• created: 03/01/2015
• latest update: 03/28/2015
• by: Slashdown
• themeforest.net/user/Slashdown
• email: info@slashdown.nl

First of all, thank you for purchasing the Wordpress version of Starhotel. It took a lot of design and development hours to get Starhotel where it should be. Especially passion was the key ingredient to create a super flexible, user-friendly Wordpress theme. The fun thing is that it isn’t even finished, because it should be the best hotel theme out there and that’s why it’s getting updated all the time.

Keeping up-to-date with Starhotel

To receive updates follow these steps:

• Go to the “Download” page at Themeforest and check “Get notified by email if this item is updated”. And while you’re at it, you would make us so freaking happy if you would rate Starhotel :-)

What’s in the download

• Documentation 
• Theme files - You can unzip it and upload the ZIP inside of it (starhotel.zip) directly into Wordpress and if that doesn’t work you can always extract it in the /themes folder of your Wordpress installation.
• PSD files
• Demo Data(Wordpress XML and Revolution Slider)

Wordpress installation(beginners)

To install Wordpress it’s a wise idea that you read the official Wordpress documentation first, unless you’re an experienced administrator. 

Please check out the following documentation:  First Steps With Wordpress 

Or  Take a look at the WooCommerce instruction video

If you run into Wordpress trouble that is not theme related, please check the FAQ first: FAQ Wordpress for Beginners

The installation of the Starhotel theme can be done two ways. One, you can upload the theme ZIP file using the standard WordPress theme upload or two, extract the theme in the /themes/ folder of your Wordpress folder through an FTP client.

Wordpress Upload instructions

Please make sure that you extract the file "starhotel.zip" from the ThemeForest download ZIP first before you start uploading the theme. If you do upload the ThemeForest ZIP file directly it will give a "Missing Stylesheet" error. Please follow these steps to upload the theme.

1. Login to the WordPress admin.
2. Go to "Appearance > Themes" and click "Install Themes" tab
3. At the top of the page, click "Upload", after that you can select the ZIP file
4. Select "starhotel.zip", and click "Install Now"
5. In the end you’ll receive a success message confirming your new installation
6. Click the”Activate" link to activate the theme

FTP Upload

1. Login to your FTP server and go to your Wordpress themes folder(wp-content/themes/)
2. Extract the zipped theme on your computer
3. Upload the ‘Starhotel’ folder to the themes directory
4. When the uploading is complete, login to your Wordpress admin panel
5. Go to “Appearance > Themes”
6. Click “Activate” to activate Starhotel and activate the theme
7. When the installation is complete, activate Starhotel by clicking the “Activate” link of Starhotel

Plug-ins(Important!)

Before you start to use Starhotel it is essential that you install the plugins first. Without these plugins the theme won’t function correctly.

1. Go to “Plugin > Installed Plugins”
2. Install the following: Contact Form 7, Meta Box, Revolution Slider, Starhotel plug-ins, WPBakery Visual Composer
3. Activate the plugins after installation 

There are multiple demo data’s that you can import: Wordpress, Revolution Slider and Contact Form 7.

Wordpress

1. Go to “Tools” > “Import” and select the option “Wordpress” 
2. Download and install the Import tool if it’s not installed yet
3. Select “Starhotel-demo-content.xml” from the package file
4. Complete the installation process

Revolution Slider

1. Make sure Revolution Slider is installed and activated first
2. Go to “Revolution Slider”
3. Click “Import Slider” 
4. Select “Starhotel-revolution-slider.zip” from the package file

Contact Form 7

To use the Contact Form7 Starhotel style, simply replace the default mail code with:

<p><label><span class="required">*</span> Your Name</label><br />
    [text* your-name] </p>
<p><label><span class="required">*</span> E-mail</label><br />
    [email* your-email] </p>
<p><label><span class="required">*</span> Subject</label><br />
    [text your-subject] </p>
<p><label><span class="required">*</span> Your message</label><br />
    [textarea your-message] </p>
[submit class:btn class:btn-lg class:btn-primary]

Default homepage

When you’ve completed the installation it’s time to set the default homepage. By default the blog page is set as the homepage by Wordpress. To change this do as follow:

1. Go to “Pages” > “Add new”
2. Enter a page title and change the template to “Revolution Slider with Reservation Form”
3. Click “Publish”
4. Next go to “Settings” > “Reading”
5. From “Front page displays” choose “A static page (select below)”
6. Choose the page that you just created from the dropdown as “Front page”

Menu 

Starhotel makes use of the standard Wordpress setup to create your menu/navigation. To create your menu do as following:

1. Go to “Appearances > Menus” 
2. Click “Create menu”
3. Make sure that “theme locations” is checked in the menu settings at the bottom
4. Setup your menu

Footer and Sidebar

There are 5 widget area’s available in Starhotel, four of those widget area’s belong to the footer, the other one to the sidebar. The footer is always on a page, the sidebar is only available for the blog. You can drag all widgets into these area’s. To edit these area’s do as following:

1. Go to “Appearances > Widgets”
2. Drag you widget from the left into the area on the right
3. Edit the widget to your wishes

Starhotel Theme Options

The Theme options are easy to find at the bottom of the admin sidebar. Here you can set all options for Starhotel like: General, Typography, Colour Settings, Background, Header Settings, Footer Settings, Reservation Form, Google Maps Settings, Social Links, Custom Code and Import/Export.

Pretty URL’s

If you like to have pretty URL’s do as follow:

1. Go to “Settings > Permalinks”
2. Click on “Custom structure”
3. Set Permalinks to: /%category%/%postname%/
4. Save changes

You’ve got a couple of options when it comes to creating pages. You can use existing templates or create your own custom page. 

Default template

The default template is an empty template containing the header and footer. You can edit the content of this page with the Visual Composer or with the standard Wordpress WYSIWYG editor. To create the default template, do as follow:

1. Go to “Pages” > “Add new”
2. Enter a new page title and set the template to “Default template”
3. Click “Publish” and preview the result    

Rooms

The rooms page is filled by rooms that you can create in the Rooms menu. You have to create an individual room first before creating the rooms page. To create a room, do as follow:

1. Go to “Rooms” > “New Room”
2. Here you should enter the room title, content, gallery images, preview image, roomtype or multiple room types separated by comma (will be used as the filter in the overview page), preview image and preview block details.
3. Click ‘Publish’ when you’re finished. Your room will automatically be added to the overview page, detail page and reservation form.
4. To create the rooms overview page go to “Pages” > “Add new”
5. Enter a page title and set the template to “Rooms”
6. Click “Publish” and preview the result    

Gallery

The gallery is filled by images that you upload separately in the Gallery menu. Creating the build-in gallery should be done as follow:

1. Go to “Gallery” > “Add new”
2. Below the WYSIWYG editor you’ll see “imagegallery”, click “Upload image”
3. Select an image you want to use and add a tag or multiple tags separated by comma. These tag(s) will be used as the gallery filter(s) on top of the gallery overview page.
4. Click “Insert into Post”
5. When you're satisfied with the images you’ve inserted, click “Publish”
6. Go to “Pages” > “Add new”
7. Enter a page title and set the template to “Gallery”
8. Click “Publish” and preview the result    

Blog

Starhotel makes use of the default blog functionality of Wordpress. 

To create a blog post do as follow:

1. Go to “Post” > “Add new”
2. Add the title, content(use the “Insert Read More tag to create the intro text”), category(important for hierarchy), tags(for widgets), and featured image(f.i. 940x344 pixels)
3. Click Publish and preview the post

To create a blog overview page do as follow:

1. Go to “Post” > “Categories”
2. Create a new category and give the name and slug “Blog” f.i.
3. Edit the category that you’ve just added to your blog post
4. Make “Blog” it’s parent and click “Update”

Starhotel makes use of the following plug-ins: Visual Composer, Revolution Slider, Contact Form 7 and WPML (supported, not included). It’s essential that you install all plugins described in the “2.Install Starhotel” chapter, otherwise the theme won’t work. 

Visual Composer

Visual Composer is the content management tool that let’s you create pages/layouts without having any knowledge of HTML or other coding languages. It’s highly recommended to use, because the shortcodes (like reservation form, parallax image etc.) of Starhotel are mapped into Visual Composer.

Visual Composer is by default activated for pages only. You can activate Visual Composer as follow:

1. Go to “Settings” > “Visual Composer”
2. In “Content type” check Post, Page and/or Room
3. Click “Save Changes”

To use the Visual Composer do as follow: 

1. Go to a page, post or room 
2. Click on an existing page, post or room, or create a new one
3. Click on the “Back-end” or “Front-end” button
4. From here click “Add element” or  “Add Element” and enjoy all the freedom that Visual Composer offers to you. Don’t forget to publish/update to preview your work.

Please visit: https://wpbakery.atlassian.net/wiki/display/VC/Introduction to read the full Visual Composer documentation.

Revolution Slider

Revolution Slider is pretty straight forward. To learn more about the Revolution Slider go to: http://revolution.themepunch.com/documentation/

You can use the Revolution Slider that you create at any page by selecting it in Visual Composer as an element or you can use the page template “Revolution Slider with Reservation Form” to display your slider.

Import the Starhotel Revolution slider if you want to use the Starhotel styles in the slider.

Contact Form 7

CF7 is ideal to create custom forms. It has got no connection with the reservation form.

1. To create a contact form go to “Contact” > “Add New”
2. Create a new contact form or use the Starhotel version:

   <p><label><span class="required">*</span> Your Name</label><br />
       [text* your-name] </p>
   <p><label><span class="required">*</span> E-mail</label><br />
       [email* your-email] </p>
   <p><label><span class="required">*</span> Subject</label><br />
       [text your-subject] </p>
   <p><label><span class="required">*</span> Your message</label><br />
       [textarea your-message] </p>
   [submit class:btn class:btn-lg class:btn-primary]

3. Don’t forget to fill in your email address
4. Click “Save” and create a new page or edit an existing one
5. Use the Visual Composer to insert the Contact Form 7 form and publish/update your page

WPML (not included)

Starhotel supports the popular page/post translation plugin WPML that you can use to translate all pages individually. It’s not allowed for resell, so you’ll have to purchase it if you want to use it at: https://wpml.org/

If you have it installed and want to use it you’ll have to set it up in the “Theme Options” > Enable “Top Header: WPML Language”.

There are two options when it comes to updating Starhotel to the latest version: Wordpress upload or FTP upload.

Update by Wordpress upload

1. Download the latest version of Starhotel from Themeforest
2. Unzip the main Starhotel file to your computer
3. Login to Wordpress and go to “Appearance” > “Themes”
4. Activate a default Wordpress theme like “Twenty Fifteen”
5. “Delete” the old “Starhotel" theme
6. Install and activate your latest version of Starhotel  

Update by FTP

1. Download the latest version of Starhotel from Themeforest
2. Unzip the main Starhotel file to your computer
3. From this unzipped folder, unzip the Stahotel.zip theme
4. Open your FTP application of choice and connect to your server.
5. Navigate to your “themes” directory: /wp-content/themes/
6. Replace the unzipped starhotel theme folder and overwrite all files.
7. Login to Wordpress and go to “Appearance” > “Themes” and make sure your latest version is installed and activated

2 basic PSD files are included into this download. The following pages were designed:

• Home
• Hotel-List

Please note that all PSD files are layered and organised into folders. The grid is based upon the Twitter Bootstrap grid. And all icons were used from fontAwesome.

Wordpress Plugins

• Redux Framework
• Visual Composer
• Bootstrap Navwalker
• Contact Form 7
• Meta Box
• Revolution Slider
• TGM activation

jQuery Plug-ins

• jQuery
• jQueryUI
• Waypoints
• Owl Carousel
• Isotope
• Gmap
• Nicescroll
• PrettyPhoto
• Sticky
• jQuery Parallax

CSS Plug-ins

• Animate

Images

Images in the demo are downloaded from: http://www.photodune.net and www.thinkstockphotos.com Please contact if you want to purchase a specific image used in the preview version.

Icons

• Fontawesome

Fonts

• Google Fonts 

HTML/CSS Framework

• Bootstrap

Once again, thank you for purchasing this theme. Starhotel has been a huge project and has been tested on all kind of browsers, devices, people, but off course you can run into problems. If that is the case please contact us, so help can be provided! If you have a more general question relating to the themes on ThemeForest, you might consider visiting the forums and asking your question in the "Item Discussion" section.

Slashdown