[Support request] Getting Started – Basic Questions

[Ken]

I just purchased the paid version of this theme and I have several questions below. 

1) My previous theme had made my site very slow. Page size was 1.4MB even after optimization. After switching to GP my page size is now nearly 3MB. The main culprit are the images it seems per reviewing the report. Is this due to my previous installed plugins not working any longer with GP because of the different language used (use of vanilla JavaScript and JS functions no longer working)?

2) I’m trying to create a simple blog site like the following: https://www.financialsamurai.com/ Two or three columns of posts on the left, and then on the right have a capture for my email list, ads, and recent /relevant posts. I tried a bunch of the existing GP layouts, but I’m not having any success editing them. 

Plus, even before editing the layout, they looks broken once I switch over to them. 

3) How do I add an author box to the end of my posts? Once I get the hang of things, I’ll need this feature.

I’m assuming I’m missing some very basic principles in my approach to editing this theme. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Leo]

Hi there,

1. Little tough to tell. Have you made sure that all the images are optimized before uploading?

I also noticed that some of the images are bigger than they need to be. Take this one for example:
https://www.screencast.com/t/3Dwk6wBD

The uploaded image width is 1100px but the container width is only 750px including padding.

I would recommend resizing the images then optimized before uploading.

If you are still having issues after that, try disabling all plugins except GP Premium then reactivate them one by one to see which is causing it.

2. This layout is actually a bit tricky as WordPress only displays the latest posts on the post page by default.

You can use Gutenberg columns with WP Show Posts plugin for the first two columns then sidebar widget area for the social icons and subscription list.

3. This requires an author box plugins as well. I don’t use one myself but I’ve heard good reviews about this:
https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/simple-author-box/

Let me know if this helps 🙂

[Ken]

Hello,

Thank you for the quick feedback.

1) I’ll go ahead and disable the plugins and work backwards as suggested, because I’d figure if my images were improperly sized with my previous theme the page size wouldn’t grow by using GP.

But yes, you are correct that the images are too large.

2) For your recommendation of “…Gutenberg columns with WP Show Posts plugin…”, do you recommend I start with a pre-existing GP site layout?

3) Thanks; I’ll give that a go.

[Leo]

2) We don’t really have a template that looks like (unless you like any of the templates available) that so starting from scratch I would start from scratch.

[Ken]

I created the layout as discussed in this thread using Elementor. 

Question is: many of the changes I made with Elementor are not reflecting onto my actual site (nor in the preview). I’ve cleared my cache on both WP and my browser. I’m not sure what the issue is. 

I’ve read on other forums that using Elementor and the theme editor together may cause said issues. Not sure if there’s any truth to this. Thoughts? Thanks. 

[Leo]

Almost always that’s a caching issue.

I would recommend clearing and disabling W3 Total Cache during the development stage 🙂

[Ken]

Thank you; that worked – I had to disable several other plugins too.

1) So there’s no conflict between using Elementor while editing the theme through the GeneratePress plugin simultaneously?

2) This ties to my question #1: I can’t create the link hover color functionality, when you hover over a blog title (e.g. go from black to blue). See here: https://ibb.co/5LJmQZ9

3) Does GeneratePress have any conflict with working with ‘WP Rocket’ plugin? I’ve read some conflicting things.

4) How can I change the look/position of the hamburger menu using GeneratePress? See here in desktop mode: https://ibb.co/w4DgBhk

5) Do you recommend any plugins for the right most column, to show top blog posts and categories? Something lightweight that works well with GP.

Thanks again for all your great help.

[Leo]

1) No there shouldn’t be.

2) Can you link me to the page that’s working?

3) There are certain settings in WP Rocket that needs to be disabled depending on what features you are using.

4) What are you looking to change?

5) You could try something like WP Show Posts. All plugins that are well coded should work with GP 🙂

Can you please start new topics for each of your questions? In my experience this way we could be much more effective when helping.

Thanks!

[Author]

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