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First Steps

Getting Started

Thank you for choosing our theme. This article is intended to help you get started creating your site with Ohio. Should you face any problems installing the theme the help of this article, please contact us on Ticksy.

First Steps

To install this theme you must have a working version of WordPress already installed. If you need help installing WordPress, follow the instructions in WordPress Codex. Below are all the useful links for WordPress information.

To use the Ohio theme you need a WordPress installation from WordPress.org running on your own web server. Or you will need a WordPress.com site with the Business plan. For the WordPress.com please note that themes only work on WordPress.com sites if you are on the Business plan. If you have the Free, Personal or Premium plan, WordPress.com does not allow you to install custom themes and plugins.

Picking a hosting provider is a matter of choice based on their location, pricing and services. This is an important decision at the start and we strongly suggest you choose a WordPress friendly hosting provider for using our themes.

Latest technologies are always the best so stick to hosting companies that provide flexibility in your online presence.

Often asked by our clients, we try to determine most appropriate hosting providers for them but it is always your choice based on your goals, so here is the list of hosting companies we recommend (referral links):

Download Theme files from ThemeForest by going to the Downloads tab and finding the Ohio Theme. Click on the Download button. The “All files & Documentation” archive contains everything and the Installable WordPress file only is just the installable WordPress theme file.

The contents of the theme package downloaded from ThemeForest:

Above you can see the structure of the theme archive you download from ThemeForest:

  • Bundled Plugins – this folder contains plugins required to work with our theme in case you cannot install them with the prompt or just need a local copy;
  • Extras – this folder contains extra files (e.g. text file with a link to get the Figma files);
  • Licensing –  this folder contains the terms and conditions of the license under which Ohio is distributed and some information on licensing of various parts of the theme in a separate file;
  • ohio-child.zip – this archive contains the basic child theme that you can use with our theme. Just installing it won’t hurt and in case you decide to make some changes/extend the source code of the theme, it will be very helpful because it helps not to lose your custom changes after updating the parent theme.
  • ohio.zip – this is the theme archive you need to upload to WordPress.

Server Requirements

To use the Ohio theme, you must be running WordPress 6.0 or higher, PHP 7.4 or greater, and MySQL 5 or greater on your server. We have tested it on Linux, Mac, and Windows. Below is a list of items you should ensure your host can comply with.

  • Check to ensure that your web host has the minimum requirements to run WordPress and themes;
  • Always make sure they are running the latest version of WordPress;
  • You can download the latest release of WordPress from the official WordPress website;
  • Always create secure passwords for FTP and Databases.

Minimum PHP Requirements

Many issues you may run into such as; white screen, demo content fails when importing, empty page content, theme not being saved and other similar issues are all related to low PHP configuration limits. The solution is to increase the PHP limits. You can do this on your own, or contact your hosting provider and ask them to increase those limits to a minimum of the following:

PHP time limit (max_execution_time) 300
PHP memory limit (memory_limit) 256M
Max upload size (upload_max_filesize) 32M
File upload permission (file_uploads) set to Available

Also consider upgrading your PHP version to the latest version, the newer the better.

Updating PHP Version

In most cases, you cannot update the PHP version yourself and need to contact your host about this. The upgrade process is an easy process and should be something your host can do for you without impacting your website or charging you a fee.

Installing the Theme

If you download the All Files archive from ThemeForest and try to upload it to your WordPress, you will receive this error: Theme is missing the style.css stylesheet. Please make sure you unzipped the main archive and are uploading the correct file to your WordPress.

There are two ways to install a WordPress theme: using the built-in installer or by uploading it via FTP

1Installing Using the WordPress Theme Installer

  • From the WordPress dashboard go to Appearance → Themes → Add New → Upload Theme;
  • Click on “Choose File” and select ohio.zip;
  • Click on “Install Now”.

2Installing via FTP

This is a more advanced way to install your theme. To install Ohio via FTP:

  • Download the Theme archive and extract the files it contains;
  • Use an FTP client to access your hosting server;
  • Unzip the ohio.zip archive, put its contents (folder called ohio) in the /wp-content/themes directory provided by WordPress;
  • From the WordPress dashboard go to Appearance → Themes, find Ohio and activate it.

Theme Activation

When purchasing Ohio Theme from ThemeForest, you have two licensing options. The Regular License, and the Extended License. The billing, licensing terms and process is purely handled by Envato (the company who owns ThemeForest), and we have no control over these aspects. To learn more about what each License is for and which one to purchase, continue reading below.

A Regular License allows you to use the theme to create a Single End Product (single website) for yourself or for one client.

To be able to install the demo content and use all the Ohio features license activation is required.

  • From the WordPress dashboard go to Ohio Theme → Dashboard;
  • Follow the activation steps in the Activation area;
  • That’s it, you are all set! The product is activated and you can import the demo content.

Theme Updating

We always update our themes with new features, bug fixes, and improvements.

You can easily update your Ohio theme and enable its auto-updating feature by using Envato Market plugin. It comes with Ohio and can be installed directly from your WordPress dashboard under Appearance > Install Plugins menu.

We strongly recommend you following these steps before you update themes, plugins or even WordPress itself. Be sure to read the release notes since the last time you updated. Also, consider deactivating caching plugins temporarily or purging all caches each time after getting a new version to avoid the caching of old markup.

You have to perform the following steps:

  • Go to https://build.envato.com/create-token/ page and generate an Envato API token;
  • Give your token a name, agree to the terms and click on the “Create Token” button;
  • Copy the generated token;
  • From the WordPress dashboard go to Envato Market and paste your token in the Token line;
  • Finally don’t forget to save the changes.

Now that you have the Envato Market plugin set up, you can:

  • From the WordPress dashboard go to Appearance → Themes and see if there is any updates.

Alternatively you can update your theme manually, the same way it is installed manually via FTP. This will not erase your current pages/settings and is a valid updating option.

Installing Required Plugins

Ohio theme requires a set of core and additional plugins to function correctly. A plugin is an additional component that offers functionality and features beyond a typical WordPress installation. Without them, most of its functionality is not available. After installing the theme you will be prompted to install the required plugins at the top of your dashboard. Alternatively, you can:

  • From the WordPress dashboard go to Appearance → Install Plugins;
  • Toggle all the required plugins and hint “Install”;
  • The last step will be activating the plugins.

Bundled Plugins

Ohio theme comes bundled with some premium plugins from CodeCanyon, such as WPBakery Bage Builder (formerly Visual Composer), Slider Revolution and ACF Pro, that help to supercharge your website with features beyond a typical WordPress installation

Bundled plugins offer the same core features and functionality as the standalone version of the item on CodeCanyon.

Bundled plugins may ask for a purchase code for registration/activation once installed. You can simply ignore these messages as bundled plugins do not require activation or registration. The plugin will still work as intended with the theme once the theme has been activated/registered.

Updating Bundled Plugins

If you’ve received an alert about a plugin that needs to be updated, this could be because the new version of the plugin was recently released.

Unless you have purchased the plugin separately, we will provide the latest version of the bundled plugin as soon as it’s been tested with our theme.

To get the latest version:

  • From the WordPress dashboard go to Plugins → Installed Plugins;
  • Hint the Update Required link;
  • Mark all the plugins that you want to update and hint the Apply button;

Error While Updating Bundled Plugins

If you get an error while updating Bundled Plugins, alternatively, you can do the following:

  • From the WordPress dashboard go to Plugins → Installed Plugins;
  • Choose the specific plugin and deactivate it;
  • Then hint the Update Required;
  • Choose the specific plugin and hint the Update button;
  • That’s it! Finally, activate the plugin again.

Now, you should have the latest version of the Bundled Plugin available on your server.

Basic Site Setup

Importing Demo Content

You have to activate your theme previously to be able to use the demo content feature.

  • Ensure, that the Ohio Importer plugin is installed and activated;
  • From the WordPress dashboard go to Ohio Theme → Demo Import;
  • Choose the demo you want to install and click on the Import button​;
  • If your theme isn’t activated yet, you will be prompted to make that before you get started with import;
  • In the dialog window choose the import options and the builder (WPBakery/Elementor) you want to use.

WordPress will download all the demo content and then you will get a message saying that everything​ ​has​ ​been​ ​installed.

We suppose our users create their own menus, so you won't get the menu from our demo website with demo import. Also, the homepage won't automatically set to that of the demo you import. Here's the instruction how to set your home page.

Setting a Homepage

To set the demo as the homepage:

  • From the WordPress dashboard go to Settings → Reading;
  • Find the Your homepage displays option and toggle the switcher to A static page (select below);
  • Choose the demo homepage and save your changes.

Creating a Menu

To create a menu for your site, do the following:

  • From the WordPress dashboard go to Appearance → Menus;
  • On the left, find the list section that starts with Pages;
  • Check the checkbox of every element you want to have in your menu;
  • Click on Add to Menu;
  • Finally, you have to set Display location in Menu Settings as Primary and click on Save Menu button.

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