Choose your blog style and customize it

Incept comes with several blog styles that you can take advantage of, including a few extra customizing options for various elements relating to the blog. More on this in a moment, but to get started, we will look at our blog styles in relation to the screenshots you see below.

  1. Standard with Right Sidebar
  2. Standard with Left Sidebar
  3. Wide with No Sidebars
  4. List with No Sidebars
  5. Grid Style with no Sidebars
  6. Masonry Style with no Sidebars

blog styles1

blog styles2

blog styles3

  1. Go to Appearance >> Customize >> Blog Options
  2. Look for the “Blog Style” setting and make your choice
    blog style setting
  3. Click “Save & Publish“

Choose Your Full Post Style

In addition to the blog style, you can also decide on the layout of your full post (Single Post) view.

  1. Go to Appearance >> Customize >> Blog Options
  2. Look for the “Single Full Post Style” setting and make your choice
    single style setting
  3. Click “Save & publish“

Use Excerpts for Post Summaries

For more information about using excerpts, you can refer to this introduction and tutorial before proceeding. However, the following steps below will enable excerpts for your blog post summaries.

IMPORTANT One note to be aware of is that this option will only affect the “Standard Right Sidebar” and the “Standard Left Sidebar” blog styles because the remaining options are coded to only use excerpts.

*Also be aware than when using excerpts, your summary will have all HTML formatting and images stripped out until the full post is viewed. This is a function of WordPress, and not the theme.

  1. Go to Appearance >> Customize >> Blog Options
  2. Look for the “Use Blog Excerpts” setting and make your choice
    excerpt setting
  3. Click “Save & Publish“

Change Your Excerpt Length

In addition to using excerpts, you can also manage the size (length) of your excerpts. If I remember correctly, the default WordPress excerpt size is 55 words, but Emotions has this set to 50. 

  1. Go to Appearance >> Customize >> Blog Options
  2. Look for the “Excerpt Length” setting and change the size to your own preference
    excerpt size setting
  3. Click “Save & Publish“

Move Your Featured Image Above or Below the Title

This theme gives you the option to reposition your featured image either above or below the post title.

Above

featured image above

Below

featured image below

  1. Go to Appearance >> Customize >> Blog Options
  2. Look for the “Featured Image Position” setting and make your choice
    featured image position
  3. Click “Save & Publish“

Turn On/Off Select Blog Elements

There may be some people who don’t want to see certain elements like the author, comments, post date, post navigation, and many other parts of a blog post, so Emotions has made it easy to enable or disable each one. Here is a list of what elements can be managed in this fashion:

show hide

Each one has a brief description of what it does, but if you are unsure, you can use the support forum to ask for confirmation.

  1. Go to Appearance >> Customize >> Blog Options
  2. Go through the various settings to choose what to enable (checked boxes) or disable (uncheck the boxes).
  3. Click “Save & Publish“

Introduction to Blog Featured Images

With this theme, you can turn on automatic thumbnail creation for specific blog styles. For example, if you select the “List“, “Grid“, or the “Masonry” style, you can use this built-in option to create your featured image sizes for you; all you need to do is upload your photos.

IMPORTANT When uploading images for your blog, it’s important to make sure that your images follow these guidelines with regards to the original uploaded size:

  • Standard Left or Right Featured Images –  Max width of 750px
  • Standard Left when using a smaller left sidebar column – Max width of 850px
  • Wide with no Sidebars – Max width of 1150px
  • List with no sidebars – Minimum width of 350px and a max width of 850px
  • Grid Style with no Sidebars – 640 x 430 pixels
  • Masonry Style with no Sidebars – Minimum width of 640px

Enable Thumbnails

  1. Go to Appearance >> Customize >> Blog Options
  2. Look for the thumbnail settings, and then choose the one you want to use. I recommend choosing only one that matches the blog style you plan to use, otherwise you end up with extra featured image sizes that never get used.
    create thumbnails
  3. Click “Save & Publish“

Blog Left Sidebar Size

If you decide to use the “Standard with Left Sidebar” blog style, your left column will have a set width to it that is a bit larger than a typical blog might have, but you can change this with Emotions. If you decide you want your left column to be a bit smaller and to make your main content column a bit wider, this is how you can do it…

  1. Go to Appearance >> Customize >> Blog Options
  2. Look for the “Smaller Blog Left Sidebar Width” setting and check the box to make it smaller and your content wider. Or, uncheck the box to go back to the wider column.
    smaller blog left sidebar
  3. Click “Save & Publish”