The purpose behind Portfolios is to add multiple projects with the use of additional details and essentially to help showcase your work.

Portfolios can serve many purposes, such as:

1. Showcase your past and current Projects.
2. Showcase your photography sessions.
3. Showcase your traveling / adventures.
4. Outside the box usage: Shopping Carts.
5. Outside the box usage: Product Display.

The possibilities are limited only to your imaginations.

Often we’re asked, “What is the difference between Galleries and Portfolios” and we’ve created a specific post that explains that in detail.

Portfolios are quite simple to use and we’ll explain how now.

Creating Portfolio Categories

The first thing you want to do when creating a Portfolio is to “Create Your Categories” for the use of the Portfolio Items you will publish.

This Portfolio Categories will help in categorizing your items, but more importantly, they’re used to create your Portfolio Pages specifically.

In this tutorial, we’ll create a “Photos” and “Videos” portfolio.

So first, head to your WordPress Dashboard, locate the “Portfolio” sidebar item and when it expand to show more, click on “Categories”.

Create your desired Portfolio categories, ie., “Photos” and “Videos”.

Creating the Portfolio Page

Next we want to create the “Page” that will house those two individual Portfolio categories. So find the “Pages” menu item, select “Add New”.

Inside this new page we’re creating, we will give it a title, ours will be “Photos”. Afterward, you will repeat the steps for the “Videos” page.

Next, in the right side column, locate “Page Attributes” and here you will see a drop-down for Page Templates and select the “Portfolio Page”.

Now so far, we’ve given this page a “Title” and informed the page when published it is to be a “Portfolio Page” and will call the Portfolio items.

Next we will go to the “Write-Panel” options, located just beneath the “Content / Text Editor” and you will see it says “KingSize Page Options”.

The first item you will see here is “Portfolio Categories”. It is important you have created the Categories for your portfolios previously as explained, otherwise no categories will be displayed here. If you have completed the steps in order, you should already see listed “Photos” and “Videos”. For this page, we’ll be using the “Photos” Category.

Portfolio Page Options

Beneath this, you will see “Portfolio OrderBy” and this allows you to assign a specific order to your Portfolio items on this page.

Your choices are:

Default: DESC by Date* – this basically means they will show in order of the date posted from the most recent to the oldest portfolio item added.

*If you do not select an order, this above will be default.

Random Order: This will list the items at random each time the page is reloaded. Your portfolio items will always appear in a random order.

Custom ID Order: This allows you to organize your portfolio items in order of preference. When creating a Portfolio item, you can assign it an “ID”. For example, “1, 2, 3, 4…” and they will appear on the page created in that specified order you have assigned them to display as.

ASC by Date: will display the posts in order of oldest to most recent.

Additionally, you can define the “Page Background” custom to that page by uploading it within the write-panel options, either using a Video or Image background. Beneath these will follow options corresponding with your background selection to either “hide the navigation and body” to show the fullscreen video, or etc.

Creating your Portfolio Items

Now that we have created our Portfolio Page and Categories, we want to continue on by adding our newly created Portfolio Items / Posts.

Inside your Dashboard, locate the “Portfolio” menu and select the “Add New” option when it expands out with the sublevel menu options.

First we’ll add our Portfolio Post Title.

Next we’ll select “Photos” as our category (this means it will now show up in that Photos Portfolio Page we’ve previously created above).

Using the Content / Text Editor, you can add in your desired contents.

Portfolio Item Write-Panel Options

Beneath the Content / Text Editor, we again will find our “Write-Panel” with options pertaining specifically to this Portfolio Item we’ll be creating. By default, none of these items are required to be used, but in order to use the Portfolios to serve their full purpose, a few of these options would likely be necessary for your usage.

Background: If you want to use a custom background image, you would attach / insert the link to that image here.

Custom Read More Text: This allows you to add in your own text to override the default for that specific portfolio item (ie., Read More).

Custom Read More Link: Should you wish to link this to something else (ie., Clients Website, etc), then you would insert the link. By leaving this blank it will link directly to the Portfolio Item you have just created.

Disable the Read More Button: If you don’t want this button, disable it.

Lightbox on Portfolio Item: By default, lightbox is enabled on the thumbnails in the Portfolio page. However should you wish to disable this you can by selecting disable here.

Background Slider Category ID: This is used if you want a Background Slider on this specific page. This corresponds with the Slider post-type. Just insert the ID of the Slider Category you want to use and this post will then use that Slider you’ve specified for this post.

Custom Portfolio Background Video: You can insert the URL of a video you may wish to use for the background of your Portfolio Item.

Custom Video Background Options: Beneath the video URL option you will have corresponding options available.

Photo vs Video Portfolio Usage

When creating a Portfolio Item, you are either creating it for “Videos” or “Photos”. You can select one or the other for each Portfolio Item.

Photo Portfolio Items

Continuing where we left off in the write-panel options, next you will see “Image/Photo Portfolio Thumbnail Settings“.

This area is specific to Images / Photos and is not to be used when creating Portfolio Items for the purpose of Videos.

Here we will select the Photo or our choice for the use of the Portfolio Item we are creating. Select an image from your computer using the “Browse” button. This image will be used as the Portfolio Item thumbnail, but will also be appearing in the lightbox when that item is clicked (of course, that is if you’ve enabled lightbox).

Adding More Lightbox Images for Photo Portfolio Items

Wish to display more than just one image when lightbox is opened in the Portfolio Page? Have you multiple images you wish to showcase? To add more images, simply click the “Upload / Insert” button and attach more images to this post. Do not insert them into the post. Just attach them to it and they will display in the lightbox when clicked as it has been designed to pull attachments from this portfolio item.

Video Portfolio Items

Using the write-panel section labeled “Video Portfolio – Thumbnail & Video Settings” you can upload a thumbnail for your Portfolio Item and also insert the URL for the video you’re wanting to use for this item.

For the use of Vimeo and YouTube, simply copy and paste the URL into the appropriate field. For Flash, HTML5 and other formats, use the “Embed” box to insert your embed codes.

Conclusion of the Portfolio Tutorial

It is our hopes that with all the details provided above, you will have a clear understanding of how Portfolios work. Should you have issues or misunderstandings of how these work, please do not hesitate to write us. Additionally, be sure to checkout the Video Tutorials we’ve included.

It’s a commonly question we are asked:

What’s the difference between Galleries and Portfolios?

Galleries

These are single page collections of images that when clicked will open in lightbox to display the images you’ve chosen to upload / attach to that Page/Post. There is no pagination and you cannot assign links to Gallery images so when clicked opens in a new page. At least not when using one of our 5 customized galleries in KingSize.

Galleries, in short, are to provide you with the ability to share multiple photos within a single page/post that enable you to have a dynamic effect when clicked (ie., open in lightbox). You can assign various gallery types (ie., Colorbox, Fancybox, Galleria, PrettyPhoto and SlideViewer). You may choose to use various layouts (ie., 2 columns, 3 columns, 4 columns and grid layouts).

They’re great for using inside Portfolio items to share additional images and for including inside your posts to share images and experiences.

Portfolios

Unlike the use of Galleries, Portfolios allow for the use of “Pagination” and will allow you to link to the “single portfolio item” you’ve created, or link to other pages and websites using the “Custom Link” options within the Portfolio write-panel.

Similar to Galleries, you can assign a thumbnail that when clicked is opened in lightbox (although at this time in version 4 and lower, the only lightbox available for Portfolios is PrettyPhoto although in a later version we’ll be including options so you can customize which lightbox effects are used for Portfolios).

Portfolios allow you to expand on the single item – for example, if you’re a web developer, or photographer, you can use a “Featured Image” as your main thumbnail and when clicked, the user / visitor is taken to single Portfolio item post where additional details are found that share a overview of the project / experience.

*Since the release of WordPress Version 3.5 the method of adding media files has changed a little. Mostly, the user-interface has been modified and causes some confusion. We have created some additional (updated) tutorials that will help.

WordPress 3.5 – How to create Galleries with Shortcodes.
WordPress 3.5 – How to create Galleries with Page Templates.

In our original release of KingSize WordPress, galleries were restricted to pages only and this hampered some of our buyers flexibility – for that we apologize. In our latest release, version 4, we’ve created a new post type custom to the galleries usage called “Gallery”. It’s sole purpose is to house the galleries you wish to create and allows you to then use a “Shortcode” to call them into various areas of your website (ie., Posts, Pages, Portfolios, etc).

Now if you’re a buyer from the past, you likely will be thinking to yourself, “What will happen to my old galleries then?” and the answer is “Nothing!” – Absolutely nothing will happen. They will still remain just as they were, no changes at all. In KingSize WordPress, you have two methods of creating Galleries. One is to create it using the “Page Template” and the new and improved way is to create them using the post-type “Gallery”.

Creating a Gallery with Page Templates

This method is restrictive to Pages only and it still remains so we do not disrupt the past-buyers usage of the page templates. However, some folks may still wish to use them and we’ll go about explaining how they work and how you can create a Gallery using these page templates.

1. Log into your WordPress Dashboard.
2. Locate the “Pages” post-type and create a new page.
3. Title your page and add the text of your choice if desired.
4. To the right, you will see “Page Attributes“.
5. Inside this area you will see a drop-down to select from pre-created page templates (there are 5 gallery choices).
6. Locate the “Gallery Template” of your choice (ie., PrettyPhoto, SlideViewer, Fancybox, Colorbox, Galleria) and make your selection (view our demonstration site to see the differences).
7. Now at the top of your content editor, locate and click “Upload / Insert” to attach / upload your desired images.
8. When the new window opens, you may now upload the desired photos of your choice from within your computer.
9. Once you’ve uploaded the photos, click “Save“.
10. Now you can go to the “Gallery” tab and customize those image Titles/Descriptions and order to suit your preference.
11. To change the order they’re displayed, just drag and drop.
12. Now that you’ve uploaded your photos and made your edits, click “Save Changes” prior to closing out the window.
13. To close out the window, click the “X” or click outside the box.
14. Now, look in the write-panel beneath the Content/Text editor and there is an area titled “KingSize Page Options“.
15. Here you will find an option labeled “Gallery Page Layouts” (2 columns, 3 columns, 4 columns and grid layout) – just select a layout for your gallery to display on the site.
16. Additionally, you can add custom backgrounds and other options to this page being created.
17. Now “Publish” the newly created gallery page and those images will be displayed within the frontend of your website.

IMPORTANT NOTE: When you’re creating a “Page Gallery” using the “Page Template”, DO NOT INSERT the photos you have uploaded into your page. This will cause your page to have a duplicate gallery. One will display the native WordPress Media Gallery, the other will display the custom Gallery you’ve selected from the page templates. Our galleries are designed to dynamically pull and generate those uploaded images into the page contents on the frontend of your website once published. So there is no need to “insert” the galleries into your pages.

Creating a Gallery using the Gallery Post-type

There are many advantages to using the “Gallery Posts” verses creating with Gallery Page Templates.

1. You can insert the Gallery into any page/post you desire.
2. You can re-use the gallery multiple times as desired.
3. You have a variety of options to customize that gallery.
4. They use shortcodes to be inserted into various areas.
5. Can create and manage galleries easily within one area.

These are only 5 of the benefits to using the Gallery Post-type verses the Gallery Page Templates.

Oh, and it’s of course easier to create as well! with more options!

Follow these steps to create a Gallery:

1. Locate within your dashboard sidebar, “Gallery”.
2. Select the “Add New” option.
3. Give your gallery a unique name for organization.
4. Just above the title area, click “Upload/Insert”.
5. Now just as you would uploading your images to the “Page Templates”, you want to repeat those steps. So now that you’ve clicked the “Upload / Insert” link, a new window will open to display an “Upload” box. Here you can select from your desktop which photos you want to upload to this gallery.
6. Once those images have uploaded, you can click the “Gallery” tab in that window and edit the Titles / Description and/or organize their order displayed by dragging and dropping them.
7. That’s it. You’re done. Now save your changes and publish.

So now you’ve uploaded your images to the newly created post within your Gallery post-type, what next? How do we display those images? It’s quite simple. This post you created will NOT display on the frontend of your website until you’ve called it by using a gallery shortcode and each gallery is assigned an ID when you’ve created it.

To locate the Gallery ID, go to “Galleries” where you can view all the gallery posts. Inside this area you will see a column labeled ID. You will need this ID when creating your shortcode.

Here’s the shortcode for example that you would use:

[img_gallery id="" type="" layout="" orderby="" order="" description="" placement=""]

Here’s an example Gallery using Shortcodes

[img_gallery id="71" type="colorbox" layout="2" orderby="random" order="DESC" description="This gallery is created using the Colorbox 2 Column Layout with a Description shown Below the gallery." placement="below"]

This gallery is created using the Colorbox 2 Column Layout with a Description shown Below the gallery using the shortcode shown above.

Greetings & Salutations!

Creating a blog page couldn’t be any easier and following these steps you should walk through the process with no troubles at all.

1. First log into your WordPress Dashboard.
2. Now go to “Pages” and create a new page.
3. Once inside pages, give your page a title such as “Blog“.
4. To the right of the content area, find “Page Attributes“.
5. From the drop-down, select the “Blog Template“.
6. Once the blog template is selected, hit “Publish“.

Now that’s it. You’ve created a “Blog” page. This page template you’ve selected called “Blog” is designed to pull ALL ‘posts’ into the blog page. So when creating a new post, that will now automatically be published to that page you’ve just created.

Now you want to add that new blog page you’ve created to your website navigation so head to “Appearance > Menu”.

1. If you’ve already created your menu, then simply locate in the left column the “Pages” block / module.
2. By default it will display the most recently created pages. Locate “Blog” and click “Add to Menu“.
3. Once it has been added to the menu, you can now drag and drop that menu item in the position of your choice.
4. Now you’ve located where you want the menu item positioned, click the “Save Menu” button and voila!

Head to the frontend of your website (whatever your website URL may be) and you should now see it in the menu.

Let’s now expand on this a little.

Some people will want to create “blog specific categories“, or in other words, multiple blogs and to do this we have to take a little different of an approach. The “Blog Template” is designed to pull all blog posts, so using this template you cannot create multiple blogs. However, you can create “Categories“ inside your “Posts” post-type specific to the multiple blog pages you’re wanting. So let’s say I want to create a blog for “Tutorials” and another for “Travels” and another for “Photography in a Day” for example, I would first create these as “Post Categories“.

Next, you want to head to the “Appearance > Menus” like you’ve done before but this time instead of assigning to your menu a page, we’ll be assigning a “Category”. In most cases, this should by default appear beneath the “Pages” module – you should see a block / module titled “Categories“. Inside here, will display all the Post Categories you’ve created. Now select the categories you’re wanting as specific blogs and add them to your menu.

That’s it. Save the menu and repeat the steps above for positioning and it will now appear on the frontend of your website and you can click there to find those specific posts.

When creating those posts, assign them to the specifically created categories so now they’ll appear in the category you’ve selected.

Keep in mind, if you did create a “Blog Page” using the blog template, these posts will still also appear within this page as it does pull all the posts you’ve created into this page.