Pegasus -Showcase Portfolio WordPress Theme

1. What should be the 'standard size' for images?

2. How to change the color of a Contact Form 7 placeholder text

3. How do I upgrade the theme? Will I lose all my changes?

4. Map is not displayed properly

5. Background shows as clear even though it is set to white

6. How to optimise the speed of my website?

7. How can I add my own custom icons/fonts to the theme?

8. My fullscreen parallax image is not responsive and does not scale well

The standard we use is to have 1600px width for full-width images and 800px width for thumbnails

If you are using Adobe Photoshop, save images with 60% quality.

Add this CSS code to theme options -> styling options -> custom css:

::-webkit-input-placeholder { /* WebKit browsers */
color: #000 !important;
opacity: 1;
}
:-moz-placeholder { /* Mozilla Firefox 4 to 18 */
color: #000 !important;
opacity: 1;
}
::-moz-placeholder { /* Mozilla Firefox 19+ */
color: #000 !important;
opacity: 1;
}
:-ms-input-placeholder { /* Internet Explorer 10+ */
color: #000 !important;
opacity: 1;
}

To upgrade the theme:

Download the latest version from envato (installable Wordpress file)

In admin dashboard: 

remove the old theme and install the new version

using FTP remove the theme folder from /wp-content/themes/ and then copy the new version

You will not lose the changes if you added content, uploaded media or changed theme/page options.

if you haven't modified the theme files you should be fine.

if there is an error in browser's console stating:

Google Maps API error: MissingKeyMapError

you need to create a google maps api key as described in this article:

https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/get-api-key

Make sure you authorize the contact page url containing the map when you create the key.

then go to theme options -> map options -> google maps api key and paste it there

There are two options regarding loading portfolio/project showcase slides: using AJAX or regular loading.

The problem is caused by the fact row's background options/attributes are not loaded with AJAX

If you select regular loading you will not have any difficulties with visual composer rows styles.

If you want to keep the nice inline effects and you select loading showcase slides with AJAX, visual composer is bypassed and you will not see row's styles.

To solve this you need to add the CSS styles as raw html content at the end of the slide content. 

As step-by-step guide:

A. press Classic Mode Visual composer button 

B. you will see a in the content several  .vc_custom_.... codes

C. copy them

D. open the raw html at the bottom of the posts content

E. Paste it there inside 

<style data-type="vc_shortcodes-custom-css" type="text/css"> ... </style>

That's all. 

If you don't want to bother with these steps set 'Load Slides Content With Ajax' to 'No' in portfolio page options

One of the main reasons the site is slow is that you may have lots of images which are not optimised for web.

https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/performance/optimizing-content-efficiency/image-optimization?hl=en

To check which images slow down the site. If you go to chrome, and right click and the 'Inspect' you will see a 'Network' tab which helps you monitor the loading time for all elements.

Click on the 'time' column to sort the entries.

Second you can use one of the WordPress cache plugins to deliver cached content:

https://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/top-wordpress-caching-plugins/

Third, compress your images  using a plugin such as WP Smush

Fourth, optimize your WordPress installation using a plugin like WP-Optimize.

Fifth, use a CDN (Content Delivery Network) to deliver your content over the web. 

Try uploading the files somewhere as a subfolder of the theme and then use @font-face to create a font family.

And then simply add the font-family style for each element you want to have that font.

See here for a description of the process:

http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/custom-fonts-css/

You can edit style.css or use customizer -> Additional CSS

When the browser displays a fullscreen image will do so taking three factors in account:

- display resolution (width and height)

- display mode (portrait or landscape)

- image aspect ratio (width vs height)

So to display using the current resolution and display mode and preserving the aspect ratio, the browser will crop the image: in portrait will preserve the height whereas in landscape mode will preserve the width, cropping the rest that does not fit in current res.

The attached images visually explains the cropping process.