Features & Support

Version 1.2.3 - Purchase - $49

Ballard is a minimalist, responsive, and super-customizable theme. You can use Ballard’s simple and elegant default look or customize the design to make it appear completely different. Like our other themes, Ballard offers features that no other themes provide: the Sticky Post and Featured Posts. Read more about Ballard’s features below and feel free to contact us for support.



Posts

Ballard offers a unique design for every single post type: Text, Photo, Photoset, Panorama, Quote, Link, Chat, Audio, Video, and Answer. Each post displays with the date and time, source, notes, and tags. In addition, Ballard gives you the ability to share posts with the most popular social networks and feature posts in a couple different ways that no other theme does (besides the other themes Storyware has developed).

Featured Posts

The featured tag enables you to display the most recent posts of a specific tag. For example, it allows bloggers to display their most recent original articles, musicians or music lovers to display their most recent audio tracks, or photographers to display their most recent photographs. In short, it’s designed to give you an opportunity to highlight your featured posts long after they have fallen off the first page of your blog.

Ballard displays featured posts in the footer. You may be wondering, How many featured posts can I display? As many as the Tumblr API allows, which is currently 20, but this might change over time. Use the “Featured Count” option to specify the number of posts you would like to show .

To enable the featured tag, all you have to do within the customize section is:

  • Insert a tag in the featured tag text box
  • Use that tag on at least one post
  • Define the label for the featured heading
  • Adjust the featured post count

Sticky Post

With Ballard you have the ability to “stick” one post at the top of your blog regardless of the date and time of the post.

Let’s say you always want to display at the top of your blog:

  • An “About Me” post
  • Your most recent original long-form blog post
  • An introductory video
  • A quote that you live by, or
  • An advertisement

The sticky post feature allows you to do any of these things. With the sticky tag you can highlight whatever you want in your blog’s top spot. (The theme will not display the sticky post twice on your blog and it will only appear at the top of your blog.)

The sticky post also works on the mobile version of Ballard, but is not supported on the default Tumblr mobile layout.

Here’s how you set it up: In the customize section, enter the sticky tag and use that tag on the post that you would like to always display at the top of your blog. The most recent blog post with the sticky tag will always appear at the top.

Sharing Posts

Ballard enables you to display share buttons for the following social networks: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Instapaper, and Tumblr. Within the customize section, check the “Show Sharing Features” box to turn on this feature. Please note that the Tumblr button will only be displayed on permalink pages. The Pinterest button is only used for photo (not photoset) and audio posts (only if album art exists).

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Photos

Instagram Photos

You can display your latest Instagram photos with the Ballard theme. The photos will appear in the footer of Ballard. In order to display your Instagram photos, you will need to get and copy your Instagram access token here and then paste it in the “Instagram Token” field within the customize section of Ballard.

You can also enter a heading/label that is displayed with the Instagram section and the number of photos to display within the Instagram section.

Flickr Photos

You can display your latest Flickr photos with the Ballard theme. The photos will appear in the footer of Ballard. In order to display your Flickr photos, you will need to get and copy the Flickr ID associated with the Flickr account and then paste it in the “Flickr ID” field customize section within the Ballard theme. 

You should also enter a heading/label that is displayed with the Flickr section and the number of photos to display within the Flickr section.

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Comments and Notes

Disqus

You can add comments to Ballard by using Disqus. If you have an account, you will copy the Disqus shortname you designated for your blog when setting up your Disqus account and paste it into the “Disqus shortname” field in the blog’s customize section.

Notes

Ballard will display the notes that you receive with each and every post. To turn on this feature, please check the “Show Notes” box in the customize section.

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Music

exfm

exfm is one of our favorite music services. Ballard includes several exfm features for the music lover.

  • exfm site player - When people visit your blog, they can play all of your audio posts (excluding Spotify posts) without having to click each post by using the exfm music player. The exfm music player will display at the bottom right of the browser window. You can also customize the color of the player. See the Colors section for more detail.
  • Now Playing on exfm - Ballard will display the song you are currently listening to on ex.fm in the footer if you provide your exfm username in the customize section of Ballard.
  • Artist search - If you include the Artist name with an audio post, it will display as a link to the exfm search results for that artist. This gives your site visitors the ability to easily find and listen to other music by artists that you post on your blog.

Checking the “Show exfm Features” box within the customize section of Ballard will display these features.

Spotify

Ballard supports the Tumblr-Spotify integration so you can post songs and albums from Spotify to your heart’s content. Artist names will display as a link to the exfm search results for that artist, so your site visitors can find and listen to other music by artists that you post on your blog.

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Analytics

Ballard supports two analytics services: Google Analytics and Clicky. In order to use either or both services, you will need an account with Google and/or Clicky.

Google Analytics

Copy your Google Analytics site ID (e.g., UA-XXXXXX-X) from your Google Analytics account and paste into the “GA Tracking ID” field in the customize section for Ballard.

Clicky

Copy your Clicky site ID from your Clicky account and paste it into the “Clicky Site ID” field in the customize section for Ballard.

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Custom Fonts

You can control the font of Ballard by entering the font type within the “Theme Font Stack”, “Accent Font Stack”, and “Blog Title Font Stack” fields in the customize section of Ballard. Enter web-friendly fonts, Google Web Fonts (if you have added the fonts to the Google Web Fonts option), or Typekit fonts (if you have entered your Typekit ID).

Typekit

Typekit enables you to add custom fonts to your blog. In order to use Typekit, you need to have a Typekit account and then set up you blog within Typekit and associate fonts to it. You will need to enter your Typekit ID in the customize section for Ballard once your Typekit account is set up.

The Ballard preview blog is using Typekit. If you would like to use the Ballard Preview fonts, you will need a Typekit account. The Theme Font Stack is using Proxima-Nova. The Accent Font Stack is using Adelle. The Blog Title Font Stack is using Quatro-Slab.

Google Web Fonts

Ballard supports the use of Google Web Fonts. Let’s say you wanted to add the Lato and Asap Google web fonts. To do so, you would insert the following in the Google Web Fonts field (without the quotes): “Lato:400,700,400italic,700italic|Asap:400,700,400italic,700italic”. All of this information is supplied by Google Web Fonts, but please note that you have to separate each new font with a pipe ( | ) as demonstrated in the example.

Theme Font Size

This defines the base font size for text in the posts and other sections of the theme.

Title Font Size

This defines the font size of the title in the header.

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Recent Tweets

You can display your recent tweets in the footer of Ballard. In order to do so, you need to connect your Twitter account to your Tumblr blog. To connect your Twitter account to Tumblr, click Settings (the gear icon) at the top of your Dashboard, then choose the blog you’d like to manage on the left side of the page. In the Twitter section, check the box that says “Share posts on your Twitter” and be sure to click “Sign in with Twitter” and authorize the app. Hit “Save” on the Settings page once you’ve done that.

Show Recent Tweets

Assuming you have connected your Twitter account to your Tumblr blog, check this box in order to display recent tweets on your blog.

Tweet Label

Customize the heading/label for your recent tweets here.

Tweet Count

Enter the number of recent tweets you want to display here.

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Social Icons

Ballard offers over 20 social media/elsewhere icons, which display under the header. The color of these icons are controlled by the Primary Link color option in the customize section for Ballard. Checking the “Show Social Ions” box will display the social icons you’ve provided URLs for.

You can display the logos and links to the following sites by entering the full URL (include http://): About.me, Dribbble, exfm, Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, GitHub, Google Plus, Instagram, Lastfm, LinkedIn, Pinterest, rdio, Soundcloud, Spotify, Twitter, Vimeo, YouTube, your own website, and your email address.

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Likes

You can display the two most recent Tumblr posts that you’ve liked in the footer of Ballard. You must have this feature enabled in your account preferences. Likes are only displayed for primary blogs.

Show Posts I Like

This must be checked to display your likes.

Likes Label

Customize the heading/label for your likes here.

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Following

You can display the blogs that you follow (up to 300) in the footer of Ballard. Blogs I Follow only works for primary blogs.

Show Blogs I Follow

This must be checked to display your following list.

Following Label

Customize the heading/label for your following list here.

Following Rows

Enter the number of rows of followers you would like to display here.

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Group Options

Ballard supports groups blogs. You must check “Show Group Features” in order for Ballard’s group options to display on your blog. When this is checked, each post will display the author of the post and link to that author’s primary blog.

Ballard displays the portrait images of all of the group blog contributors in the footer.

Group List Label

Customize the heading/label for your list of contributors here.

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Colors

Ballard offers a variety of color and image options that will enable you to customize the look and feel of your blog.

Primary

This sets the primary color of the blog. It is used for the footer background, search background, and all the borders.

Primary Link

This sets the color of the the links used within all post types, the footer, the social icons, and the “More Posts” and “To The Top” navigation.

Primary Link Hover

This sets the color of primary links when the mouse pointer hovers over the link.

Primary Text

This sets the color of the text used in all post types.

Secondary

This sets the secondary color of the blog. It is used for the background color of the footer headings.

Secondary Link

This sets the color of the links used in the header, main menu, share links, tags, and date background.

Secondary Link Hover

This sets the color of secondary links when the mouse pointer hovers over the link.

Secondary Text

This sets the color of the text used in the footer.

Theme Background

This sets the background color of the site.

exfm Body, exfm Display, exfm Font, exfm Playlist

These options set the colors for the exfm music player (if you have it enabled).

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More Options

Affix Theme Background

Check to prevent the theme background image from scrolling.

Enable HighRes

Check to display high res versions of photos at 978px wide and video posts at 978px wide.

Repeat Theme Background X

Check to repeat the theme background horizontally.

Repeat Theme Background Y

Check to repeat the theme background vertically.

Scale Photos

Check to scale photos to full post width (675px, but if Enable HighRes is checked, then photos will scale to 978px)

Show About Link

Check to display a link to the About section of your blog. The About section is in the footer, so this link will take the user to the footer of the blog. The About link will display in the main menu.

Show Archive Link

Check to display a link to your blog’s archive in the main menu.

Show Description

Check to display the description of your blog in the footer.

Show Home Link

Check to display a link to the home page of your blog in the main menu.

Show Menu Over Banner

Check to display the blog title, search box, and main menu over the bottom portion of the Banner image.

Show Portrait

Check to display the blog’s portrait in the footer.

Show RSS Link

Check to display a link to your blog’s RSS feed in the main menu.

Show Random Link

Check to display a link to display a random post. Link will display in the main menu.

Show Search

Check to display a search box in the header.

Show Social Icons

Check to display icons/links to your social networks and links elsewhere on the web.

Show Title

Check to display the title of your blog in the header.

Banner

Upload an image here to be placed at the top of the page.

Logo

Upload an image here to be placed where the blog title is displayed. The logo will be displayed instead of a text version of the title of your blog.

Theme Background

Upload an image here to be used as the theme background.

Theme Background Position

If you are using a theme background image, you can position the background image here. The default is “center top”. The following values will work: left, center, right, top, bottom. Please list the horizontal alignment first, then vertical alignment second.

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Mobile Version

A mobile version of Ballard is displayed on the iPhone and most Androids. Specifically, the mobile version is displayed on all devices that have a min-width of 320px and max-width of 767px. The default version of Ballard is displayed on all other device sizes, including tablets.

In addition to all post types, the Ballard mobile version will display the sticky post, main menu, notes, Disqus comments, tags, tagged pages, portrait, description, Instagram photos, Flickr photos, and social icons.

To enable the mobile version of Ballard, make sure you uncheck “Use optimized mobile layout” within the Advanced area of the customize section of Ballard.

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Support

Storyware is here to help you get the most out of our theme. You can email us at help@storyware.us with your questions and suggestions.

Please note that we will do our best to answer your HTML and CSS questions, but if you have customized the HTML or CSS, then we cannot provide support for changes that you have made to the theme. We do try to address the most common CSS/HTML questions within our FAQs.

Thank you for using our theme!

FAQs

1.    How do you implement the sticky post?
In the customize section, first enter the sticky tag (e.g., “sticky” or “original posts”) and then use that tag on the post that you’d like to be displayed at the top of your blog. Only your most recent blog post with the sticky tag will always appear at the top.

2.    Will the sticky post show up twice—once at the top of the page and once in its original position?
Nope, but once you remove it as a sticky post, it will show back up in its original position.

3.    I’ve followed your instructions for implementing the sticky post and featured tag, but neither are showing up on my blog. What’s the problem?
Sometimes the sticky post and featured tag won’t display because the Tumblr API is temporarily unavailable. Be patient. It will come back online soon. 

Please don’t use a double quote in the sticky label and tag or featured label and tag.

4.    How do you implement the featured tag?
In the customize section, enter the tag name in the “featured tag” text box (e.g., “photos” or “coli music” or “funny videos”). Next enter the label for the “featured heading”—this will be the heading that appears above your posts (e.g., “My Pics” or “Fave Tunes” or “Funny Videos”). Use your tag on at least one post to see it appear.

5.    Some of my photo posts aren’t filling up the entire width of the post area. How come?
Anytime you upload an image that is less than 675 pixels in width, the photo will not extend to the edges of the allotted space for photo posts. You can change this though. Within the customize section for Ballard, check “Scale Photos”. Now all of your photo posts will be increased to a width of 675 pixels if the original photo is less than 675 pixels. In addition, if you check “Enable HighRes”, then photos will display at 978px wide.

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