jun 16, 2018

The only issue as i see it is the featured image is too big (imo) on a desktop. Knowing how fickle some people are, they might think when they click on it from the homepage, it is just a bigger image. Compared to mobile and tablet where it seems to be more proportional (and you can clearly see there is content below it.
I did some hunting around and removed:

Code:

// Link featured image to post
function aerin_autolink_featured_images( $html, $post_id, $post_image_id ) {
    if (!is_single()) {
        $html = '<a href="' . get_permalink( $post_id ) . '" title="' . esc_attr( get_the_title( $post_id ) ) . '">' . $html . '</a>';
    } else {
        $html = '<span>' . $html . '</span>';
    }
    return $html;
}

from functions.php

and ended up with the featured image removed (on just the post page not the home page as desired) and ended up with:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-u0TX_-BTfG4UtpUMcCmgtukpwQjnBz4/view?usp=sharing

fisicx · Jun 17, 2018

Thanks for that. What I can do is add an option to show the featured in different sizes or not at all.

Simon.P · Jun 17, 2018

fisicx said:
Thanks for that. What I can do is add an option to show the featured in different sizes or not at all.

That would great, thanks @fisicx

fisicx · Jun 17, 2018

All done: http://tradesman-theme.co.uk/download-and-install/

Settings are in the customizer

Simon.P · Jun 17, 2018

excellent, thank you @fisicx ! Let me know if i owe you anything for these tweaks.

Simon.P · Jun 19, 2018

Thanks to your help @fisicx i have pretty much finished for now on this and its live. One thing i did notice is that on your site the whole featured image is clickable, but on mine it isn't. I've looked through the customiser and media library but cannot see if its something i can do myself?
To be clear i have highlighted in green what is clickable :

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i86InVLvEbLib4RX6oPHQUX2dsj2NCI4/view?usp=sharing

fisicx · Jun 19, 2018

Found the bug. It was a misplaced </a> in the recent posts shortcode.

I've uploaded the update: http://tradesman-theme.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/tradesman.zip

Simon.P · Jun 19, 2018

excellent, thanks so much!

Simon.P · Jun 27, 2018

Hi.
Is there any way to change the colour of the footer below the footer widget within the customiser? Please see screenshot:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dWzq1EZgDwSiqCZG68Tx6J7KvjLZIErZ/view?usp=sharing

fisicx · Jun 27, 2018

All sorted. The setting was in the Customiser but wasn't connected to the styles.

I've also updated the testimonials so you can now add a featured image that links to a project page.

Go get it: http://tradesman-theme.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/tradesman.zip

Simon.P · Jun 28, 2018

Excellent thank you @fisicx !

Simon.P · Jul 25, 2018

Is it possible for the homepage to call a page instead of a post with regards to displaying my work?
Like in the red highlighted bit below:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xn5TwTJHPkuoZl2CD8vOOYCSQNH2os28/view?usp=sharing

I didn't realise posts cannot be parents. I am having content prepared to prop up other keywords as described in the fresh bananas course which relies on this. If possible, let me know how much i owe you as i don't expect people to work for nothing!

fisicx · Jul 26, 2018

Interesting.

I could do this with a shortcode. All you would need to do is add the page ID to the shortcode and the theme could do the rest for you.

Send me an email and we can negotiate

Simon.P · Aug 6, 2018

One other thing, not sure if i am missing something, but could the toggle contain the "+" like in your one page theme? Also, is there an easy way of changing the colour of the text for it (please see attachment)
Thanks

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12t8cYKrrlX4BYzBs4F3gcj2xmCqmHqR7/view?usp=sharing

fisicx · Aug 16, 2018

Took a bit longer than expected (I've been busy), but here it is:

http://tradesman-theme.co.uk/text-toggles/

Download the update:

http://tradesman-theme.co.uk/download-and-install/

Simon.P · Aug 18, 2018

Thank you so much @fisicx, that's great!

I can envisage a dart board with a picture of me on it, but i've got a list of stuff i am doing for my site and noticed the custom 404 page does not work. I cleared the cache on Firefox, tried IE (never use IE so never visited site with it) and also restarted the server and it doesn't appear to be working. I was hoping to list some of my popular pages on there.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lWagwfOOEseyxrbbjg4hxoV5hof1ygDP/view?usp=sharing

fisicx · Aug 21, 2018

All sorted.

No worries about the bug reports. That's why I created this thread.

http://tradesman-theme.co.uk/download-and-install/

Simon.P · Aug 21, 2018

thank you @fisicx , works great!

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