Modern Portfolio? What is a Portfolio?

[lance_kidd]

Hello Everyone,

I have a question: What is a portfolio, and how is it different than a gallery?

I have the "Modern Portfolio" theme that I had planned on using for someone who does photography for a living. I'm not new to Genesis, but I am new to working with different themes. I have my theme, and I built it, and it's just simple.

But in the Modern Portfolio theme, for example, I set-up the demo and played around with it, and I don't see the point. I click on the example of "Portfolio 1," and all I see is a just a post that looks like a regular blog post. What is the point of that? I do not mean that sarcastically, because I know these themes are designed ingeniously for a reason. But what would be the purpose of having a gallery like picture that's called a "Portfolio" page, and all it does is show a blog post?

I guess what I'm looking for is more of a gallery maybe? I'm looking on how to set-up a page that is called something like "My Portfolio," or "View Some of Our Work," and then have gallery images, which then lead to....images that can be navigated on with the right and left arrows, and then somehow integrate an "Add to Cart" button eventually, which would lead to the checkout process and purchase of a print or something.

But I don't think the Modern Portfolio them is suitable for this, or...maybe I'm just wrong. I'm looking for a little education here 🙂

I guess I'm confused as the difference between a portfolio and a gallery of sorts. Can someone explain some of that to me?

I know this a broad question, but I'll accept anything. Thanks for considering this.

Chris

[Brad Dalton]

You can create posts and assign them to a custom post type named portfolio which includes a archive page that displays the feature image in columns. And yes, when you click the featured image on the archive page it links back to the single CPT which is like standard post unless you customise it.

Or

You could use the native gallery and simply displays images in a gallery.

Either way is very easy to do in any Genesis child theme.

If you want eCommerce, you might find the Author Pro theme suitable or you can make the genesis featured widget display featured image like the author pro plugin so they include a buy now button.

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Tutorials for StudioPress Themes & WooCommerce.

[MoodyRiviera]

Hello,
I hope my answer isn't too basic...but have you read the setup instructions for the Modern Portfolio theme...specifically the section titled, "How to Configure The Home – Portfolio Widget Area"? I don't know if that's what you're talking about, but maybe this will help.

*MoodyRiviera*

[lance_kidd]

Thanks for the input brad and moody. Really appreciate it, and I'm sorry I took so long getting back. MoodyRiviera, I did go through the set-up instructions on the Modern Portfolio theme. It looked great. I guess I just didn't play with it enough. But I am going to dedicate some time to it, as I think I could learn a great deal modifying and creating a template or two and such. Brush up on my php skills (if you can call it skills 🙂 )

Brad, when you say "native gallery," I assume you mean WordPress' built in gallery? Do you recommend using that and then styling it the way I want, or is there a plug-in that may be more suitable? I'm gonna go through a tutorial now and see what I come up with. I don't know if WordPress does the image, and then once clicked on gives the photos that you can navigate through one by one. I thought that if you had a gallery on WP that you simply clicked on the image, and then it opened up a page with more thumbnails, which then could be viewed on their own. But maybe WP has improved the gallery. I haven't tried it in a while.

BUT, that is what I want to do to begin with. I have a big photo centered, and I want four thumbnails under it...that when clicked on, open up a navigational window (is that called the "lighthouse"?).

Sorry for my ignorance, lol. I know I can Google all this, but it's so much easier when someone with experience just tells you straight out what the best approach is.

Thanks for the advice to both of you. I very much appreciate it.

Chris

[Brad Dalton]

Its not clear what you want Lance.

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Tutorials for StudioPress Themes & WooCommerce.

[lurek]

interesting

[lance_kidd]

Sorry Brad. I ramble too much I know. I have a better understanding of the purpose of a portfolio that is more than just images. But what I want is a portfolio page that displays images.

For example:

Thumbnail with a description that says "Church Photos." When it's clicked on, it brings up the lightbox with the navigational arrows that show the various images of various churches that the photographer has taken.

Then say another thumbnail or image that says something like, "Examples of Previous Wedding Photos." Then when the image or thumbnail is clicked, the lightbox comes up and allows the user to scroll through or navigate through the examples of the photographers wedding photo examples.

I did this with dreamweaver one time and had a good script to do it with. But I think what I have to do is have an image of say, "Wedding Photos," that links to a page of the thumbnail images, and when one is clicked on, the jquery lightbox opens and allows for easy scrolling or navigating the examples.

The jquery lightbox plug-in isn't supported anymore. But WordPress' native gallery does a fairly good job, and I found a site that allows you to put some java script on the page that allows you easily accomplish this without a plug-in, and using the built in gallery funtion in WP.

[Brad Dalton]

Ok. Seems you have found a solution.

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Tutorials for StudioPress Themes & WooCommerce.

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