How to setup the front page template on the Motif theme for WordPress

James Riddett 198 Comments

wordpress motif themeThe screenshot of the Motif theme for WordPress looks great. But how do you actually get your own website to look like this?

Short version

~ Create a new page that uses the “Front Page” template and a featured image of at least 1,140 pixels wide.

~ Tell WordPress to use that page as the static front page. The title and content of the page become the “insert” within the image. The rest of the page is all done with Widgets.

Long version

~ Create a new page and enter the title and content you want to appear on the home page, as the “insert” in the large image.

~ Under Page Attributes, choose the “Front page” template.

~ Under Featured Image, upload an image 1,140 pixels wide or more. This will become the large background image. 

~ Under Likes and Shares, uncheck Show Likes and Show Sharing buttons.

~ Save the page.

~ Under Settings > Reading, select Front page displays > A static page, and then select your new front page. Save Changes.

How to have two random testimonials/quotes appear on the front page

~ Go to Testimonials > Add New

~ Enter the person’s name as the title, and then their testimonial as the content. To add their picture, upload it as a Featured Image.

~ Unfortunately, “Like” buttons appear under the testimonials, even if you uncheck the “Show likes” option when editing the testimonial. The only way to remove them is to go to Settings > Sharing and change the setting to “WordPress.com Likes are… Turned on per post” (as opposed to On for all posts). The drawback of this setting is that you’ll need to manually check the Show Likes option, every time you create a new Page or Post.

By the way, if you visit http://yoursite.wordpress.com/testimonial (naturally, with “yoursite” changed to your actual site name), you’ll see all your testimonials listed in full. If you plan to make this page public, you can edit the introduction by going to Testimonials > Customize. Strangely, the “Like” buttons DON’T show on this page, again regardless of the setting.

How to add content to the two boxes above the testimonials

~ Go to Appearance > Widgets, and drag widgets into the areas called “First Front Page Sidebar” and “Second Front Page Sidebar”.

How to add content to the three spaces in the footer area

~ Go to Appearances > Widgets, and drag widgets into the areas called “First Footer Sidebar”,
“Second Footer Sidebar” and “Third Footer Sidebar”. Each of the three spaces can handle multiple widgets, if you choose.

All the best,
James

198 thoughts on “How to setup the front page template on the Motif theme for WordPress”

  1. ~ Under Settings > Reading, select Front page displays > A static page, and then select your new front page. Save Changes.

    This I cannot do. When I go to Settings>Reading, it gives other choices but not the new front page. I have saved it, but also have two other pages. Do I need to begin with no other pages present?

    Thanks.

    Reply

    • Hi Katharine, that’s very odd! No, there’s no need to start with no other pages — I already had other pages on here, when when I switched to Motif. If you invite me to be an Admin from your test blog I’d be happy to check it out for you. If you go to Users > Invite New and enter my username jamesriddett, that should do it.

      Reply

  6. I’m just setting up my site with the Motif theme and the dashboard does not include the testimonials option. Where is it?

    Reply

    • I’m presuming we’re talking about http://meditatetojoy.com.

      If so, I think I’ve just realized why you’re not seeing the Testimonials option. My site is hosted by WordPress.COM, so the option appears automatically. Judging by your footer link, it looks like your site is self-hosted (ie. it’s a WordPress.ORG installation).

      What I’d try in your place is firstly make sure WordPress is up to date with the latest version. If that doesn’t do the trick, I would try installing the Jetpack plugin. Jetpack gives self-hosted WordPress sites the same functionality as WordPress.com sites.

      When I clicked the Testimonials link in my Dashboard, I noticed the webpage address ended with “post_type=jetpack-testimonial”. Naturally this implies that the Testimonials feature is part of Jetpack, so hopefully installing that will do the trick for you. I can’t be 100% that this is the solution unfortunately, but that’s what I would try next.

      Reply

  10. Okay. Now, how to make my gorgeous new page appear first, when someone travels to the site. Currently, the “home” page is where the blog url directs a visitor. The special page is just there, listed under the title I chose for the textbox insert.

    Reply

  11. I have managed to get the testimonials on the front page but for some reason the testimonial page only worked for less than one day. All I get in a page not found when I click on the page. Is this a free feature of this site or do I have to purchase a custom upgrade?

    Reply

    • Hi Amelia, I had the same thing happen on this site — the testimonial page worked, and then without changing anything, it didn’t work for a few days, and then it started working again (and has done ever since). There’s no upgrade required, so it appears to be a strange little glitch with either the Motif theme or WordPress.com.

      You could try adding a testimonial or editing the introduction section of the Testimonial page (go to Testimonials > Customize), to see if it somehow “refreshes” the page. But you may just need to wait a few days, and hopefully you’ll find it starts working again.

      Reply

  12. I want to use the “grid template” in Motif for one of my pages, which I’m able to do…but does anybody know how to get RID of the “Leave a reply” box/function? Or in any other of the page templates for that matter. I’m using it for more of a static business page, so I don’t want a reply box.

    Reply

    • Hi, you can get rid of the “Leave a Reply” section by editing the page, unchecking “Allow comments” under the Discussion heading, and saving the page. There’s also a general setting under Settings > Discussion in your main dashboard menu called “Allow people to post comments on new articles”. You could first try unchecking that box, and saving — it might prevent the need to do it page-by-page. But I haven’t tried it :-)

      Reply

  13. Hi James,

    first of all, thank you so much for making this beautiful theme!

    I was wondering if there is a way to remove the menu buttons from just one page. The first page of my website shows only a picture and two link where people can choose the language they want the page to be in. I would like for this first page to be as clean as possible and to not have menu buttons. You can check my website if you want to see what I’m trying to do.

    Any though?

    Thank you,
    Simon

    Reply

    • Hi Simon, thank you but I didn’t create the theme, I’m just a WordPress.com user posting up tips when I can :-)

      Removing the menu from just one page would, I believe, require some custom coding, ie. hacking of the theme’s files. This isn’t something WordPress.com lets you do. The Custom Design upgrade lets you customize font styles etc (CSS) but not the actual WordPress files, which is understandable.

      If you setup a self-hosted WordPress blog (WordPress.org), I think you could…

      1) Hack the theme’s header file with some code that says “If this is the home page, then don’t display the menu”. You’d do this by identifying the home page by its ID.

      OR

      2) Create a new page template with the code that displays the menu stripped out, and then tell your home page to use this template.

      As I say, I don’t think you can do these kinds of hacks on WordPress.com. That’s either a blessing or a curse, depending on how much customization you need to do on a site!

      I suppose you could setup two separate blogs, one in English, one in Spanish? They could look identical if you wished, and people could follow the one in their preferred language.

      Sorry I couldn’t help further Simon. By the way, I imagine your work is fascinating!

      Reply

      • Thank you for the comments and the link James! I’m self-hosting the theme and so I might be able to hack into the code (maybe?).

        As of right now, I have two different websites (one in English, one in Spanish) and the front page links them together by allowing the reader to choose a language. I’ll take a look at the link you sent me though, it looks very promising!

        Thank you/Gracias ;)
        Simon

        p.s. here is my updated website but the English section is the only one getting love right now: http://www.simonuribe.com/Simon_Uribe-Convers/Simon_Uribe-Convers.html

  14. Hi James

    Your post is brilliant and really welcome as I’ve been having some challenges setting up the Motif front page!

    However, I’m still struggling slightly with the featured image as there isn’t a setting for this that I can find when I create a page. I’m using the free .com theme.

    Is there somewhere else I should be looking?

    Thx!
    H

    Reply

    • Hi Henrietta, when you create a new page (or edit an existing one), look at the right hand side of your screen. You should see three main boxes: Publish at the top, Page Attributes underneath, then finally under that there should be one called Featured Image. Inside that box should be a single link: Set featured image. If you can’t see the link, try clicking the little down arrow next to the box heading. The box should open out and reveal the link. Hope this helps — let me know how you get on :-)

      Reply

      • Thx for your reply!

        However, on the page template, I’ve only got two boxes – Publish and Page Attributes. I’ve looked for a third arrow and there isn’t one. It is only when I’m on the post page (rather than ‘page’ page) that I have the feature image box.

        Is there anything else I might need to edit to get it to display?

        H

      • Ah ok, it sounds like it’s just a screen option that’s switched off. On the Edit Page screen, if you look at the top right hand corner you should see a little roll-down menu option called Screen Options. If you click that, the screen options should be revealed. You’ll see a box for Featured Image, which is hopefully currently unchecked :-) If you check this box you should find your Featured Image box magically appears underneath the Page Attributes box :-)

  15. Thanks for this post, it’s really useful.

    Do you know if there’s any way of having the insert box on the lower left rather than the lower right of the main image?

    Thanks.

    Reply

    • Hi Chris, I don’t know for sure unfortunately. However, if you have the Custom Design upgrade (and I think you probably do judging by your headers?) , you might find the answer in the Layout or CSS sections of your Customize area. Try Layout first. If there’s no option for it there, try delving into the CSS.

      In the CSS, look for any notes or styles that seem to relate to the front page template. Look for an entry that appears to be for the text box and contains a style that says float: right. Simply replacing the word “right” with the word “left” may do the trick. Of course, keep a careful note of any changes you make so you can restore any unsuccessful attempts.

      I can see why you’d like to float the box over to the other side, it’s a nice image but the box totally covers the mug :-) Sometimes with these things you can just mirror the image but of course that wouldn’t help with this image. I guess the last resort is to choose a different pic, if there’s no way to budge the text box.

      Let me know how you get on!

      Reply

    • Just a quick follow up Chris. I’m not sure the Customize > CSS section will be helpful after all. It looks like it only lets you enter new styles, not edit existing ones. That’s a VERY unhelpful way to do it but there you go, that’s how it’s setup. So if you can’t make the change in the Customize > Layout section, you’ll have to post a support request with WordPress.com unfortunately. The good news is that they will know the theme’s CSS and therefore *should* be able to provide you with some simple “copy and paste” CSS that will shift the box from right to left.

      Reply

  16. Hi James, I can’t seem to find where to add my menu titles? I thought it would be in ‘Pages’ but I cant see it anywhere, please can you help? Great site by the way :)

    Reply

  18. Hi James,
    Thanks to your tutorial I was able to figure out how to set up the front page on the Motif theme. Now my blog shows two links in the header, the Home and About, but I don’t know how to make a menu so that it shows my entire blog. Any help would be much appreciated!
    ~Celine

    Reply

      • Oh I just watched this video! I see that you can add specific categories as menus, but I still don’t understand how to make a tab that leads the reader to my entire blog/all the posts I’ve made. I think you have this on your website, next to the home and about buttons?

      • Ah sorry, I see what you’re trying to do now. It’s a two or possibly three-step process. You firstly create a blank page and then secondly set that page as your “posts” page. Then, if needed, you add that page to your menu. Here’s how.

        1) Go to Pages > Add New and enter your page title as “Blog”, or whatever you’d like to call it. Leave the page content empty and hit the “Publish” button on the right hand side.

        2) Go to Settings > Reading. The second drop-down box at the top allows you to select your “posts” page. This is the page that will list out your blog posts. Click the little down arrow and then click on “Blog”, or whatever you called your page. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Save Changes”.

        If your new “Blog” page isn’t automatically added to your menu, you’ll need to add it manually, using the guide above. Hope this helps Celine, let me know how you get on :-)

  20. i don’t know how to use the grid page template for motive. when i set up a new page and chose the template, what do i need to do that it is displayed as a grid page?

    Reply

  21. Hi James:
    This is so helpful- I had to google how to create the Front Page as this is a very different them from my previous ones.
    Any idea how to change the title overlay box to be transparent so the featured image can show through? without using CCS upgrade please?
    Cheers-

    Reply

  22. Thank you for all of the tips — I can handle basic WordPress but I’d never used a page template before. It’s super easy now that I know, but not the most intuitive.

    I want the page title to show up in that white overlay box like it does. but I’d rather have it called something else in my menu, if that makes sense. Ideally, the first thing on my menu would say home and clicking it would bring you back to the static home page. Is there an easy way to do that?

    Reply

  23. Hi James! Thanks for a helpful post. I am using Motif and I really like it. The thing is I don’t need the testimonials and my question is: is it possible to use the space, where the two random testimonials appear as a regular sidebar for other content (like the footer and the sidebars above)?

    Reply

    • Hi Tór, glad you found it helpful. You can’t replace the testimonial boxes as such, but you can drag additional widgets into First Front Page Sidebar and Second Front Page Sidebar. I don’t think they’ll get their own box though. A workaround might be to create the content you want in those boxes as testimonials. You should then be able to restyle the content using CSS (you’d need the Custom Design upgrade). For example, you’d probably want to restyle the font as normal, instead of italics. Hope this helps :-)

      Reply

  24. Hi, James. Thanks for all your very helpful tips here on the Motif theme.

    One thing I can’t figure out is how to get the Testimonials page in my top nav bar. How did you do it?

    Reply

  25. Someone PLEASE help me. I had a “gallery” front page that somehow I accidentally deleted and now I’m trying to recreate it in the Motif theme, but I can’t set up a grid page to display the art nor even figure out how to make a gallery page! The problem I was trying (again) to fix on my old (deleted accidentally) page is that I couldn’t add new stuff to it.

    I’m in a mess! Please help!
    Thanks!

    Reply

      • Hi Olivia. First things first, if you go to Pages and then click on Trash, you should get a list of pages you’ve deleted. If you hover your mouse just under the page title, a little “Restore” link should appear. Click that and your page should be restored :-)

      • I have done that, saw it, restored it, but alas, it’s the page I tried to recreate. Are all of them available? If so, I don’t know where! I hate this darned thing!
        Thanks for trying to help

      • I’m not sure I’m following entirely. It sounds like you had a page with a “gallery” template set as your home page, and then when you switched themes to Motif, your home page disappeared? If so, then I think it’s just that the Motif theme doesn’t have a “gallery” template option. You could use a “grid” template instead, as you suggested, but this is slightly different, as each grid item consists of an image and text, and actually links to another page. Here’s WordPress.com’s example:

        http://motifdemo.wordpress.com/page-templates/grid-page

      • No. What I mean is, many months ago I used Motif and set up Gallery as my main page. I somehow made a gallery, but I don’t know where or how, because I cannot even get a grid to set up on Motif. So I was trying to recreate somehow that page and apparently I overrode the deleted one using the same name? Anyhow, my problem with that- and why I was even “in there” to begin with is I was trying to figure out how to add more photos, which I never could get into the grid, but would appear as photos one under the other below. Now I’ve lost it all. WordPress seems way too hard for one who is not a programmer. I only want to have a simple site to display my paintings, testimonials, and an about page. I thought Motif was supposed to be great for that, but now I have zero. I am so frustrated.

      • I’ve been looking into this as I wasn’t familiar with creating galleries in posts and pages. It seems what you do is edit the page or post, click Add Media and then Create Gallery. I’m seeing a Gallery page on your website… ?

      • Egad. I have also been looking everywhere and finally found a way to add my gallery – or recreate it again. So I did, but now I have “homepage” with “Nothing” and I have an About, Testimonials, and Gallery pages. Is there someway to edit “home”? It isn’t even listed as a page! I want to make my gallery page my home page. This is worse than a root canal! Thank you SO much!!!

      • haha no worries. Yes, that should be the easy part! If you go to Settings > Reading, at the top you can choose “Front page displays a static page”, then choose your Gallery page in the dropdown box, then scroll to the bottom and click Save Changes. That should do it :-)

      • haha no worries! I’m mentally chewing them now and I must say they’re absolutely delicious… you really baked these yourself??? By the way, I love your art, I will be lost on that page for a while longer.

      • It’s the chocolate chunks. I am somewhat of a semi-gourmet cook and I use the finest Belgian chocolate. I’m so glad you like them and that they cooled in time for you to bite into them. Did you like the coconut addition? I think it makes them nice and chewy and gooey. :-)
        Thank you so much for your kind words! If you love my art, you’d love my podcast. I talk as much as I paint. LOL

      • Oh wow, that’s sweet and very clever! You know I just might check out your podcast… You should check out our book, I have a feeling you would appreciate it, you seem like a very happy person :-) http://happyguide.co Take care Olivia, hope our paths cross again.

      • I AM a very happy person!! :-)

        Thanks again, James. I’m happy to meet you and hope to see you “around” again soon! I followed you, btw. Not in a creepy way. LOL

        I will check out your book!

      • Hey, new friend- I visited your page and you know I’m all over “happy!” Maybe you and your brother can come on my show and talk about it sometime?
        I have another question, and you were so helpful and nice the other day, I figured you might help. I am trying to add a 4th page – a “blog”- of sorts to the menu and although I title the page and make it a page, I can preview it, but it doesn’t appear anywhere. So I don’t know how anyone would access it. I like the pages in order as they are now, 1. Gallery 2. About 3. Client Testimonials. Is there any way to add 4. Musings?
        Thanks!!

      • Remember me? Sorry to bother you again, but you were so helpful before. I am trying to figure out how to wrap text around photos and I found info that said I have to open my “theme directory?” and add css code to it? Where the heck is that? and why is it so hard to wrap text around a photo?
        Crabby Olivia. :-)

      • I am on my way out for the day but at first glance it looks like I have to make it a front static page? I’m looking to do this in individual blog posts. But thank you, I will pour over it later and let you know! Hope all is well in your world! :-)

      • Still haven’t found the time to get into it! I’m so sorry to have bothered you when time got away from me! I so appreciate all of you patient help. Thank you!

      • Remember me? Hope you are well. Can you tell me if when I add a contact form and I preview it and it shows MY email address in the “email” place- is that visible to viewers? How can I view my pages as they show to other people? Thanks!

      • Guess what? It’s reared it’s ugly head again. I have followed and re-followed these instructions many times, but the text input is above the picture I add or at the bottom. Is there some other setting? Thanks!

      • I haven’t put it up yet. It’s a new blog post. I inserted a picture in the top left (as I did on other posts) and clicked on Align Left (or right) and the input of text appears above or below or at the right of the picture bottom. So frustrating!

      • James, I went back to your original post a couple years ago and did exactly what it said, which was, yes, to select the photo, and then align left or right. Still doesn’t work. Thank you for your attention, though.

      • I don’t know where my response went. I have done it several times as instructed. Still get text appearing above, below, or next to the bottom of the photo.

      • I’m having the hardest time replicating the problem! It just works :-) One thing you could try: put the cursor at the beginning of your line of text. Then insert the image and choose your alignment. The problem may have been caused by not inserting your image into the same paragraph as the text. If you’ve already got an image inserted (that’s not aligning properly), you could click and drag the image so that the cursor is at the beginning of the paragraph of text. This video shows you this in action:

  26. Hi, thank you for your blogpost.
    I was wondering, if you could answer my question. I don’t seem to find the answer, so possible the answer is “no”, but I try here, though…
    Is it possible to make a page in the Motif Theme that is not nested, but that neither appears in the horizontal navigation bar?
    Thank you for your response!
    Stephanie

    Reply

    • Hi Stephanie, yes this is absolutely possible. This is relevant not just to Motif, you can have whatever pages you like appear in your menu, on nearly all themes. If you go to Appearance > Menus in your dashboard, you’ll see you can create a custom menu. Don’t forget to save it, and use the Manage Locations tab to assign your new menu as the one being used. There’s guidance on setting up your menu from WordPress.com here:

      http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus

      Hope this helps — let me know how you get on :-)

      Reply

  27. Hello James! Thank you soo much for writing this tutorial! I’m new and just getting started and found this very helpful. Quick question though, now that I added a front page my posts are gone. I can click on them from recent posts but they don’t appear anywhere. How do I make them all go on the blog page I made? Hope this makes sense?

    Thank you!!!

    Reply

  28. Mr. Riddett,
    I have been working hard on a site for my school, and I would just like to thank you for this post and for your comment responses. They have been incredibly helpful in utilizing this theme, and I keep checking back in here. I really appreciate this.

    Reply

    • Hi Paul, please call me James! You’re very welcome, I’m delighted you’ve found this post so helpful. I’d be interested in having a look at the site you’re building for your school, feel free to post a link if you like. And if you have any questions about it, or are stuck on anything, don’t hesitate to ask.

      Reply

      • Alright I’ll send you a link once it’s more completed. But I did have one question. When I create a page, is there a way to get the search/meta/archives out of there without making it a full page width template? Or is that the only way?

      • Those items are Widgets, which can be added and removed on all pages and posts by dragging them in or out of the sidebar area on the Appearance > Widgets page.

        If you want a Widget to appear on Posts but not Pages, click on its Visibility button. You can then set various rules for whether or not the Widget displays. In this case, you’d set it to “Hide if Page is Post type: Page”.

        You might find that if you remove/hide all Widgets on your Pages, they automatically become full width. In this case, you could just leave just one Widget, so that the sidebar remains. This could even be just a text Widget with a blank paragraph.

        Hope this helps — let me know if you need clarity on anything.

      • It seems that I don’t have any widgets added anywhere, but those three items still appear on the default template. I’d like to get rid of the archives and meta and leave the search option on some of the pages. Is that possible?

      • Ah yes, I believe that if no widgets have been added manually, those ones you’ve mentioned may appear by default. So if you go to Appearance > Widgets and drag just the Search widget into the area called Main Sidebar (and then Save), the Archive and Meta widgets should disappear when you visit the site. Then use the Visibility option to adjust which Posts/Pages it appears on.

  29. Wow, James! You have 120 comments here! Sure shows a need for this kind of help!
    Long time since I found your expertise, isn’t it? I’m now wondering if you understand Infoway theme, as well? :)

    Reply

  30. Thanks so much!
    Trying to set up a slider. The instructions in the “customize” sidebar say we only need to choose a tag. I did that. Then tagged one of my posts. It formed the slider and included the name of the post, but not a photo. is it because I had five photos on that post? If so, how can i fix?
    I also tried to tag another one to the slider, and it did not go at all. Is it because I had a Zemanta photo for that one? Or because the first one was still processing? or what?
    And thanks, again!

    Reply

    • I suspect the only thing you haven’t done is set a Featured Image for the post. The size of the image should be 950px x 363px. When you’re editing the post, the Featured Image section is in the right-hand sidebar, probably at the bottom.

      If you can’t see it, you may need to click Screen Options (top right) and then check the Featured Image box. It should then appear on the sidebar. Let me know :-)

      Reply

    • I’m not sure why the other one didn’t work. I don’t think it was because of the Zemanta image because you have to actually assign the Featured Image that will be used on the slider. I’d just try it again. If it still doesn’t work, try a different post. If that works then we know it’s something about that specific post that it doesn’t like.

      Reply

  32. Hello, for some reason I can’t remove the sidebar. When I remove all the widgets, some default widgets appears. Do you know how I can fix this? Thanks a lot :)

    Reply

  33. When I uncheck all possible boxes, within Discussion and on individual pages/posts, I still have the ‘Leave a reply’ appear on my site. How do i get that to disappear altogether?

    Thanks!

    Reply

  34. She’s ba-a-a-ack! :)
    Another appeal! I am sure there must be a way to link to a page on site that does not appear in any other way except through the link. I would like to have a hidden contact page for a certain use that is separate from the regular contact page and not visible except by linking.
    Please tell me this is do-able! (?)
    Always indebted to you.

    Reply

  35. Hi, James!
    Please, I need some help understanding something related to the Home page and Front page.
    I created my Home page as a static Front page. And I gave it the name “home”. But how can I change the Front page text box Title, and still that Front page to appear under the name of “Home” in the menu? (just like you have it on your site)
    Thank you very much!

    Reply

    • Hi Veronica, just first to clarify that this advice is specific to the Motif theme. The title and content that appears in the white box on your front page is simply the title and content of the page. I think you have this bit done.

      To add a “Home” link to your menu, go to Appearance > Menus in your Dashboard, and click/drag the Home page from the left hand side, over into the menu area (you probably want it at the top, so that it appears on the left hand side of your menu). Click Save Menu at the bottom.

      If you don’t already have a custom menu created, here’s how to do it…

      http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus

      Hope this helps Veronica, let me know how you get on!

      Reply

  37. James…thank you so much for this post. It was incredibly helpful as I set up my home page with testimonials as well as a grid page.

    I’m having problems with the posts. On another wordpress.com site that I manage, when I create a new post, that post shows up in the menus area. I add the new post to the menu then drag it to where it needs to go. Always works.

    However, when I go to the menus area for this new site, posts aren’t available to add to the menu. Pages are, but posts are not. I’ve gone through instructions you’ve left on how to change things in the Reading section, but I just can’t seem to get this to work. Are posts not available to add to the menu in this theme? That just wouldn’t make sense, so I know I’m missing something!!!!

    Thanks again,
    Richard

    Reply

    • Hi Richard, you should be able to link directly to posts from your menu by using the “Links” option when editing your menu (Appearance > Menus in WP Admin). Click on Links, then enter the post’s URL (web address), give it a name and click Add to Menu. Hopefully that will do the trick for you. If you need more help, it might be helpful to share the address of the websites you mentioned, for comparison. If you don’t want to share them publicly, you can email me through the contact form.

      Best wishes,
      James

      Reply

      • Hi James…that worked. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that other than never really using links in the menu before. But I knew it could be done. On the other site I manage, the posts show up for me to just add to the menu. Creating the links worked the same except for a couple of extra clicks. Thanks again for your help! This blog is a great help!

        Richard

  38. It’s nearly impossible to find knowledgeable people for this subject, however, you seem like you know what you’re talking about! Thanks

    Reply

    • Hi Chiara, I think I know what you’re referring to. If you add pages to your menu “under” a page, it will appear as a sub-option on the menu. You do this in your WordPress Admin > Appearance > Menus section by dragging the page into your menu under the page required, and a little to the right. It’s explained here too:

      https://en.support.wordpress.com/menus

      Don’t forget to save the menu, after you’ve added the sub-pages. Hope this helps.

      Best wishes,
      James

      Reply

      • really can not understand how to make it works. I created the menu and put the pages into. Now I see the menu but it does not work when it is on the mobile device. :(

      • Just to make sure we’re on the same page, I’ve put a page called “James test” under the About menu option on this website. When viewing on a regular laptop, when I hover over “About” in the menu, the “James test” option appears underneath.

        On a small device such as my mobile phone, when I visit my website, the menu is correctly collapsed into a single option called “Menu”. When I tap this, the menu lists out vertically. Under the “About” option, the “James test” sub-option is represented by having a square bullet point next to it. This is correct and how it is supposed to be displayed. Is this what you are seeing?

      • I’m not able to explain it.
        When the menu is collapsed as on mobile device, the “menu” icon with three lines is active but it can not be opened. It remains collapsed. I have a menu with no submenu items just the pages on it.

      • Ah I think we’ve been talking at cross-purposes. I thought you were trying to create sub-options, but no, it’s simply that on a small device/window your menu doesn’t fold out. My apologies.

      • Ok, a quick inspection of your html (website code) shows me that you have somehow lost the end of each page. This is noticeable because there is no footer on any of your pages. There is usually little vanity links like “Powered by WordPress” etc. Without knowing the details, I suspect the collapsed menu isn’t working because the page code isn’t complete. Your browser is doing its best to display the page(s) as best it can, but without the rest of the code, it can’t function properly.

      • I can’t tell you the exact code to use, it depends on what you you’ve stripped out and from where. Hopefully you didn’t edit the original files? So you can compare the originals with what you have now and hopefully just copy and paste in what you need.

        If you don’t have the original files, you can download the Motif theme files from wherever you got them from originally and copy the code you need. If you do need to do this, it would be advisable to first ensure that it’s the same version of Motif that you’re using on your site. If they’re different, you could run into problems.

        It might be easier to simply install a new, separate Motif theme and then switch to that in your WordPress Admin, than try to repair your existing one. If you do start with a fresh Motif theme, you may have to reset headers, colours, any changes you’ve made.

    • Hi. If you’re using the front page template, you can’t then have blog posts listed out in the usual way. However, you can still have the titles of your latest posts listed out by using a widget on the front page template, as I have here. I’ve only got the latest three posts displayed, but you can choose more if you wish by changing the widget’s settings in WP Admin > Appearance > Widgets. Hope this helps!

      Reply

  42. Hi James,
    I don’t know if you’re still actively helping us struggling motif ‘fans’ – If you are, could you please share some magic fairy dust to keep my two testimonials lining up side by side on my home page? They are randomly stacking up vertically on the left side of the page and it’s kicking my butt! I’ve tried everything. If I randomly update a testimonial, it randomly either fixes the problem or throws them back on top of each other. Do you know anything about this?
    Please take a look at http://theshieldofachilles.net – it’s coming together pretty well but this is really upsetting me. Any other advice you might offer is definitely encouraged!
    Thanks
    Kathleen

    Reply

    • Hi Kathleen, I’ve checked a few times and your two testimonials are appearing correctly side by side. I notice you have a WordPress.com website. Have you got the custom design upgrade or are you on a plan that lets you customize the CSS? If so, you could try temporarily removing any custom CSS you’ve added and see if the problem goes away. But unfortunately I’m not seeing a problem, so it’s hard to advise further!

      Best wishes,
      James

      Reply

      • Thanks, James. No I don’t have a custom design upgrade. I appreciate your taking a look. It was right for a few days and now it’s screwed up again, I just noticed it. It’s so wierd! Thanks for the advice. I’m thinking it’s best to just ignore it!
        Kathleen

      • Ok, I have a working theory! You currently have 4 testimonials in total, and 2 are randomly displayed on your home page. I think they only change once every few browser sessions.

        If a testimonial is displaying one under the other, instead of to the side, this implies that there isn’t enough space for it to the side, and so it’s displayed underneath instead.

        Depending on which 2 of your testimonials are showing, sometimes there is enough for space for them to display side by side and sometimes there isn’t it. So what is making some of your testimonials “wider” than the others? I think there is only one possible thing it can be: the titles.

        Right now, I’m seeing “Inner Ring of Achilles’ Shield: CONFLICT” and “Inner Ring of Achilles’ Shield: WEDDINGS” side by side. But earlier on, when “Inner Ring of Achilles’ Shield: JUDGEMENT” was one of the two testimonials, the testimonials displayed one on top of the other. So I suspect THAT title is just a little too long (ie. wide). You could try shortening just that one testimonial and I suspect it will be fine. Or if you can use a slightly smaller font for those titles, that should do it too.

        Incidentally, you can see all your testimonials on the following page, which is auto-generated when you use the testimonials feature…

        https://theshieldofachilles.net/testimonial

        You can see that the one I mentioned has the longest title.

        Let me know how you get on :-)
        James

      • By Jove, I think you’ve got it!!! What a great intuition you have, James. I changed the Judgement testimonial and voila’ – side by side now! So now I’ve gone in and changed them all to make the titling standard. I was afraid to make more testimonials before I knew what was wrong, but now I’ll go ahead and complete the task. I’m using the testimonials as random plugs for other pages in my blog – hopefully to draw readers deeper in more quickly. Thanks again for your great help! 🙂

      • Yeeeeeeha! That’s great! Yes I thought that was a very creative use of testimonials, nicely done. It’s not written anywhere that they have to be testimonials :-) Well done Kathleen, I like the new titles.

        All the best,
        James

Leave a Reply to lornaknox Cancel reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s