Getting Started

Installing a new WordPress theme should take minutes. Configuring it well takes a bit longer, but most of what needs to be done is in the same two or three places in WordPress admin. This article walks through the activation sequence and the initial decisions that shape how Blaskan works on your site.

Installation

From the WordPress admin panel: Go to Appearance > Themes > Add New. Search for "Blaskan" and click Install, then Activate.

From a zip file: If you have downloaded the theme file directly, go to Appearance > Themes > Add New > Upload Theme. Select the zip file and click Install Now, then Activate.

After activation, your site will immediately switch to the Blaskan layout. The first screen will look largely like the default theme state: a header with the site name, whatever menu you had assigned previously (or none), the main content area, and a footer.

Reading Settings

Go to Settings > Reading. This controls what your homepage shows.

If you want the latest posts on your homepage (the typical blog setup), select "Your latest posts." The theme will pull posts from your WordPress installation and present them in the default archive layout.

If you want a static front page (a fixed landing page rather than a post feed), select "A static page" and assign the pages you have created. You will need a dedicated front page and optionally a separate posts page.

Most personal and editorial blogs use the latest posts setting. Static front pages are more common on business or portfolio sites that also have a blog section.

Navigation Menu

Blaskan uses a standard WordPress navigation menu displayed in the header.

To set it up:

1. Go to Appearance > Menus
2. Click "Create a new menu" and give it a name
3. Add pages, custom links, or categories from the left panel
4. Check the Primary Menu location in the Menu Settings section
5. Click Save Menu

The primary menu location in Blaskan sits in the main header. One level of navigation items works cleanly. Dropdown submenus are supported but work better when kept to one level of nesting. Deep nested menus are difficult to navigate on touch screens.

If you have not created a menu yet, the theme will display a basic fallback that shows the site name only. Assign a menu as the first configuration step.

Sidebar and Widgets

The sidebar in Blaskan occupies the right column on desktop viewports. On mobile, it stacks below the main content.

To populate the sidebar:

1. Go to Appearance > Widgets
2. Drag widgets into the Main Sidebar area, or click the add icon inside the area

Useful starting widgets:

• Search to let readers find content
• Recent Posts to surface your latest writing
• Categories to expose the taxonomy structure
• Text or HTML for any custom sidebar content

If the Main Sidebar area has no widgets, the theme detects this automatically and expands the content column to fill the full width. This is useful for pages or single post templates where you want a full-width reading experience without a sidebar.

Customizer Basics

Go to Appearance > Customize to access live preview customization options.

Key areas to check first:

Site Identity: Upload your site logo here, or confirm the site title and tagline are correct. If you upload a logo, it replaces the text-based site name in the header. If no logo is set, the site title text displays instead.

Colors: Blaskan's color scheme is intentionally minimal and set in the stylesheet. The Customizer may offer basic color options depending on your WordPress version. Substantial color changes are best handled through a child theme with custom CSS.

Additional CSS: If you want minor style adjustments without a full child theme setup, the Additional CSS field in the Customizer accepts CSS rules that override the theme styles. This is appropriate for small changes. For anything affecting templates or larger structural modifications, a child theme is the more maintainable approach.

Header Title and Tagline

The site title and tagline appear in the browser tab, search results, and optionally in the header area.

The site title is set in Settings > General > Site Title. The tagline is set in Settings > General > Tagline.

In Blaskan's header, the site title is the primary brand identifier when no logo is uploaded. The tagline is typically suppressed in the header to keep the brand display clean, but it is still used in the page title and meta description for the homepage.

Static Front Page Content

If you chose the static front page option in Reading Settings, the front page content is whatever you write in the assigned page's content editor.

Blaskan does not add special sections, widgets, or template areas to the static front page beyond what you write in the page content. If you want a structured homepage with multiple distinct sections, this is typically handled through a child theme with a custom front-page.php template or through a compatible page builder.

Comments

WordPress has comments enabled by default. To turn off comments:

• For individual posts: edit the post and look for Discussion in the post settings panel
• Globally: go to Settings > Discussion and uncheck "Allow people to post comments on new articles"

Blaskan renders comments when they are enabled and the post has comments. The comment area appears below the post navigation links. The comment form uses standard WordPress fields.

Permalink Structure

Go to Settings > Permalinks and choose the Post Name option if you have not already. This gives you clean URLs like /post-title/ rather than /?p=123. Clean URLs are better for readability and for how search engines process your content.

After changing permalink structure, WordPress asks you to save. Do that, and the rewrite rules update automatically.

First Content Check

After completing these steps, create a test post with:

• A title around 60 characters
• A featured image at least 1200px wide
• A few paragraphs of body text
• An excerpt of 30 to 50 words

Publish it and view the post, the homepage, and the category archive. These three views cover the most common reading surfaces and will give you a clear picture of how the theme handles your content.

For deeper configuration, see menus and interaction, sidebar balance and widget density, and responsive breakpoints and layout logic.