Ledger Vale

An editorial WordPress theme by ThemeScorpion for business journals, independent publishers and magazines. The product includes native WordPress templates, 67 Customizer controls, responsive editorial layouts and an optional local demo importer.

Which ZIP to install

Keep the parent installed when using the child theme. The theme can be used without either optional package. Theme activation does not import content, install plugins or alter your existing Reading/menu settings.

Requirements

WordPress 6.6+; PHP 8.0+; a standard WordPress database/hosting installation. WebP image resizing requires host image-editor support, such as Imagick or GD. If resizing is unavailable, demo photos retain their original dimensions and WordPress can display them. HTTPS is recommended for browser clipboard support.

The release checks use WordPress 7.1.3, PHP 8.3.6 and MariaDB 10.11.14; regression tests also ran with SQLite. Older declared versions, individual hosting providers and device/browser rendering are not separately certified. Use a test installation for your host-specific checks before replacing a live theme.

Installation and first setup

1. Keep a backup of the existing website.
2. Install and activate the parent theme ZIP.
3. Optionally install and activate Ledger Vale Child if you plan code changes.
4. Open Appearance → Ledger Vale setup. It shows setup status and links to the Customizer and this documentation.
5. Set the site title, logo and icon under Appearance → Customize → Site Identity.
6. Under Settings → Reading, choose Your latest posts for the editorial homepage. A static page uses its own block content instead of the magazine layout.
7. Add categories and articles with featured images; map categories to homepage sections in Ledger Vale settings.
8. Create and assign primary/footer menus under Appearance → Menus.
9. Configure sidebar, footer and optional newsletter widgets.
10. Test your pages, navigation, search and integrations before launch.

Recreate the demo locally

Install and activate the optional demo-import plugin. With Ledger Vale or its child active, open Appearance → Ledger Vale demo import. Read the import summary, confirm that you have a backup, choose whether to apply demo layout settings, and click Import demo content.

The plugin adds 36 articles, 3 pages, category terms and 12 local photographs. It uses no external account or remote image service. Imported content is assigned to the administrator who performs the import. Existing articles are retained. Repeat imports reuse items marked by the plugin and retain your edits to them; deleted demo items can be imported again.

Applying the optional layout sets Reading to latest posts, assigns demo primary/footer menus, maps Business/Economy/Technology sections and Leadership spotlight, and enables featured-story deduplication/latest exclusions. It does not change your branding, profile URLs or account details. Existing widgets and your chosen form provider are retained; sample newsletter forms are not installed.

The sample pages and articles are illustrative and must be reviewed/replaced before operating a publication. Add your actual privacy/contact information. Demo photos have separate image credits and license information in the importer. Deactivate/delete the importer once setup is complete; imported content and photos remain in WordPress. Removing the plugin does not remove those items.

Customization reference

Open Appearance → Customize → Ledger Vale settings. There are 67 settings.

Use system sans-serif or Georgia. No external font request is required. Default blue accent, dark text and white background follow the demo. Filled-button text chooses black or white for the selected accent color; check contrast for custom text/background combinations yourself.

Homepage logic

Editorial grids include a lead and supporting stories. Category sections also offer equal cards or article lists. Section positions reorder them; equal positions preserve their original order. Deduplication prevents featured sections from repeating earlier selections. Empty sections are omitted. The optional latest-story exclusion shares its selection plan with WordPress pagination. A selected published lead takes priority over automatic selection.

For normal WordPress search, archives and comments, the installation supplies the backend. The hosted/static preview is a demonstration of the theme, not a subscriber or comment service.

Menus, images and mobile behavior

Desktop categories stay centered under the masthead. The menu button appears on tablet/mobile; a second tap, Escape, leaving the navigation or switching to desktop closes it. Nested menus have separate expand buttons so parent links remain usable. Keyboard users can open the mobile menu and use Arrow Down to enter its links.

Use featured images with a composition suitable for 3:2 cards. WordPress produces card sizes when its image editor is available and supplies responsive image metadata. Lead/article images load eagerly; lower cards use native lazy loading. A branded fallback appears when an image is missing.

Responsive rules adapt phone/tablet layouts, move sidebars after content and wrap long text. Tables/code scroll inside the content. Main content is not forcibly clipped to hide overflow. Logged-in admin-bar offsets and RTL styling are provided. Device/browser visual checks are documented in RELEASE-VERIFICATION.md rather than claimed as certification.

Widgets and newsletters

Widget areas: Homepage sidebar; Article and archive sidebar; Newsletter integration; Footer widgets. With no sidebar widgets, the default recent-articles and journal widgets appear. Adding your own sidebar widgets replaces that fallback.

Place your provider/plugin form block, shortcode or embed into Newsletter integration. The theme styles its placement; subscriber collection, anti-spam, email delivery and unsubscribe management belong to the provider. Test the provider's real signup flow before advertising subscription functionality. With no newsletter widget, the newsletter section is hidden.

Social URLs are blank by default. LinkedIn, Instagram and X appear in the header; all five supported networks appear in the footer/default sidebar. The preview uses labeled platform-homepage examples; enter your own real profile destinations.

Articles and blocks

The contents panel appears when a public article has at least two h2/h3 headings. Reading time is estimated at 220 words/minute. Progress tracks the article area and updates when its size changes. Sharing uses LinkedIn/X share endpoints and the browser clipboard, with a fallback message when copying is unavailable.

Author biographies appear only when non-empty. Related stories use shared categories. Native comments support WordPress moderation and reply threading. Categories, tags, author/date archives, search, pagination, password-protected articles, static pages and 404 recovery use WordPress templates.

Wide blocks expand within the article column. Full-width blocks on pages or articles without a sidebar can span the viewport; with a sidebar they remain within the content column. Standard images, galleries, columns, quotes, covers, embeds, buttons, tables and code have theme styles. Page-builder and commerce integrations are not required or advertised.

SEO and performance

WordPress manages titles and singular canonical links. Theme templates provide semantic landmarks, one main page heading, category/article links, breadcrumbs, image dimensions, system fonts and deferred JavaScript. Optional fallback meta descriptions are suppressed when Yoast, Rank Math, AIOSEO or SEOPress is detected. For another SEO plugin, disable the fallback to avoid duplicate descriptions.

Use an SEO plugin for schema, Open Graph/social metadata and sitemap management. Enter meaningful excerpts, image alt text and article content. Hosting, plugins, caching and media size influence performance. No Google ranking, Lighthouse score, WCAG certificate or measured Core Web Vitals result is promised.

Manual updates and child theme

Keep a backup and test the new ZIP on staging. Update the parent through Appearance → Themes → Add New → Upload Theme, selecting Replace current with uploaded when WordPress offers it. Keep custom code in the child theme. Parent updates retain database content and theme settings; file edits in the parent are replaced.

This product uses manual ZIP updates. It does not include a license-key service or remote automatic-update server. ThemeScorpion supplies future packages according to the update/support terms stated on your purchase page; no duration is invented in this guide.

Translation, RTL and license

Translate languages/ledger-vale.pot with a gettext editor and install compiled locale files in WordPress's theme translation location. Theme frontend/setup strings use the ledger-vale text domain. The optional importer currently provides an English setup interface. RTL styles load for the parent and child theme without duplicate parent requests.

Theme, child and importer code are GPL version 2 or later; LICENSE.txt is included. Demo photos retain their separate documented license. The bundled screenshot.png is a branded product thumbnail, not a browser screenshot or proof of visual testing. No reference-theme source, logos, proprietary images or text are packaged.

Support and troubleshooting

Contact support@themescorpion.com. Provide your theme, WordPress and PHP versions, URL if shareable, screenshots, steps to reproduce and relevant error messages. Never send passwords. Support/refund/update scope is defined by the purchase-page terms.

What is included

Theme, child theme, optional local importer/photos, setup dashboard, branded thumbnail, translation catalog, buyer guide, changelog and verification notes. Live preview files are included in the commercial bundle for hosting your own static demonstration. They require HTTP hosting for search data fetching; upload the directory contents to a static host or preview path.

Footer configuration

Open Appearance → Customize → Ledger Vale settings → Footer and newsletter to toggle topics, search, RSS, social profiles and back-to-top. Set profile URLs under Header and navigation. Assign Footer navigation and Footer legal navigation menus in Appearance → Menus. Without a footer menu, published pages supply links. Populated categories supply topics. Set your privacy page in Settings → Privacy. Leave copyright blank for the current year and site name; existing custom text is retained.

Fresh-site homepage setup

Open Appearance → Ledger Vale setup after activation. An empty page titled Home indicates a static homepage: choose Your latest posts in Settings → Reading for the editorial layout. Publish articles or install the optional demo importer from the bundle, then open Appearance → Ledger Vale demo import with Apply layout selected. Keep a static homepage if you want to compose it with blocks. Activation never changes these settings automatically.

Parent theme: 2.0.2. Child theme and demo importer: 2.0.0. Component versions are intentional; there are 67 Customizer controls.