WordPress

Customizer > Menu Management

Each Our Hometown theme has a number of prebuilt locations available for menus.  Menus can also be placed in any available widget area, but the prebuilt areas have additional styling applied to them. Available menu spots include: “Main Menu” is your main menu area. “Secondary Menu” is the space below that. Left Utility and Right Utility are the 2 menu areas on the top fixed bar (if you have that […]

Manage where social share icons appear on your site

Social media icons can display across all of your website content allowing visitors to share stories or posts they engage with to their favorite social network or via email links. However you may not want this feature available on some content. The following is a brief walkthrough on how to manage where these icons appear via your admin dashboard. Firstly the social media share icons appear in two main places: […]

How to Set Up a Pricelist in NextGEN Pro

NextGen Gallery Pro is a powerful WordPress plugin that enhances the functionality of the NextGen Gallery plugin with eCommerce capabilities. In this tutorial series, we will explore the eCommerce features provided by NextGen Gallery Pro and learn how to use them effectively.

eCommerce Settings in NextGEN Pro

NextGen Gallery Pro is a powerful WordPress plugin that enhances the functionality of the NextGen Gallery plugin with eCommerce capabilities. In this tutorial series, we will explore the eCommerce features provided by NextGen Gallery Pro and learn how to use them effectively.

NextGEN Gallery – Getting Started

The NextGEN Gallery plugin allows users to upload a collection of photos in the back end of the website and organize them into a gallery. The big advantage to NextGEN Gallery, aside from the general ease of use, is the ability to display the same gallery of photos in multiple locations and in different layouts each time.

Promotional Newsletter Inserts with MemberPress

Benefits of Promotional Newsletter Inserts Using Promotional Newsletter Inserts in MemberPress can help you increase the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, target your promotions more effectively, and drive more revenue to your website. In this example our customer has created a promotion to offer discounts to customers whose subscription has recently expired and wants it to be included with every newsletter during the promo period.

Google Docs Add-on Overview

The Google Docs Add-On allows you to connect your Google Docs account with your Our-Hometown website so that you can easily publish content directly from your Google Docs workspace to the web without having to switch between multiple platforms or copy and paste content. For each Google Doc activate the Our-Hometown add-on and enter your website’s credentials. This will create a direct link between your document and your site with only a […]

Exporting display ads for Reverse Publishing

In this walkthrough we will demonstrate how to include display ads in your Reverse Publishing export for layout and pagination in Adobe InDesign. From your website’s dashboard look for Reverse Publishing in the listing on the left. As you hover your mouse a submenu will appear then click on Reverse Publishing. Here is where your website’s article content can be exported for a particular edition and filtered by category. In […]

Article Export for Reverse Publishing

Reverse publishing at the basic level is the process of creating and managing all of your content directly on your website, including articles, blogs, galleries, advertising, e-editions and so forth. Any of this content can then be exported as needed for use in a page layout application, such as Adobe InDesign. This method uses common XML to structure and tag your content simplifying the import process. From your website’s dashboard […]

Reverse Publishing Overview

As the industry continues to shift to a digital-first mindset, many publishers are prioritizing the digital product and spending less time on print. The Our-Hometown Reverse Publishing tool addresses this approach by allowing you to draft, edit, and publish content directly to your website first, and then export a single article, a category, section or an entire edition for quick and easy import into an Adobe InDesign document for print layout. After setting up a few […]

Thumbnail Sizes on Listing Pages

By default, GeoDirectory Listing Images utilize the first image uploaded to the post as the “Featured Image”, and this image is expanded so that it cover the entire background-area of the listing image area. However, this can result in images or logos being cut off; so many customers prefer to contain the entire image within this area instead. This requires adding some CSS: .geodir_category_list_view li .geodir-post-img .geodir_thumbnail { background-position: 50% […]

Shopify

Our-Hometown website support embedded stores from Shopify. First you’ll need to create your shopify account: https://www.shopify.com/lite. The shopify lite membership should be enough for most customers. You’ll create & manage your store and all products from Shopify.com, and will only need to embed a code into your website. There is no third-party plugin required. 1. Once you are signed up, add the products you would like to sell on the […]

Email to Post

Email to Post is made possible by the plugin Postie. This plugin allows you to easily publish news on your website by simply sending an e-mail to a specified addressed containing the Title in the Subject and the Article content itself within the body of the e-mail. You can even include photos and images. You can also assign your article to different categories by including the desired category within brackets in […]

Privacy Policy Popup

The Privacy Policy Popup is a popup bar that docks to the bottom of a visitor’s screen with a message informing the reader that by continuing to use the site, they are thereby accepting the Privacy Policy. Two options are presented for the reader: “Accept” for the reader to acknowledge that they’ve consented to the privacy policy and close the popup, or “Privacy Policy” to view the website’s policy in […]

Custom Post Types in your Newsletter

The Newsletter Plugin included with Our-Hometown’s WordPress Publishing Platform is a powerful tool for e-mail marketing, customer outreach, and simply sharing your newest and most interesting articles with your readers. But did you know you that you can include more than just Articles in your stylish newsletters? The Extended Composer Blocks update that was released last year includes a useful “block” named the Custom Post Type (CPT) Block. This block let’s you select any of […]

Screen Options

The Screen Options tab is a pull-down tab available at the top of nearly every page of your WordPress Dashboard that allows you to customize your workspace with page-specific settings. The options available will vary depending on what kind of content you’re viewing, but at minimum you’ll be able to adjust the number of items listed per page and decide which columns of information are displayed for each item listed. This […]

Adding Videos to Articles or Pages

Adding videos to your website is extremely easy, whether it is your own content or content you are sharing from another creator. There are three ways to add videos to your website: Paste in the URL – Although you will not be able to upload videos directly to our servers, WordPress has built-in support for YouTube videos – meaning anytime you post the URL to a video on you YouTube, WordPress […]

Print Subscriber Upgrade

Here is how it works from the beginning of the customers point of view. This assumes that the Print Upgrade plugin has been enabled by OHT and the Print Upgrade membership has been properly configured with the custom Print Upgrade Payment Gateway and a price of $0.01 of higher. — 1. Adjust the Print Upgrade Settings  Navigate to Memberpress -> Print Upgrade Settings Default Area Code is used to help in […]

Google AdSense

Google AdSense is a popular option for publishers to earn revenue from advertising. Google’s code automatically places ads in appropriate areas on your website without the need for your staff to make any manual adjustments, including automatic optimization for mobile devices. All ads are managed and maintained by Google, but are targeted to your site and audience. Using Google AdSense with Our-Hometown is easy. All we need is a single […]

Audio Articles

Audio Articles allows visitors to Listen to the news, using cutting edge text-to-speech technology to convert your website’s articles into audio files that are played back to the reader at the click of a button. Audio Articles must be enabled and configured by the Our-Hometown Staff. However, there are settings to configure your Audio Ads on the OHT Audio Ads tab. The Intro Text box includes the text that will read before the […]

Audio Article Statistics

Any time someone clicks play it will record an “Event” in Google Analytics. There are two places to see the events: Realtime Realtime will give you today’s events. Make sure to click Events (last 30 minutes). If you click the category it will show you the article plays. Events Overview For a better overview over time, you can click “Behavior -> Events -> Overview.” Please note that this will take […]

Tagging Articles in the PDF Edition

Our-Hometown’s PDF Pageviewer allows you to tag content from a PDF page with story content from existing WordPress Articles. This way, anyone viewing the PDF could click an article headline and be presented with a full-text version of the article, creating a fluid interactive experience for readers. For Full Service customers using our extraction service, this is automatically done by our software during extraction and processing. For Self-Service customers and those not […]

Reverse Publishing Classifieds

Reverse Publishing Classifieds allows you to create and compile your Classified ads online, including ads submitted by customers through your website. When you’re ready, you can export the whole batch of ads for use in your print edition. Of course, before you can export any ads, you must first create any ads that were not already submitted by customers. Creating Your Ads Online From your WordPress Dashboard, find the link […]

Default Images for Homepage & Sharing

One important thing you can do to help improve the look of your website is to create a “default image” that can be attached to articles that otherwise do not contain any graphics or images. This way, instead of an empty gray box, or no image at all, you can show a branded image with your publication’s logo. This is also important for sharing your stories on social media to […]

Logo Image

It is not often thought about, but eventually there may come a time when you will need to change the logo on your website. Maybe you’ve undergone a total re-brand. Maybe you’ve just changed your color scheme. Or, maybe you just like to shake things up with some seasonally-themed artwork in the header. Whatever the reason, changing your logo is extremely easy! Simply navigate to your homepage and activate the […]

Locating Advertisement Stats

Locating Advertisement Stats Stats for your website advertisements are available within the same plugin we use to create the ads: AdRotate Pro. Find AdRotate Pro on your Dashboard. You’ll find that there is a Statistics link listed as a sub-menu item, but this page is more of a site overview. To find statistics for a specific advertisement, you’ll want to navigate to the Manage Adverts page. Here, you’ll see all […]

Locating Website Stats

All of your Website Stats and analytics are available within our stat website, found at the following URL: https://stats.our-hometown.com/ You’ll need an account to login and access metrics for your website. If you do not already have an account, please Click Here to Request a Stats Account. I. Locating Website Stats A limited number of day to day stats are available right inside your WordPress Dashboard, on the WP-Piwik tab. […]

Custom Newsletters with Drag & Drop Composer

You can use the Newsletter plugin’s built in Drag & Drop Composer to create high quality custom newsletters in just a matter of minutes! While these newsletters cannot pull recently published Articles, they are useful for communicating important information to your subscribers, e-mail marketing, and more. 1. Navigate to the Newsletter Plugin Start by navigating to the Newsletter tab on your Dashboard. 2. Create Your Newsletter From the Newsletter Dashboard, click “New” to create a new […]

Metered Paywall with Free Memberships

Below we will demonstrate how to configure a Metered Paywall for Free Memberships. This is useful for sites who do not use a traditional pay-to-read model with an active paywall. It allows readers to view “X” amount of stories each month, then prompts them to register for a free account for unlimited access. Creating a free account adds them to a e-mail mailing list and collects their contact information to […]

Friends2Follow

Friends2Follow is a third-party service that aggregates social media content from your own social media streams, as well as those of your advertisers and other businesses that you’ve connected with. All of this content can be displayed in a widget somewhere on your homepage to offer added value for advertisers, while simultaneously exposing your content to potential new clients. Read about Friends2Follow here: https://friends2follow.com/ Copy & Paste the widget code produced […]

AdRotate – Email CSV Stat Reports

Many advertisers will want a performance report with some basic stats for their ad. Fortunately, AdRotate allows us to do this quite easily on an ad-by-ad basis. First, navigate to your “Active Ads” under AdRotate Pro -> Adverts. Next to the ad’s Name, you’ll see a link titled “Stats” if stat-tracking has been enabled for this ad. Click this link to view the stats for the ad. Once on the stat page, look […]

MemberPress > Creating Auto Renewing Memberships

Setting up Auto Renewing Memberships in MemberPress Setting up Auto Renewals, also known as Automatically Recurring Memberships, in Memberpress is quite easy and can be achieved in just a few minutes. There are a few important rules you need to follow: Never edit an existing “One-Time” membership to update it to an Auto Renewal membership, or vice versa. You will want to start fresh and create a brand new auto […]

Improving SEO: Including “Article Category” in your URL structure

In a recent blog post, SEO Best Practices: Structuring URLs for your news site, we talk about the best practices you can apply to your URL structure to improve your SEO. For those looking to improve their website’s SEO performance here’s a quick tip you can apply today. Steps on including ‘article category’ in your URL structure in WordPress: From your WordPress Dashboard, look for the link titled OHT Settings       […]

Adjusting Margins of E-Edition Sliders

Use the following code to apply margins to the e-edition slider: .oht-slider–special .oht-slide-content, .oht-slider-thumbnails-right .oht-slider-pager a { padding:30px; }

Articles Widget – Top Stories

The Top Stories Widget allows you to display your most popular articles on your website’s homepage, similar to the way a standard Article Widget works. Instead of displaying a particular category, the Top Stories widget uses our analytics and stat-tracking system to determine the most-viewed articles over a pre-selected time period and lists them in order of popularity. Check out the “Most Read Stories” example from The Herald of Randolph, VT below. You […]

Gift Subscriptions

Our-Hometown now offers a Gift Subscription feature. OHT Staff: The plugin titled “OurHometown Gift Subscription” must be enabled. There is a .JSON GravityForm file that needs to be imported to create the form within GravityForms. GravityForms must be setup with a payment gateway, meaning Stripe or Authorize.net. (Paypal would not be supported). Under Memberpress Options, on the Account tab, make sure “Enable Coupon Field on membership registration forms” is checked. This form should be […]

Edit Order of Articles on Homepage

Our Hometown’s WordPress platform makes it easy to customize the layout and styling of your homepage with just a few clicks. One example we’d like to highlight is the “Edit Order” tool, which allows you to easily adjust the order in which articles appear in a given Article Widget on the homepage. We all know first impressions can be a big deal, and your homepage represents your “first impression” to […]

Exporting Memberpress Subscribers

There is a tool in our plugin directory called Memberpress Export that should be used for our customers to export a list of their subscribers, including profile fields such as address and phone number. Once enabled, you can access the plugin from the Dashboard under Memberpress -> Member Export On this page, you select the memberships you’d like to export a list of users for. You can select multiple memberships by holding […]

Setting an Edition to Free Access

If you want to set a specific edition to Free Access, you can do so by tagging these articles with the “Free” paywall. ARTICLES: Once the edition is published, go to Articles -> All Articles. From the “Edition” drop down, select the date of the edition you are trying to make Free. This will return all articles that belong to that edition. It is best to adjust the “Screen Options” […]

Hiding WordPress Authors on Article Pages

Most customers prefer to hide the “WordPress Author” field from their article pages in favor of the standard Byline that is extracted from the PDF edition. The WordPress Author is the WordPress user who published the article on the website, and will usually display as ops@our-hometown.com (or the e-mail for whatever user published the article) unless they have changed this setting in their profile page. For full service customers, there […]

Facebook Sharing Debugger

Facebook offers a great utility for previewing and debugging the way shared articles appear on their platform. You can use this tool with any Facebook account — it does not require that you own or administrate the Facebook page where the article is being shared. (All changes are actually made on the back-end of the website itself; the Facebook Debugger is used to refresh the way an article appears if […]

Newsletter Leads Extension (Pop Up Newsletter Box)

With Leads Extension for The Newsletter Plugin you can add a popup modal box to your website with a couple of clicks and offer your visitors a simple way to subscribe to your newsletters. You can also setup a fixed subscription bar at the bottom or at the top of the screen with the same purpose. You will find Leads under the “List Building” menu inside Newsletter. As you may notice, […]

User Roles & Capabilities

User Roles set the permissions for each user within WordPress. Listed below are the different roles and the capabilities available to those assigned that role. Generally speaking, only staff members would ever need to have a role set, as Subscribers are automatically assigned the ‘Subscriber’ role. SUBSCRIBER: Read Only CONTRIBUTOR: Delete Posts Edit Posts Manage Categories Read AUTHOR: Delete Posts Delete Published Posts Edit Posts Manage Categories Publish Posts Read […]

Directory Prices & Payment Features

Tips and tricks When activating the Pricing Manager addon, don’t forget to review the settings of the default package. Installation of the GD core plugin creates a default listing type that allows users to add all fields, unlimited categories and images etc. Importing listings: Set up your price packages and custom fields before creating your CSV file. Introduction You can use the Pricing Manager to create different packages, for example Featured listings, listings with […]

Available Field Types

The Form Toolbox consists of 3 primary field types: Standard, Advanced and Post. To add a field to a form simply click on the name of the field you would like to add. To edit a field you have added to a form, simply hover over the field you would like to edit and click the edit link. To a delete a field you can click the Delete link, be […]

Form Confirmations

The Confirmation page allows you to set the confirmation to active, or inactive, edit, duplicate, and even delete confirmations. Confirmation Quick Toolbar Each confirmation item has an confirmation toolbar that displays when you hover over the first cell of an confirmation row. This quick toolbar will allow you to edit the confirmation, duplicate the confirmation, delete the confirmation, or even set the confirmation to “active” or “inactive”. Confirmation Actions The […]

Reviewing Form Submissions

When a form is submitted, typically you will be notified via the notification system. If not, or you need to review submissions outside of email, Forms allows the ability to review those submissions directly from within your admin dashboard. In this article, we will show you how to review all of your Gravity Forms submissions. Accessing your form submissions Within your admin dashboard, click on Forms in the left side navigation menu. […]

Embedding A Form

Page/Post Editor Shortcode Builder From the Page or Post Editor you can click on the Form icon in the Upload/Insert toolbar. This is located to the left of the Visual/HTML tabs in the body text editor. Clicking on the Form icon will activate the insert form modal window. Using the shortcode builder you will first want to select a form from the Select a Form dropdown. If you are unable to find […]

Individual Form Settings

By clicking on the form name, form description or form settings link from the New Form or Edit Form screen, you will activate the form settings interface. The form settings interface consists of three tabs. Each tab consists of options and settings for the form. Form Basics Title Enter the title of your form. (Ex. Contact Us) Description Enter a description for your form. This may be used for user […]

Form Editor Field Toolbar

When hovering over or clicking on a field in the Form Editor you will be able to access several different options to modify or interact with the field in the Field Toolbar. In the top left corner you will see a few pieces of information about the form. The first piece of information is the field type (ie Custom Field, Paragraph Text, Drop Down, etc). This is useful as some fields (such […]

Forms reCAPTCHA

To set reCAPTCHA, navigate to the Forms > Settings area. Forms integrates with reCAPTCHA, a free CAPTCHA service that helps to digitize books while protecting your forms from spam bots. The following settings are required to use the reCAPTCHA field. reCAPTCHA Public Key Required only if you decide to use the reCAPTCHA field. Sign up for a free account to get the key. reCAPTCHA Private Key Required only if you […]

Forms > Exporting Entires

Sometimes, you may need to export your form submissions for offline viewing or for further data manipulation. In this article, we will show you how to easily export all of your form entries with just a few clicks. First, log into your WordPress admin dashboard. From within inside your WordPress admin, hover over Forms and click on Import/Export. You should be immediately prompted with the Export Entries tab. Within here, select the form that you […]

Form Notifications > Email Routing

Within forms, you have the option of configuring additional routing. This is similar to conditional logic, in that different events can cause the notification to go to a different recipient. In this article, we will show you how to configure routing options within your notification. First, start by accessing the notification that you want to configure additional routing for. This can be done by accessing the form associated with the […]

Edit Form Title

First, access the form that you want to change the title on. This is done by clicking on Forms on the left side menu of your WordPress admin, then by clicking on the form that you want to edit. Next, click on the title of the form at the top of the page. An input box should now appear. Simply enter your new form title here and click the Update button. Your form title […]

Editing Forms

The Edit Forms page displays a list of all your forms. From this page you can manage and edit your existing forms, and get a quick rundown on basic analytics such as views, number of entries and the conversation ratio. Status To the left of the form name is the status icon. By default this is checked, which activates the form. To inactivate a form you simply click on the […]

Creating a Form

In the Forms menu available when logged in, you will see a link that says New Form. When you click on New Form, you will be presented with a box asking for the Title and Description of the new form. You must give your form a name before you can begin, but you can change that name later if needed. Once you’ve filled out the field(s), click Create Form. The […]

Form Fields > Bulk Add / Predefined Choices

Clicking the Bulk Add / Predefined Choices allows you to select a category and customize the predefined choices or paste your own list to bulk add choices. Choices must be separated by a single line break. Custom Choices It is possible to create a set of choices and save them as a custom choices option. Enter your custom choices in the writable textarea in the Bulk Add modal window. When […]

Create Form Content Templates

Checking the Create Content Template option allows you to format and insert form fields as the content of the field. This option is available on the Post Title, Post Body, and Post Custom Field fields. After checking to enable this option, a dropdown with a list of available form fields (and other form/user/date related options) will appear. Selecting a form field from this list will automatically insert a token into the content […]

Form Field Type > Credit Card

Payment add-ons such as Authorize.Net, PayPal Payments Pro, and Stripe enable the Credit Card Field in Gravity Forms. This field appears in the Pricing Fields toolbox of the Form Editor. This is a new field type that makes it easy to capture credit card information. It includes integrated card type detection so the user does not have to pick which type of card he is using and it also has […]

Form Field Type > Survey

Description Within this box, you can place more information about your survey item to be displayed to the user on the front end. Survey Question This is simply the question that you would like to ask the user. Survey Field Type Determines how the survey field will be displayed to the user. Likert Displays answers in a way that users select items from a scale from one end of the […]

Form Field > Polls

Description Provide a description to the user that provides them with more information on what is expected in this field. Poll add-on required to be turned on. Poll Question Within this field, you will provide the question that you would like to ask the user. Poll Type Allows you to select how the poll is displayed. Drop Down Displays the poll choices within the drop down box. Radio Buttons Displays […]

Forms > Using Calculations

When using number fields, you are able to easily perform calculations. In this article, we will show you how to set up a calculation field. Note: The Total fields cannot be used within calculations. Within this article, only Number fields are used. This article assumes that you are already located within the form editor. If not, access it by clicking on Forms, then on your desired form. First, you will need to add your Number fields. In […]

Form Conditional Logic

In this example, we will use conditional logic to show different products based on a parent category. A dropdown field will determine what products may be purchased based on the current selection. First, set up your fields. As we will be using a dropdown to handle the display of various products, start off by creating a single dropdown, a few product fields, and a total field to display the order total. In this example, we […]

Form Notifications

First, access the form that you want to create a notification for. This is done by clicking on Forms on the left side navigation menu, then clicking on your desired form. At the top menu, hover over Form Settings and click on Notifications. You should now see a list of all notifications that exist for that form. By default, there should already be a single notification that sends the submissions to the admin email address […]

Changing the number of stories on a category page

Go to the backend end dashboard and navigate to “Settings > Reading”. Change the setting for “Blog pages show at most” and update the number of posts per category page you want to see. Save your changes.

How to Change Category Limits

By default, categories are limited to 90 days to increase overall site speed and load time on these pages. Go to “OHT Settings > Site Settings”. There is a section for the “Category Listing Limit (days) – For Performance” – update the number to what is preferred, if it’s less or more. “Save Changes”.

Page Takeover Ads

Page takeover ads are the ads you see behind the main content of the page. They are primarily for desktop users, as there’s no way you’d really see it on mobile. You could supplement the desktop version with mobile ads interspersed throughout the site for true “site takeover”. To create this type of ad, first down this template.   Follow the instructions in the template to create your ad – there […]

Slider Ads

To turn slider ads on, go to Appearance > Customizer. Go to “General Options” and check the box for slider ads. Save your changes and exit the customizer. There will now be a “Slider Ads” menu item in the backend menu. To create a slider ad, “Add New”, – set the URL of where the ad should be going. Set the “Featured Image” with your ad. The ad should be […]

Newsletter Ads

Email providers don’t generally allow scripts of any sort to run in emails for security reasons. Because of this, placing ads in emails is really just adding an image and a link. If you’d like to track the link for statistics, you can use Google UTM codes or follow the instructions found here to track via AdRotate. Outside of statistics, you’ll just need to add your media image file to […]

Creating a Poll

You can create a poll in just a few clicks. 1. From your WordPress Dashboard, click Polls and select Add Poll from the sub-menu. 2. Enter the Question and any answers that you want to make available for selection. While only two answers are available by default, you can click “Add Answer” to add as many answers as needed for your poll. 3. Below the poll answers, you can choose […]

Poll Archives

How To Add A Polls Archive? Go to WP-Admin -> Pages -> Add New. Type any title you like in the post’s title area. If you ARE using nice permalinks, after typing the title, WordPress will generate the permalink to the page. You will see an ‘Edit’ link just beside the permalink. Click ‘Edit’ and type in pollsarchive in the text field and click ‘Save’. Type [page_polls] in the post’s content area. Click ‘Publish’.

Poll Widget

You can place the Poll widget into any widget area available on your website. Most commonly, it will be placed in the Default Sidebar widget area.   Enter a Title for your Polling area. Choose whether to Display a Polls Archive Link below the current poll. Finally, choose which Poll to Display. You can select any of your created polls specifically, or can choose a more general option like “Display Latest Poll” or “Display […]

SiteOrigin Page Builder

The Page Builder is an extremely useful tool for building complex layouts or getting placement just right. The video below is a high-level overview of it, and a second series of videos below on how to use it.  

Customizer > Site Colors

Site colors can be chosen on the Site Colors tab under the Customizer, either using hex codes or a draggable color selector. If you need to do more customized colors for specific areas of the site, you can also apply colors via the Custom CSS section.

Customizer > Logo & Image Options

Each theme contains varying logo options. Bernard contains a main menu and footer section logo. Clementine contains a mobile / fixed header menu logo and a main logo. Ford contains a left-aligned header menu spot and a main menu spot. You can also place images in the footer widget areas to add additional logo positions in the footer.

Prebuilt Menu Locations

Each Our Hometown theme has a number of prebuilt locations available for menus.  Menus can also be placed in any available widget area, but the prebuilt areas have additional styling applied to them. Available menu spots include: Flyout Menu (mobile menu) Utility Menu Utility Left Utility Right Main Menu Secondary Menu Footer Menu To build a more complex footer menu, you can use the Navigation Menu widget to place menus […]

Customizer > Themes

Our Hometown offers a variety of themes, that differs slightly from theme to theme.  Most of the differences can be seen in the header and menu designs.  All layouts and widgets and slider styles are available across all themes. All sites are extremely customizable though.  Talk with your Our Hometown representative about which theme will work best for your needs and about your styling options.

OHT Settings > Menu Order

If you’d like to change the order of items of the back-end menu to best fit your workflow, go to: OHT Menu > Menu Order You can drag and drop the menu items into whatever order you prefer. Click “Save” to save your options.

Customizer > Fonts

Our Hometown’s themes have easily changeable font options built-in to each theme for: Body Font Widget Heading Font (CSS class = widget-title) Site Logo Font Main Navigation Font Secondary Navigation Font Heading / Title Fonts Built-in Body Font Options: Times New Roman Arial / Helvetica Georgia Palatino Lucia Sans Tahoma / Geneva Trebuchet MS Verdana / Geneva Courier Lucida Console / Monaco Roboto Monserrat Amiri Slabo Cantata One Quicksand Special […]

Adding a Google Font for use

If you aren’t a fan of the fonts available in the Customizer fonts section, you are more than welcome to pick and implement any of the thousands of fonts available at Google Fonts ( https://fonts.google.com/ ) Once you select your font or fonts, you’ll want to click the gray header at the bottom right of the screen. It will pop up and show you all your selects. The easiest way to […]

Memberpress > Customizing user information fields

You can customize individual memberships a variety of ways. To customize the fields per membership, go to the membership, click “Customize User Information FIelds” and then check the boxes for the fields you want active on that particular membership. This must be done on each, individual membership. Click update to save your changes.

Memberpress > Customizing Payment Options per Membership

You can customize individual memberships a variety of ways. To customize the usable payment method, if you have more than one, go to the membership, click “Customize payment method” and then check the box for the payment method you want available on that particular membership. This must be done on each, individual membership. Click update to save your changes.

Memberpress > Adding Custom Fields for Accounts or Signup

Sometimes you’ll want to have a user to fill in some additional information when they renew or subscribe to your site. Go to Memberpress > Options > Fields to add additional fields for users to fill in.   Under “Custom User Information Fields”, click the + button. Fill in the name & type of field to user – select from text, email, URL, date, textarea, checkbox, drop-down, multiselect, radio buttons […]

Memberpress > Updating the Paywall Message

The first time you access the Memberpress > Options sections, make sure to click “Update Options” on the pages section. This will open up the “default unauthorized message” section for changes & auto-create the Thank You, Account, & Login pages. Once you’ve done this, click “Default Unauthorized Message” on the “pages” tab, right above the “Update Options” button. The default message says “You are unauthorized to view this page”. Obviously, […]

Updating a User’s Public Display Name

A user’s public display name is what is display as the “author” if you choose to use that field on articles, instead of a byline. This can be a mix of their first and last name, or you can set a “nickname” which can really be whatever you want it to be. From there, you should choose from the “Display name publicly as” dropdown, the name you want to be […]

Resetting a User Password (while logged in)

In the user profile page you’ll find a “Generate Password” button – You can click this button to generate a new password for the account. This will show you a new field with the generated password. If you choose to change this password, a checkbox will appear to confirm that you want to use a weak password. You can check this box to confirm that you want to use your […]

User Account Management

Generate Password – You can click this button to generate a new password for the account. This will show you a new field with the generated password. If you choose to change this password, a checkbox will appear to confirm that you want to use a weak password. You can check this box to confirm that you want to use your own password instead of a secure one. Strength Indicator […]

Adding a New Non-Subscriber User

To add a new user, log in to the site and go to the backend dashboard. Find the “users” menu item on the left-hand side. Select “add new”. Enter a unique username and email for the user. The easiest method is to also use their email as their username. Usernames cannot be changed once added.  If a username is already in the database, you will not be able to add […]

Applying / Submitting for Google News

If your site isn’t listed in Google News yet, you can submit your site using this form. First, make sure to get your site Google Webmaster verified – you can place the code for verification on the All in One SEO General Settings page. For inclusion in Google News, make sure you are abiding by Google’s general Webmaster guidelines as well as Google’s Google News specific guidelines. In these guidelines there are several technical requirements […]

Editing Images on WordPress

The below video shows you the basics of scaling/resizing, cropping & rotating / flipping images from within the WordPress media library.

Memberpress > Subscriber Access to Subscription / Transaction History

You may be wondering if your users have access to their account information, the ability to update it, and where to find this information. Users do have access to their basic information – name, email, address, and any custom fields you have added and chosen to give them access to.  They also have access to their purchase / transaction history. This information is usually found at (your-site-domain).com/account/ – which is […]

Memberpress > Subscriber Account Access

You may be wondering if your users have access to their account information, the ability to update it, and where to find this information. Users do have access to their basic information – name, email, address, and any custom fields you have added and chosen to give them access to.  They also have access to their purchase / transaction history. This information is usually found at (your-site-domain).com/account/ – which is […]

Email > Using an App for Email on your Mobile Device

There are many applications out there for Apple, Android & Windows Phones that allow you to retrieve & send email from your mobile device.  Below is the important information you will need when setting up one of these apps.  We recommend following their own instructions, as every app is different, but the information below is what they will be asking for during the setup process. E-mail address: (your full e-mail […]

Events Calendar – Adding an Event

The events calendar runs off the same system as the business directory and pickup locations directory, so it should look familiar if you use either of those systems. Adding an event has a few additional, event-related options to enter when creating a new event. Select “Add New” from the backend dashboard menu, under “Events”. Enter your event title & description. Under “Event Schedule”, fill in the timing of your event. […]

Add a New Directory Category

For each directory type, you’ll need to add categories that business listings, events, or pickup locations can be a part of.  Under your directory type (Places, Events, or Pickup Locations), select (listing type) categories. From here, you can enter the name of your new category, scroll down and set a category icon (required) and then click the “Add New Category” button at the bottom. If you would like some icons […]

Picking a Color Scheme

We know you have a set of colors you tend to use with your business – your logo colors, complementary colors to support them in your text, headings, and in other various ways. If you don’t know what colors you want to use on your website, we recommend first, finding out what colors you use (if you don’t already know). http://eye-dropper.kepi.cz/ is a great Google Chrome extension that let’s you […]

Memberpress Reports Overview

MemberPress takes full advantage of the latest reporting tools available for easy to read and understand charts. You can view transactions in dollar amounts or units and can narrow down what you’re looking for by year, month, or Membership. At the bottom of the page when viewing Monthly or Yearly tabs is a table which will break down your statistics even further. You’ll notice in this table that most of […]

Memberpress > Changing an Existing Membership’s Pricing Terms

Overview There are a couple of reasons why you may want to change the pricing terms of an existing membership: Offer a temporary discount Natural inflation of your product Wanting to charge more Changing the billing type (one-time payment to recurring) Etc. These are all very good reasons to update the price of your membership. Additionally, you should make note of the following: Whatever you do, do NOT delete your membership to […]

Memberpress > Creating Memberships

What this video covers: Creating a membership and understanding the Membership options. Creating a Membership Creating a Membership in MemberPress is very similar to creating a Page or Post in WordPress — in fact the Memberships are shown on your site as pages. To setup a Membership do the following. Set a Title for the Membership (Example: Basic Membership). Set a price and subscription term for the Membership. You can […]

Memberpress > Membership Options Overview

Each Membership that you create will have it’s own customizable Membership Options that are found under the visual editor on the Membership Edit page. The tabs available, and their associated options, are discussed in greater detail below. Use these quick links to learn more about a specific tab from the Membership options: Registration Permissions Price Box Advanced Registration The Registration tab is used to configure settings that are directly related […]

MemberPress > Membership Pricing Terms Overview

Because the term options that you see will change depending on what you enter for ‘Billing type’, we will address what you will see based on selecting either ‘Recurring’ or ‘One-Time’. Recurring Price (your-currency) – here you will be able to enter any amount that you would like the user to be billed with each billing. Billing Type – this of course, will be set to ‘Recurring’. Interval – the rate at which […]

Memberpress Press > Configuring and Using the Account Page

Here you will be able to learn more about the MemberPress account page. From creating it and editing it, to learning how your users will interact with it. Creating the Account Page To create the account page in MemberPress all you need to do is navigate to MemberPress > Options > Pages (first tab) and near the top of the page to the right of the MemberPress Account Page option, […]

Memberpress > Configuring and Using the MemberPress Login Page

Creating the Login Page To create the MemberPress Login Page all you need to do is navigate to MemberPress > Options > Pages (first tab) and near the top of the page to the right of the ‘MemberPress Login Page’ option, use the drop down to select ‘- Auto Create New Page -‘ and then click the ‘Update Options’ button at the very bottom of the page. Important: if this has anything […]

Memberpress > Configuring and Using the Membership Registration Pages

Creating a Membership Registration Page MemberPress allows you to create membership registration pages in two ways: Automatically when creating a membership Manually by adding a shortcode to any WordPress Page, Post, or Custom Post Type These two methods have been explained below. Automatically By simply creating your membership in MemberPress, you have created your registration page also for that membership! You can find the link to your membership’s registration page […]

Memberpress > Linking to Your Registration Pages

In MemberPress, there are a couple of ways to link to your Membership’s Registration pages. Below are a couple of the most common ways. In Your Menu Providing a registration link to your menu can be a very effective way to make registering easy for your users. You can link directly to a specific registration page, a page that has your registration links, or even our Group Pricing page. Important […]

Memberpress Shortcodes

What is a shortcode? Shortcodes are small placeholders you can insert almost anywhere within your WordPress page and post content. When the page is viewed by a visitor, those placeholders get processed and replaced with some dynamically generated content instead. For example, you might have a shortcode that will show the currently logged in user their first name. A shortcode might look like  . When the page that shortcode is on […]

Digital PrePress / Reverse Publishing > Email Notifications

Reverse Publishing Notifications On your website dashboard, navigate to: Reverse Publishing -> Settings: If you do not have reverse publishing / digital prepress and are interested in testing it out or adding it to your paper, please email mcl@our-hometown.com  First, select when you want to be notified of updates: “Notify me of updates:” has 3 checkboxes: On the export screen When Articles are saved Every [#] Minutes Then enter who to […]

Memberpress > Creating Groups

Overview Groups are a unique feature of MemberPress. Groups allow you to quickly and painlessly setup a nice features comparison page for users to get a quick snapshot of the various Memberships you offer. Setting up a Group in MemberPress also allows your users to upgrade or downgrade with our convenient Change Plan popup explained below. Groups show up on your site just like a WordPress page would. You should […]

Memberpress > Creating Email Reminders and Expiration Notices

Memberpress allows you to create custom Expiration Notices, known as Reminders, to deliver to your customers whose memberships are due to expire. This is important for retaining subscribers and avoiding complaints when subscribers log on to the site and can’t figure out why they aren’t able to view protected content. Reminders are easy to set up and can be used individually or in concert with one another. For example, you […]

Memberpress > Enabling Coupons Upon Registration

In MemberPress there are two ways of being able to allow users to get a discount with a MemberPress coupon: Through the Registration Form Through a Direct Link Through the Registration Form This is the most common way to allow users to enter coupons. Simple navigate to your WordPress Dashboard > MemberPress > Options > Account tab > Registration section > and click the checkbox next to the option that […]

Memberpress > Creating Coupons

Coupon Options Below, the various coupon settings are explained. Coupon Code – This field will be auto-populated with a randomly generated coupon code. Change the coupon code here if needed. Coupon codes should NOT contain spaces, quotes, or any other non alpha-numeric symbol. Only alphanumeric characters, hyphens, or underscores should be used. Discount – The discount that will be applied to every billing for the subscription this coupon is applied to. Can be any percent […]

Memberpress > Full List of Email Parameters

On this page, we have listed all of the supported parameters for every MemberPress Email and Reminder. Please note that each parameter can only be used in the email type they are listed under. For quick links to each section click on the option below: MemberPress Emails These are only for the emails found in the MemberPress > Options > Emails tab.  {$user_id} The user’s WordPress database ID (9253) {$user_login} The user’s username […]

Memberpress > Options > Emails Tab

Send Mail From MemberPress will send out emails on your behalf using the information found in the “From Name:” and “From Email:” fields as seen below.   As a default, MemberPress will populate these fields with the Site Title and Email address located in your WordPress Settings > General page. Member Notices These emails are triggered and sent to a user when a certain event occurs. Send Welcome Email – This email is sent to Welcome […]

Transferring Your DNS

WARNING: If you are not familiar with DNS switches, we highly recommend finding someone who is, to help you with this process. Our Hometown can help, as long as you provide login information to your DNS provider. Your DNS provider may be the same company your domain is hosted at, but sometimes it is a different company.  We require access to this information at least a week in advance before the […]

Displaying a YouTube Video on the Front Page

Go to “Appearance > Customize > Widgets” from your dashboard menu. Find the widget area you’d like your video to appear in or where your current video is already placed. Click the name of the widget area. If you are placing a new video widget click ” + Add a Widget” & search for or scroll to find the “Video” widget. If you are replacing, click the arrow on the […]

Creating a New Menu – Quickstart

Creating a new menu Login to the WordPress Dashboard. From the ‘Appearance’ menu on the left-hand side of the Dashboard, select the ‘Menus’ option to bring up the Menu Editor. Select Create a new menu at the top of the page Enter a name for your new menu in the Menu Name box Click the Create Menu button. Click “Save” – your new menu now exists. Time to add some […]

AdRotate Tracking For Newsletter Ads

To track clicks on ads in newsletters, you can setup ads via AdRotate, alter & update the code for use in an email. First, create your ad as you normally would. Copy the code you see in the “AdCode” box & paste it into a text document so you can make some adjustments to it for use in the newsletter. Replace %asset% part of the AdCode with the full image […]

Setting up Filezilla for FTP Uploads

Download, install, and launch FileZilla. Complete the following fields, and then click Quickconnect at the top of the program. Host: Your domain name or IP address (cPanel / Plesk / Web & Classic) In this case, it is: ftp.our-hometown.com A username & password should have been provided to you by the Our Hometown team. Username: Your FTP username (cPanel / Plesk / Web & Classic) Password: Your FTP password (cPanel […]

Importing Newsletter Subscribers

IMPORTANT NOTE: As of January 2020, Our Hometown customers will be restricted from importing their own mailing lists. This is a necessary precaution to prevent a customer from importing a bad list of faulty e-mails, which could result in the termination of our e-mail service. To import your list of subscribers, you MUST email the list in a .csv file to ops@our-hometown.com and request that we import it for you!  

Manually Adding New Members (subscribers) to Your Site

There may be a couple of reasons as to why you would want to manually add a member to your site, but the main reason will likely be to create a new user on your site for someone and grant them access to a membership. On the MemberPress > Members page, all of this can be done in one place. You can do this by navigating to your WordPress Dashboard > MemberPress […]

Creating a Manual Transaction in Memberpress

IMPORTANT NOTE: Manual transactions will NOT initiate any charges. If you would like the user to be billed for access, they MUST do so through your MemberPress registration page. If you want to give a user access manually : Go to MemberPress -> Transactions. Select Add new at the top of the page. Leave the auto-generated ID for the Transaction as is. Select the user you would like the transaction to be associated with. You […]

How to create an Image popup

Follow the instructions to create an Image popup: 1. In your Dashboard, find Popup Builder plugin and click “Add new” popup 2. Select the Image popup from your menu of popup types 3. Enter a Title for your Image popup (it’s visible only to the Admin) 4. Select and image from your popup – paste the URL of your image or choose from your gallery. 5. Select the theme for […]

How to open a popup on the Image click

To create an Onclick popup, please, follow the steps bellow: 1. Go to the Pages/Posts section of your Dashboard 2. Choose the Page/Post you want to add an Onclick popup 3. Click “Insert popup” 4. From the box, select the popup you need to open Onclick 5. Choose the load type, select “Click” 6. Insert 7. Place your cursor inside the shortcode of the popup and click Add media 8. […]

How to create a Restriction popup

Please, follow the steps to create a Restriction popup: 1. In your Popup Builder menu, click “Add new” => select the Restriction popup type 2. Enter a Title for your Restriction popup 3. The content you add in the HTML editor of the popup will be shown before or after the buttons (push to bottom option) 4. Select a theme for your popup, (if you need no borders for your […]

Classifieds Text File Import

If you use NewsCycle’s classifieds system for your print classifieds, you are able to export a file that we can then work with to setup a template with for easy import in the future. Once this template is set-up to match your classifieds file output, follow the following instructions for text-only classifieds. If you have images associated with your classifieds, you’ll need to upload a zip of your text and images […]

Breaking News Newsletter

The easiest way to send a breaking news newsletter is to send a “single newsletter”, and to either have a breaking news category that you will choose to include or to add a “breaking news” tag in the article tag box to your story. Then, when you send a single newsletter, choose a template that utilizes content type, select “articles”, select the category which the story is a part of, […]

Newsletter Themes

When using the Our Hometown system with Newsletters, make sure you choose a theme that let’s you choose the content type to include. Our Hometown uses “articles”, instead of posts, to better address the needs of newspapers and other publications, that require subheadings, bylines, and edition dates. When sending a newsletter, you’ll want to select “articles” as the content type, and possibly “PDF” if you want to include your e-edition […]

Automated Newsletters

The Automated Newsletter plugin automatically generates and sends newsletters created from the latest articles posted. Automated creation of newsletters can be planned daily, weekly or monthly in a great variety of ways. Blog contents can be filtered by category, post type and an infinite number of channels can be created letting subscribers to choose among your great information stream offer. Automated the natural evolution and replacement of Feed by Mail extension. […]

Newsletter Tags

Newsletter uses few tags written as {tagname} as placeholders for subscriber’s values or action links. Newsletter tags can be used on messages, subjects and on page texts (configurable from the subscription panel). Of course not all tags make sense in every place or every context. For example a subscription confirmation tag has no much sense on the welcome message. A note of warning: Newsletter tags must not be used on posts or […]

MaxGalleria – Setting up YouTube API for Video Gallery Integration

MaxGalleria uses the Youtube API (Application Program Interface) Version 3 to request and receive data from Youtube.com. Youtube’s latest new version requires the use of an API key. So you will need your own Google Developer API Key to add Youtube videos to your galleries. First you will need to log into Google or create a new Google account if you do not already have one. To obtain an API […]

Adding a PDF (E-Edition or Special Section)

If you are using out e-edition (interactive or static) or need to upload a special section, please follow the following instructions.*If you are simply uploading a PDF document for user access / download, you only need to upload the PDF to the media library & grab the link URL to link to.Find “PDF” on the backend menu or on the “Add New” menu on the front end of your website. […]

Memberpress > Importing Users

Users CSV Format Along with the User CSV upload user interface, you can also select if you want to send new members their usernames and passwords. If checked, then MemberPress will automatically send each new user their username and password. Download Sample Users CSV Important Note: Importing a User CSV file will NOT and CANNOT associate the user with any memberships in MemberPress. To do that you’ll need to create either a single […]

Memberpress > Importing Transactions

Transactions CSV Format Download Sample Transactions CSV When to Import This File Type: To import a One-Time Subscription – One-Time Subscriptions do NOT need to have an associated subscription imported because “one-time subscriptions” are really just a single transaction. To activate a previously imported Recurring Subscription – Recurring Subscriptions are only marked as active (meaning the user will have access to your protected content) when a completed non-expired transaction is present. Required […]

Memberpress > Importing Memberships

Memberships CSV Format Required Columns: name — Name of the Membership. Can be any small string of text. price — Price of the Membership. Can be any number in decimal format without a currency symbol — for example: 5.99 … period — Number of weeks, months or years. Can be any valid whole number if the period_type=’months’ or period_type=’weeks’ but anything else, this can only be 1. period_type — This is […]

Memberpress Imports > Intro

Creating your CSV file CSV stands for “comma separated values,” which is a very common format used by Spreadsheets. You can create a standard spreadsheet in Excel, Numbers, Open Office, or Google Spreadsheet and then export a CSV file from your spreadsheet. The CSV file must be in Windows Format.  We are working on a fix so this won’t matter, but for now, only Windows CSV format will work. All of […]

GeoDirectory Widgets

When you install the GeoDirectory plugin, you’ll find a number of new GD widgets in the appearance section of your WP admin area. Widget name Can be used on these pages: Home Listings Search Detail Author Non-GD pages GD Core widgets GD > Advertise GD > Best of widget GD > CPT Categories GD > CPT Listings GD > Features GD > Flickr Photos GD > GMap Home page GD > GMap Listing page […]

About Post Types & How to Customize (default directory listings)

Places is the name of the default Custom Post Type (CPT) installed as part of the GD core installation. It is like the top category for listings in your GD directory. The information on this page is also relevant for any other CPT you install when you add Custom Post Types or use the Event calendar. Custom Fields When you go to GD > Place Settings, you will see a tab with […]

Directory Notification / Email Settings

Options tab List of usable shortcodes: You can use these in the email templates to personalize your emails. The same fields are used in the notifications of the Prices and Payments feature, [#client_name#] The name your user entered on registration [#listing_link#] Link to the user’s listing [#posted_date#] Date the listing was submitted [#number_of_days#] In case you use the Prices and Payments feature, this is the amount of days the listing was originally paid for. [#number_of_grace_days#] In case you use […]

Advanced Search > Auto-complete Settings

Enable Search auto-completer: This setting will start giving suggestions as your visitor start searching: Auto-submit the form on select a Search option: If this option is selected, the search form will automatically load the detail page of the listing selected. Min chars needed to trigger autocomplete: Enter a number of characters here before the auto-completer search is triggered. Max Results to be returned by autocomplete: Enter a number here to limit the number of listings […]

Advanced Search Filters > Search by Distance

When you activate the Advanced Search Filters, the Search By Distance field will automatically be added to the fields you can add to your custom search.   When you click on Field: Search by Distance, you’ll see the following options: Options Maximum Search Range Enter the maximum radius of the search zone you want to create, for example if you want your visitors to search any listing within 50 miles or kilometers from […]

“Near Me” Search Distance Setting

If you add the GD > Near Me Button widget, and a visitor clicks on that button, they will be taken to a page showing the listings within a set radius of their geolocation. To change this radius, go to GD > Advanced Search > GEOLOCATION SETTINGS section > Default Near Me miles limit (1-200) and change the setting there.

Custom Search Features

1. Custom Post Type (CPT) selector This selector will only be shown if you have more than one Custom Post Type The CPT selector defaults to the current CPT of a Listings, detail or search page. For example on an Events category page, Events will be listed first in the selector. On a location page or any standard WP page or post, the order of the CPTs in the selector can be determined by changing […]

Directory Navigation > Searching

The basic Search function Using the “Search for” field only The directory will check the entry titles, description and taxonomies (tags and categories) of the listings. The results will be listed in order of relevance depending on the keyword(s) entered. For example, if you only search for “hotel“, the results will be returned with listings that have hotel in the title first, etc: Using the “Near” field only When you enter a location in […]

Directory Default Location Settings

 Map settings: After activation you will see a message asking you if you want to set a Google Maps API KEY, and another message to set your default location. A. Setting a Google Maps API KEY Clicking on the click here link will take you to GD > Design > Map. Follow the instructions in the Add Google API KEY article. B. Set the default location Clicking on the click here link will take you to GD > Set Default […]

Getting Your Business Directory Started

Typical layout Below is a standard layout of an Our Hometown directory site, using GeoDirectory. All the directory pages are based on this layout. The default Design settings only use the GD Right Section and not the GD Left Section, because that is the most common layout. Also, the GD Bottom Section is not enabled by default, although this section allows you to add content to the bottom of your GD pages you maybe do […]

Connecting Memberpress & Authorize.net

To get started, navigate to the options menu in MemberPress and select payments. Click the (+) button and select a new gateway “Authorize.net” Name it whatever you want. This is the name that your users will see when they go to select how to pay. We recommend “Pay with Credit Card”. Go to your Authorize.net dashboard to obtain the necessary keys: API Login ID, Transaction Key, and Signature Key. In […]

Current Front Page Thumbnail

If you want to use a thumbnail of your most current PDF’s front page – create the following URL to use in other places, like the newsletter: (website)/dynamicpage/currentimage/(size) To display, use the html: <img src=”(url you just created)”> To link this image somewhere, use the code: <a href=”(URL you want to link to)”><img src=”(image url)”></a>

PayPal – Instant Payment Notification

PayPal can sometimes take a bit of time to notify the system of a completed payment – please make sure to turn on Instant Payment Notifications to reduce the change of this happening. Learn where to turn this on here. After you turn on IPN PayPal IPN URL – Click the clipboard icon next to this URL to copy the IPN that needs to be entered into PayPal. The IPN […]

Activating Your Stripe Account

Stripe is an industry leader for simplicity and security in payment gateways. You can use Stripe to accept payments for subscriptions, classified submissions, events & more. Step 1: Activate your Stripe account To use Stripe as your payment gateway, you’ll first need an active Stripe account. Before you activate your Stripe account, make sure you have the following information:   Bank account details (transit number, institution number, and account number), […]

Event Manager & Calendar Shortcodes

Event Manager Shortcodes Event Listings Shortcode: [gd_event_listing] Parameters: category – ID number of the category to show (default = 0 for all) post_number – Number of posts to show (default = 5) layout – Number of columns to show (default = 2) add_location_filter – True or False (default = false) listing_width – A percent between 20 and 100 (default = ‘’) list_sort – One of az, upcoming, latest, featured, high_review, high_rating, random […]

Directory Shortcodes

Shortcodes are ways to place widgets on pages if you have no widgetized areas to use. Sometimes they let you place content when widgets don’t exist. Home Page Map Shortcode: [gd_homepage_map] This shortcode is the equivalent of the GD > GMap – Home Page widget. Parameters: width – A number of pixels or percent (default = 960px) height – A number of pixels (default = 425px) maptype – One of HYBRID, […]

Getting Your Stripe API Keys

1. Create a Separate Stripe Account Skip this step if you already have a separate Stripe account set up. Create a Stripe account on their website and log in by entering your created email and password. Once logged in, click Activate Your Account in the top left and enter the requested information. 2. Get the API Keys Within Stripe, click API on the left menu. Alternatively, you can click here to […]

Payment Gateways

While Our Hometown can accept a number of payment gateways (inquire if you have a different payment gateway to see if we can accomodate it), we highly recommend Authorize.net, PayPal or Stripe due to their ease of integration on various areas of your site where you can require payments. Learn more about each payment gateway on their websites: Authorize.net Stripe PayPal

Memberpress > Importing Bulk User Transactions

Download Sample Transactions CSV When to Import This File Type: To import a One-Time Subscription – One-Time Subscriptions do NOT need to have an associated subscription imported because “one-time subscriptions” are really just a single transaction. To activate a previously imported Recurring Subscription – Recurring Subscriptions are only marked as active (meaning the user will have access to your protected content) when a completed non-expired transaction is present. Required Columns: […]

Importing Your Archives to WordPress

The Our Hometown team is here to help with your archive export & transfer to our system. Our Hometown’s platform requires articles to be sent over as a JSON file or in the NITF format. Both files should be structured to match the examples below.  JSON is the recommended format when possible. (News Industry Text Format – you can learn more about the standard here ) This ensures accurate importation […]

Newsletter Subscriber Management

“Newsletter > Subscribes” is a core part of Newsletter and where you can manage your subscriber list: search, edit, create, import and export are some of the most common features. But it not limited to these operations: statistical data, bounce list import, massive actions are features available for advanced users. The module provide some “massive actions” where an entire set of subscriber can be changed. For example you can remove […]

Our Hometown Newsletter Settings

While you can create custom newsletters to be sent out manually, Our Hometown also includes the option to automatically send out a newsletter of your most recent stories with every edition published.Go to “OHT Settings > Newsletter Settings” in your dashboard to make be able to customize the automated newsletter.The image to the right is a sample of what your newsletter will look like, but filled with your own content.In […]

Uploading an e-Edition PDF

Locate the “PDFs” menu item on your dashboard menu.*If you do not see this section, you have not added our interactive eEdition to your Our Hometown plan. Please contact sales@our-hometown.com to sign up for our interactive eEdition.Select “Add New” to add a new eEdition or Special Section to our interactive PDF viewer. Enter your Edition Date or Name in the “Editions” box on the right-hand side.  Enter a standard publication […]

Front Page Template – 2 Column Edition A

Learn more about how to choose your front page template by clicking here.Below is the complete layout of the front page template: 2 Column – Edition A.These are the available widgetized areas – you DO NOT have to use them all – if you do not use them, they will “disappear”For example, if you don’t put anything in the “main slider area” the front page left & middle columns will […]

Front Page Template – 2 Column Edition B

Learn more about how to choose your front page template by clicking here.Below is the complete layout of the front page template: 2 Column – Edition B.These are the available widgetized areas – you DO NOT have to use them all – if you do not use them, they will “disappear”For example, if you don’t put anything in the “main slider area” the front page left & middle columns will […]

Front Page Template – 2 Column Edition D

Learn more about how to choose your front page template by clicking here.Below is the complete layout of the front page template: 2 Column – Edition D.These are the available widgetized areas – you DO NOT have to use them all – if you do not use them, they will “disappear”For example, if you don’t put anything in the “main slider area” the front page left & middle columns will […]

Writing a New Article

Posts are entries that display in reverse order on your home page. Posts usually have comments fields beneath them and are included in your site’s RSS feed. To write a post: Log in to your WordPress Dashboard. Click the ‘Articles’ tab. Click the ‘Add New’ sub-tab. Start filling in the blanks: enter your article title in the upper field, & enter your article body content in the main post editing […]

Using Pingbacks & Trackbacks

Comments on WordPress sites are often criticized as lacking authority, since anyone can post anything using any name they like: there’s no verification process to ensure that the person is who they claim to be. Trackbacks and Pingbacks both aim to provide some verification to blog commenting. To enable trackbacks and pingbacks, in the Discussion Settings of your Administration Panels, select these items under ‘Default article settings’: Attempt to notify […]

AdRotate – Mobile Ads

If you have a lot of mobile visitors on your website and you want to show them tailored adverts. You can do so with the Mobile option in AdRotate Pro. AdRotate has an advanced filter to check if the user is on a tablet, phone or smartphone and using that can show adverts only on desktop or only on mobile devices. On top of that you can also differentiate between […]

AdRotate – Weighted Ads

This feature let’s you to give adverts “weight”, or importance, to give them more attention (impressions) over other ads. All you have to do is set a number (weight) for each ad. There are 5 levels. Where a weight of 2 barely gets any impressions and 10 gets most of the attention. The default value is 6. As you manage your ads you can change this as a setting when […]

AdRotate – Geo-Targeting

Target your audience with geo targeting and show only the adverts they need to see or localize advertisement campaigns using this powerful feature! AdRotate Pro connects to external services. This data is based on the users IP Address and does not contain identifiable information but is very accurate for the user their location at that moment. Enable Geolocation Geo Targeting is not enabled by default. You’ll find a section called […]

AdRotate – Groups

Groups are useful if you use multiple locations or pages for ads showing different categories/niches or sizes of adverts. Most people will want to set up a group for each location. Or perhaps even several groups. Groups can hold one or many adverts. If you put multiple adverts in a group it will automatically show different adverts on a regular basis. Group modes Groups serve multiple purposes and can operate […]

AdRotate – Schedules

With schedules you can schedule adverts. This means that you can make a advertising deal today, set everything up and when the adverts go live next month it’s all automated. Every advert needs at least one schedule. Adverts can be shown from and to multiple dates. For example ads that run bi-monthly for 1 year would have 6 schedules, one for each active period. If the end date passes and […]

AdRotate – Quickstart Guide

Design your ads Adverts are the core function in AdRotate. Creating adverts is relatively simple. Every advert has a bunch options available to make the most of your advertising campaign. In many cases you’ll get a ready-to-go advert from your advertiser. But you can make your own adverts from scratch, too. Adcode Every advert will have a bit of HTML and sometimes CSS/Javascript. This represents the actual advertisement. You’ll need […]

Inserting Images into Articles & Pages

Overview When creating or editing a WordPress page or blog post, you can easily add images at any time using the WordPress Media Uploader tool. Here’s how to add an image, step-by-step, using the media uploader: Step 1 – Placing your cursor In order to add an image to your page or post, you must first insert your cursor in the place in the text where you want the image […]

Front Page Template – 2 Column Edition C

Learn more about how to choose your front page template by clicking here.Below is the complete layout of the front page template: 2 Column – Edition C.These are the available widgetized areas – you DO NOT have to use them all – if you do not use them, they will “disappear”For example, if you don’t put anything in the “main slider area” the front page left & middle columns will […]

Articles Widget – Headlines Style

Click here to learn more about using the articles widget.The Headlines Style Layout is good for a simple list of articles with only one featured image required.  It’s 1 columns of individual articles, with a large thumbnail above the 1st article, and no thumbnails or story excerpt for additional stories below.It looks best in narrow to mid-sized columns.

Articles Widget – Magazine Style

Click here to learn more about using the articles widget.The Magazine Style Layout is good for articles with images.  It’s 2-3 columns of individual articles, with a large thumbnail to the left for your 1st article, and smaller thumbnails to the right for your secondary articles. You can only have article titles in this layout & it is currently limited to a maximum of 5 stories.It looks best in mid-sized to wide […]

Articles Widget – Horizontal Grid

Click here to learn more about using the articles widget.The Horizontal Grid Layout is good for articles with images.  It’s 3 columns of individual articles, with the thumbnail either above or below your content, or as a thumbnail to the left or right.This article style is best suited mid-sized to wide widgetized areas, like the slider area or full-width middle column.You can choose to have article excerpts or no article excerpts, but […]

Articles Widget – Vertical Stack

Click here to learn more about using the articles widget.The Vertical Stack Layout is one of your most essential layouts.  It’s one column of articles, with the thumbnail either above or below your content, or as a thumbnail to the left or right.This article style is best suited to narrow to mid-sized widgetized areas, like the left or middle columns, the bottom left or right columns or the sidebars.You can […]

Articles Widget – 2 Column Layout

Click here to learn more about using the articles widget.The 2 Column Layout features a large image for your 1st article on the left hand side & then, either thumbnails to the left or right of your articles in a second column on the right side.This article style is best suited to wider widgetized areas, like the main slider area or the full-width middle column. It can be used in smaller widgetized […]

Articles Widget – 1 Column Layout

Click here to learn more about using the articles widget.The 1 Column Layout features a large image for your 1st article and then, either thumbnails to the left or right of your articles.You can choose to have article excerpts or no article excerpts.

Using the Articles Widget

The “articles widget” gives you many options for article layouts, as well as what information you want to display with your articles on the front page, giving you infinite possibilities for designing your front page.Choose the articles widget from the “+ Add a Widget” button, in the widgetized area you are trying to place it.Add the title you want to show above your article section in the “Title of Widget” […]

Splitting an Article into Multiple Pages

Using the “Text” tab of your content editor, simply add the following code to where you want your page break to occur. <!‐‐nextpage‐‐> This will create a 2nd, 3rd, 4th or more pages, based on how many  <!‐‐nextpage‐‐> tags you use. A number will appear at the bottom of your article so readers can click to go to the next page. Make sure to use the “text” tab – this […]

MaxGalleria – Slick Slider

Activating the Slick Slider option will allow you to use the Slick Slider template in your image galleries. Options Gallery Skin: Standard, Silver, Kitt, Ghost and Black are the five main options for gallery skin that will adjust how the slider image looks as well as the dots that appear below the slider. Slider Captions Enabled: Turns on the display of the image title field. The title will appear when […]

MaxGalleria – Vimeo

Note:  This is an available option with Our Hometown’s WordPress platform. If you don’t see it as part of your menu options, you may need to submit a ticket to request turning it on. After turning on the Vimeo add-on, you will be able to upload Vimeo videos along with YouTube videos in any of your video galleries. Adding Videos Navigate to your video gallery and click Add Videos. You […]

MaxGalleria – Video Showcase

Note:  This is an available option with Our Hometown’s WordPress platform. If you don’t see it as part of your menu options, you may need to submit a ticket to request turning it on. You will be able to see it in the Templates for your galleries, once it is turned on. The showcase features one large video on top of the thumbnails that changes whenever the thumbnails are clicked. […]

MaxGalleria – Instagram

Note:  This is an available option with Our Hometown’s WordPress platform. If you don’t see it as part of your menu options, you may need to submit a ticket to request turning it on. On the settings tab, in media Sources you’ll see Instagram. Granting Access To start pulling from Instagram you need to let Instagram know that everything is cool. Clicking Grant Access will take you to Instagram to […]

MaxGalleria – Image Slider

Note:  This is an available option with Our Hometown’s WordPress platform. If you don’t see it as part of your menu options, you may need to submit a ticket to request turning it on. Options Gallery Skin: Standard, Silver, Kitt, Ghost and Black are the five main options for gallery skin that will adjust how the slider image looks as well as the dots that appear below the slider. Slider […]

MaxGalleria – Image Showcase

Note:  This is an available option with Our Hometown’s WordPress platform. If you don’t see it as part of your menu options, you may need to submit a ticket to request turning it on. The showcase features one large image on top of the thumbnails that changes whenever the thumbnails are clicked. Adjusting Gallery Settings Gallery Skin: MaxGalleria comes packaged with a few standard skins. Currently there are, No Border, […]

MaxGalleria – Image Carousel

Note:  This is an available option with Our Hometown’s WordPress platform. If you don’t see it as part of your menu options, you may need to submit a ticket to request turning it on. The Image Carousel add-on is only for image galleries. Adjusting Carousel Settings   Gallery Skin: Image Carousel comes packaged with a few standard skins. Currently there are, No Border, Picture Frame, Portal, Portal Dark, Standard, Standard […]

MaxGalleria – Facebook

Note:  This is an available option with Our Hometown’s WordPress platform. If you don’t see it as part of your menu options, you may need to submit a ticket to request turning it on. Authorizing Facebook: Once the plugin has been installed and activated, go to Galleries > Settings using the menu on the left side of the WordPress admin. Under “Media Sources” on the left side of the page, […]

MaxGalleria – Albums Guide

Note:  This is an available option with Our Hometown’s WordPress platform. If you don’t see it as part of your menu options, you may need to submit a ticket to request turning it on. Once you’ve clicked into albums you can add new albums. Albums were created to allow groupings of galleries, so when creating a new album, give it a name and then choose from your existing galleries that […]

MaxGalleria – Basic Image & Video Guide

Note:  This is an available option with Our Hometown’s WordPress platform. If you don’t see it as part of your menu options, you may need to submit a ticket to request turning it on. If you’d like to use your new gallery in a post or page, you can grab the shortcode in the bottom right of your Gallery Edit page, or use the “Add Gallery” option in the TinyMCE […]

Setting the Front Page

Navigate to the “Customize” area, either through “Appearance” on the dashboard, or on the top admin menu. From here, go to the “Static Front Page” menu option at the bottom of the Customizer. Set “Front page display” to “A static page”. Then select the front page you want to use from the drop-down below – select the front page template you created. Click “save & publish” to set live or […]

Choosing a Front Page Template

From our 1 & 2 column base homepage templates, you can create a variety of front page layouts that utilize widgetized areas for easy drag-and-drop layouts.While on the front page, click “edit page” to change templates for the front page, or locate the page marked as “front page” in your list of pages on the backend dashboard.If you don’t see an “edit page” button, go to Appearance > Customize > […]

Creating Article/PDF Categories

Login to your account at yoursitedomain.com/wp-admin.Locate “Articles” on the backend dashboard. When you hover your mouse it, select “Categories” from the menu that appears.Here you can create new categories. Enter the category you want to create under “Name”.You do not need to fill out “slug” as this will be automatically created. It is what displays for the category in URLs.If you want to have a parent category, set it here.A […]

Adding a New Article

Log in to your site at yoursite.com/wp-adminOnce you log in, you’ll be taken to the backend dashboard.Locate the “Articles” menu item.When you hover over it, a second menu will appear.From this menu, select “Add New”Other ways to add a new articleIf you select “All Articles” there is also an “Add New” button at the top of the page.In the top menu, there is also a menu item “+ New”. From […]

Non-widget Slider

On your dashboard menu, go to “Max Galleria” & click “add new gallery”.A pop-up will ask you if you want to an image or video gallery – select one.Start adding your images in from your desktop or media gallery. Click the “template” tab to decide what type of gallery or slider you want to use. Then click the “Options” tab to add additional style customization, if you would like. Some of these […]

Hero Ad Widget

The “hero ad” widget is located beneath the main logo/menu area on all pages EXCEPT your homepage.This allows you to easily upsell either article-specific space or homepage space to your advertisers.Horizontally-oriented banner ads, such as 728x90px ad size, fit well here.

Choosing a Slideshow Category

Add the slideshow widget to where you want to display it on the homepage, by going to “Customize > Widgets” choosing the “slider” widget. Once you’ve added the slider to the widgets area, a selection of options will appear.To choose the category you want to display, select a category from the drop-down “Category” options. These are the categories you have created for the articles on your site.If you want to learn how […]

What image is used in the slideshow widget?

Go to the article or PDF you want included in the slideshow.Click “edit” & scroll down the page to the “featured image” box on the right-hand side. If you’re using extraction, a featured image may already be set. You can click “remove image” to completely remove the featured image or click on the image to change the current featured image to something else.If no featured image is set, click “Set […]

Setting Your Paragraph Styles

After importing your file into inDesign, go to “window > styles > paragraph styles”Click “paragraph styles” to open a window with the 4 character types that were labeled during the XML export.Use the paragraph styles to apply changes throughout the document You can also set styles by individual story but setting universal styles save a great deal of time overall Right click on the paragraph type you want to change.Click “Edit (paragraph […]

Setting Your Font Styles

After importing your file into inDesign, go to “window > styles > character styles”Click “character styles” to open a window with the 4 character types that were labeled during the XML export.Use the character styles to apply changes throughout the documentYou can modify font styles in the stories individually, but universal styles save time overall Right click on the paragraph type you want to change.Click “Edit (paragraph type)” to open the style […]

Importing into InDesign

The following walk through the process of importing an XML file generated by our Reverse Publishing plugin and placing an article into an InDesign document. Create a new blank document in InDesign. If you have page dimensions, they should be set at this step. Go to the File menu and click Import XML. Select the XML file in the folder extracted from the zip file download. Make sure the Show XML […]

Exporting Your File

Go to your website’s homepage and add “/export” to the end of the URL. Select the edition you want to export from the drop down. Check the box to include the ads that are currently running on the site. These two fields are the character and paragraph styles, which can be set to label the data for inDesign.  Later this will be used to automatically style the articles during layout […]