GridWP Documentation

GridWP is a responsive gallery/grid-style WordPress theme for blogs, photography sites, and portfolios. GridWP 1.0.4 includes a fixed 3-column desktop posts grid with square thumbnails, two responsive navigation menus, a right sidebar, four footer columns, sticky primary-navigation and sidebar behavior, full-width templates for posts and pages, header social links, custom logo/header/background support, and Customizer theme options.

Method 1: Install via WordPress Dashboard (Recommended)

1. Log in to your WordPress Dashboard.
2. Navigate to Appearance → Themes → Add New.
3. Search for GridWP in the search box.
4. Click Install on the GridWP theme, then click Activate.

Method 2: Upload via WordPress Dashboard

1. Download the gridwp.zip theme file from WordPress.org.
2. Log in to your WordPress Dashboard.
3. Navigate to Appearance → Themes → Add New → Upload Theme.
4. Click Choose File, select the gridwp.zip file, and click Install Now.
5. After installation, click Activate.

Method 3: Upload via FTP/File Manager

1. Download the gridwp.zip theme file and extract it.
2. Connect to your server via FTP (FileZilla) or use your hosting File Manager.
3. Upload the extracted gridwp folder to /wp-content/themes/.
4. Go to your WordPress Dashboard → Appearance → Themes and activate GridWP.

You can import the demo content, widgets, and Customizer settings shown in the GridWP theme demo.

If your website already has existing posts with featured images, it's highly recommended to regenerate thumbnails after activating the GridWP theme. This ensures that all images match the new theme's layout and display sizes.

Regenerating thumbnails is optional if your site is completely new and doesn't have any uploaded images yet.

However, if you imported the demo content, regenerating thumbnails is essential to display images correctly across the site.

1. Install and activate the Regenerate Thumbnails plugin.
2. Go to Tools → Regenerate Thumbnails.
3. Click the "Regenerate Thumbnails for All x Attachments" button to start the process.
4. Wait until all images are regenerated. This may take a few minutes depending on your media library size.
5. If you want, you can deactivate and delete the plugin once the process is complete.

This step ensures clean image alignment and sharp visuals throughout your website using the GridWP theme.

GridWP supports the WordPress custom header image feature and can also use a post or page featured image in the header area on singular views.

How to add a header image

1. Go to Appearance → Customize → Header Image.
2. Click Add new image and choose or upload an image. The theme's registered header size is 1250 × 350 pixels, with flexible height enabled.
3. Crop the image if prompted, then click Publish.

How GridWP chooses the header image

• On archive, search, and home views, GridWP displays the configured custom header image.
• On a single post or page with a featured image, that featured image is used in the header area.
• If Hide Thumbnails from Posts/Pages is enabled, singular views fall back to the configured custom header image.
• Thumbnail Link controls whether the featured header image on singular content links to that post or page.
• Disable Featured Header Image prevents the theme's featured header-image area from being rendered.

This theme includes two Display Locations for menus: Primary Menu, and Secondary Menu.

Right after installing the theme, WordPress may display your existing pages as the default menu items in these locations. You can replace them with your own custom menus containing links, categories, pages, and more by following the steps below:

1. Go to Appearance → Menus and click the create a new menu link.
2. Enter a name for your menu in the Menu Name field.
3. Select a display location for your menu by checking one of the available options under Display location
4. Click the Create Menu button.
   
5. To add items to the menu, use the options in the left-hand column—select the pages, posts, categories, or tags you want, then click Add to Menu.
6. To create dropdown menus, simply drag and nest the submenu items beneath the parent menu item.
7. Once you've added your links, click the Save Menu button.

There are 13 widget areas in the GridWP theme. GridWP Free does not bundle custom widgets; use WordPress core widgets or plugins of your choice inside these areas.

1. Main Sidebar

   The right-hand sidebar used on layouts that include a sidebar.

2. Top Full Width Widgets (Home Page Only)

   A full-width widget area at the top of the homepage.

3. Top Full Width Widgets (Every Page)

   A full-width widget area at the top of every page.

4. Bottom Full Width Widgets (Home Page Only)

   A full-width widget area at the bottom of the homepage.

5. Bottom Full Width Widgets (Every Page)

   A full-width widget area at the bottom of every page.

6. Top Widgets (Home Page Only)

   A content-width widget area at the top of the homepage.

7. Top Widgets (Every Page)

   A content-width widget area at the top of every page.

8. Bottom Widgets (Home Page Only)

   A content-width widget area at the bottom of the homepage.

9. Bottom Widgets (Every Page)

   A content-width widget area at the bottom of every page.

10. Footer 1

    Footer column 1.

11. Footer 2

    Footer column 2.

12. Footer 3

    Footer column 3.

13. Footer 4

    Footer column 4.

GridWP includes two custom page templates you can use for full-width layouts without sidebars.

• Full Width, no sidebar (Page) — Template for pages (template-full-width-page.php)
• Full Width, no sidebar (Post) — Template for posts (template-full-width-post.php)

How to apply a template

1. Edit a page or post in the WordPress editor.
2. In the Page Attributes (or Post Attributes) panel, open the Template dropdown.
3. Select Full Width, no sidebar and update/publish.

To see GridWP's theme-specific Customizer options:

1. Go to your WordPress Dashboard.
2. Navigate to Appearance → Customize.
3. Click Theme Options.

GridWP is translation-ready and includes a translation template for creating localized versions of its interface text.

🌐 Translating the Theme

The theme includes a gridwp.pot file located in the /languages folder inside the theme directory. You can use this file to create translations in your own language using any of the following tools:

• Poedit – Desktop translation editor (view tutorial)
• Loco Translate – Translate the theme directly from your WordPress dashboard (view tutorial)

After translating, save your files as:

• gridwp-[language_code].po
• gridwp-[language_code].mo

Place them inside the /languages folder in the theme.

Here are some best practices to improve your site's performance and SEO when using GridWP:

• Use a caching plugin — Install W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache, or LiteSpeed Cache to improve page load times.
• Optimize images — Use plugins like Imagify or EWWW Image Optimizer to compress images.
• Use a CDN — A Content Delivery Network (e.g., Cloudflare) serves your content from servers closest to your visitors.
• Install an SEO plugin — Use Yoast SEO or Rank Math to manage meta tags, sitemaps, and structured data.
• Keep WordPress updated — Always use the latest versions of WordPress, themes, and plugins.
• Minimize plugins — Only keep the plugins you actually use.
• Use quality hosting — A good hosting provider makes a significant difference in performance.
• Set featured images — Always set a featured image for posts to ensure proper display in the grid layout and when sharing on social media.

In this section, you'll find quick answers to the most frequently asked questions about using the GridWP theme. If you can't find your answer here, you can contact our support team for more help.

This section covers common technical problems you may encounter. If your issue isn't listed, reach out to our support team.

The GridWP theme is released under the GNU General Public License v2.0 (GPL v2). You can use the theme on unlimited websites and modify the code.

What's included in free support:

• Help with theme installation and setup
• Bug fixes and troubleshooting related to the theme
• Guidance on using built-in theme features

What's not included in free support (but available as paid tasks):

• Theme customization or resolving third-party plugin conflicts
• Custom coding or feature implementation requests
• Performance tuning, SEO setup, or server configuration assistance

If you need help, please contact us. We typically respond within 24-48 hours on working days.

Contact Support

Upgrade to GridWP PRO

For more features including color options, font options, news ticker, related posts, and much more, consider upgrading to GridWP PRO.

The following is a log of all updates and changes made to GridWP. We recommend always using the latest version.

GridWP uses the date format configured by WordPress when it displays published dates in post summaries and single-post metadata. To change it, go to Settings → General → Date Format. You can select a preset or enter a custom value using the PHP date formatting rules supported by WordPress. GridWP 1.0.4 does not provide a separate theme-specific date-format control.