Hammer Documentation

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Overview

Information described in this documentation will give you an idea of how to setup your site to look and function like the theme demo. View the changelog for more a detailed record of all the changes made to Hammer.

Getting Started

After installing and activating Hammer, you can jump in and customize your theme by going to Appearance → Customize. You’ll find options for adding a logo, changing colors, assigning custom menus, front-page settings, and more.

Detailed instructions for working with the theme’s unique features are included below, but if you run into any issues or have a question and have an active AudioTheme subscription, you can get in touch through the priority support form.

Hammer requires WordPress 4.5+

Supported Plugins

Hammer includes basic support for a number of free plugins. For quick reference, we’ve listed plugins supported by the theme and used in the theme demo:

As with all our themes, Hammer includes various options to help you make the site your own.

Your site’s title and tagline will be displayed in the header area of Hammer by default, but you can easily replace the text with your own logo or custom image in the Customizer:

  1. Go to Appearance → Customize
  2. Click the Site Identity section to expand it
  3. Upload a new image in the Logo field

You may also customize the site title and tagline text in this section, or hide them to display the logo by itself. A site icon, a.k.a. favicon, can be set here as well.

Colors

The background and accent colors can be changed in the Customizer:

  1. Go to Appearance → Customize
  2. Click the Colors section to expand it
  3. Update the Background Color and Accent Color settings

The accent color is often used to style links and hover colors in various places throughout the theme.

Fonts

Hammer has built in support for a few handpicked Google fonts. To customize fonts, go to Appearance → Customize and click the Fonts section to open it and change fonts.

Typekit Fonts

If you have a Typekit account and would like to use the fonts included in one of your kits, you can follow the documentation for integrating custom fonts for Typekit.

Background Image

The main content area of Hammer is white, which covers the majority of the background. There is room, however, on each side of the content to show part of a background image. A background image can be added in the Customizer:

  1. Go to Appearance → Customize
  2. Click the Background Image section to expand it
  3. Upload a new image in the Background Image field

Menus

Custom Menus provide granular control over the links that appear in the various navigation areas on your site. Hammer supports five menu locations: the Primary Menu navigation, the Social Links Menu, and three AudioTheme archive menus. Support for displaying a breadcrumb navigation is also included.

You can create and assign menus by going to Customize → Menus.

Primary Menu

The Primary Menu appears below the site title and logo. On smaller screens, the menu is displayed using a menu toggle button.

The Social Menu allows you to display links to your social media profiles as icons. Learn how to add a social links menu.

Archive Menus

Hammer has menu locations for the Gig, Record, and Video archive pages when the AudioTheme plugin is active. Learn how to add a archive menu.

Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs are used to facilitate navigation apart from the main navigation menu. It is a list of elements in the form of links that tell the site visitor about their location on the site. Generally speaking, breadcrumbs can help with SEO.

Hammer has built in support for the Breadcrumb Trail plugin as well as the breadcrumbs functionality in the Yoast SEO plugin.

Widgets

Additional content can be added to your site using widgets. Hammer includes two unique widget locations: the Pages Sidebar and the Footer widget area.

Pages Sidebar

The Pages Sidebar widget area will display widgets on Pages only.

Footer

Widgets added to the Footer widget area will display on all pages in a three columns.

Site-wide Player

The site-wide player in Hammer displays at the top of each page. The current track title displays with buttons to skip, play, and toggle the playlist. Learn how to setup the site-wide player.

Homepage

The homepage, or front page, is typically one of the first pages most visitors see when visiting your site. While it shows a list of your latest posts by default, Hammer includes a few options that allow you to customize the layout and information displayed.

Read the instructions for setting up a static front page if you’d prefer to use a page for your homepage. You’ll also want to create a page for displaying your latest posts, or Blog.

Slideshow

The slideshow shown on homepage was created using the Meta Slider plugin. The slider uses the Flex Slider option with an image display size of 1120x540.

AudioTheme Support

Hammer requires the AudioTheme plugin to be installed and activated to function as shown in the theme demo. AudioTheme provides the ability to manage your gigs, venues, records, tracks, and videos. The plugin can be downloaded from your account dashboard.

Gig, Discography, & Video Archives

Be sure to read the documentation about setting up your archives to add links to your discography, gig, and video pages.

Gigs

Help on how to setup gigs can be found in the AudioTheme plugin documentation.

Records

Help on how to setup records can be found in the AudioTheme plugin documentation.

Videos

Help on how to setup videos can be found in the AudioTheme plugin documentation.

Page Templates

Page templates allow Pages to display or function differently. A page template can be set in the Page Attributes meta box when editing a page in your dashboard.

Grid Page

The Grid Page template is a page template that displays child pages in a visually appealing grid with a featured image and page title. Learn more about how to create a Grid Page.

Full Width Template

The Full-Width template is a page template that displays content the full width of the content area. Learn more about how to create a Full Width page.

No Sidebar Template

The No Sidebar template displays just like a default page, however, like the title suggests, without a sidebar.

E-Commerce

Hammer includes basic support for both WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) WordPress plugins to ensure the content displays well. Additional styles and customizations may need to be made to make things look more cohesive in some instances.

Testimonials

Hammer has support for the Jetpack Testimonial custom post type which allows you to add, organize, and display your testimonials.

Customizing Hammer

Check out our knowledge base article on the recommended ways to customize your theme along with helpful plugins and links.

You can download a sample child theme here. In the sample, we’ve changed the site content background color from white to red as a way to demonstrate the changes are working.