Frequently Asked Questions About the Blaskan WordPress Theme

The first practical step after activating Blaskan is to check the Reading Settings in WordPress admin and confirm your homepage display is set the way you intend. If you want a static front page, create it and assign it in Settings > Reading. If you want the latest posts, leave it at the default.

The second step is to assign widgets to the sidebar. Go to Appearance > Widgets and add what you need to the Main Sidebar area. If you leave it empty, Blaskan expands the content column to fill the full width automatically.

The getting started documentation walks through the full activation sequence including menu setup and initial Customizer choices.

No. Blaskan functions without any required plugins. It uses the standard WordPress template hierarchy and does not depend on a companion plugin or framework to render correctly.

Some optional features work better with specific plugins. Contact forms need a form plugin like Contact Form 7 or similar. Social sharing buttons require a sharing plugin if you want them. These are not part of the theme itself.

Yes. Blaskan works with the block editor. Block styles align with the theme typography and spacing. The content column width in the editor matches the front-end column width so the writing experience reflects the reading experience reasonably well.

Classic editor mode also works without issues. If you use a page builder plugin, results will vary depending on the plugin's approach to markup and layout.

Go to Appearance > Menus in WordPress admin, create a menu, add your pages or links, and assign the menu to the Primary location. The theme registers one primary menu location which appears in the site header.

Blaskan's menu works best with flat, one-level structures. Dropdown submenus are supported but should be used sparingly. On narrow viewports, submenus can be difficult to access if they nest deeply. A separate dedicated page often works better than a deeply nested dropdown.

Go to Appearance > Customize > Site Identity. Upload your logo file there. The theme supports the standard WordPress custom logo feature. Recommended dimensions are wide enough to read clearly at the header height, typically between 100px and 220px wide.

If you want to use a text-only site title instead of a logo image, leave the logo field empty and make sure the Site Title field in Site Identity is filled in.

Blaskan's fonts and colors are set in the theme stylesheet. They are not exposed as Customizer controls because adding those controls without constraints can quickly result in combinations that harm readability.

If you want to adjust typography or colors, the cleanest method is a child theme with targeted CSS overrides. This keeps your changes separate from the theme files so updates do not overwrite your work. See the child theme basics documentation for a straightforward setup.

Remove all widgets from the Main Sidebar widget area in Appearance > Widgets. When the sidebar area is empty, the theme detects this and expands the content column to the full available width automatically. No template override or CSS is needed.

If you have widgets in the sidebar but want a specific page to be full width, you can use a child theme to create a full-width page template and assign it to that page.

Yes. Go to Settings > Reading and set the "Blog pages show at most" value. This controls the post count on the homepage, category archives, tag archives, and author archives. Standard values are 10, 12, or 15.

A lower number creates a less crowded archive with more white space between entries. A higher number gives readers more to scan before the next page. Ten is the default WordPress value and a reasonable starting point.

Some plugins add widgets to existing widget areas without asking. Check Appearance > Widgets and look for widget items you did not place there. Remove anything you do not recognize. Also check if you have any plugins active that add sidebar content programmatically.

If the sidebar shows default WordPress widgets you did not add (such as Recent Posts or Meta), these were added by WordPress automatically when no other widgets were present in the area. You can remove or replace them.

Blaskan uses the standard WordPress image sizes (thumbnail, medium, large, full) along with any sizes registered by the theme for specific template contexts such as featured images in archive listings.

For featured images in archive views, the theme uses a landscape crop. The exact pixel dimensions depend on your WordPress media settings. Recommended minimum for featured images is 1200px wide to prevent upscaling on high-density displays.

This usually happens when the uploaded image is smaller than the display size the theme requests. The fix is to upload a larger source file. If you have existing media with this issue, a media regeneration plugin can reprocess thumbnails after you upload larger replacements.

Blurry images on high-density screens indicate the image source is not high enough resolution for retina displays. The practical rule is to upload images at 2x the intended display size.

In the post editor, look for the Featured Image panel in the right sidebar. Click Set featured image, upload or select your image from the media library, and confirm. When you publish or update the post, the featured image will appear in archive listings and in the post header.

If the Featured Image panel is not visible, check Screen Options at the top of the editor page and make sure Featured Image is checked.

First, check if a JavaScript error is being thrown in the browser console. This is the most common cause. Open browser developer tools (F12), reload the page, and check the Console tab for errors.

A plugin that loads scripts in a way that conflicts with the theme's JavaScript can cause this. Deactivate plugins one at a time to isolate the conflict.

Also check that the menu has been assigned to the Primary menu location in Appearance > Menus. A menu that is not assigned to a location will not appear in the header.

Blaskan registers one primary menu location. Adding a second menu location requires a child theme with a modified header template. The footer links in Blaskan are hardcoded rather than tied to a registered menu location, so footer navigation changes also require a child theme override.

The demo at [demo.blaskan.net](https://demo.blaskan.net/) shows the theme applied to representative content: a homepage with post listings, category archive views, a single article view, and the sidebar in a typical configuration. It is a preview environment, not a staging copy of a live site.

The demo guide page on this site explains each section of the demo environment and what to look for in the layout behavior.

The demo is configured to show Blaskan's default behavior with standard content. Some elements like widget content and the specific posts used are representative rather than pulled from a live blog. The layout, typography, and spacing are accurate to the default theme configuration.

Long titles wrap cleanly in both archive and single post views. The heading element does not overflow its container and does not collide with adjacent elements. Test with a title of around 120 characters if you want to verify this on your setup.

The [theme unit test lab](https://themeunittest.blaskan.net/) documents how Blaskan handles content edge cases: nested lists, tables, image alignment classes, code blocks, long titles, posts without featured images, and other structures that reveal a theme's robustness. It is a reference resource for understanding the theme's behavior under unusual content conditions.

Browser caching is the most common explanation. Your browser has stored a copy of the old stylesheet and is serving it instead of fetching the new one. Try a hard reload (Ctrl+Shift+R on Windows, Cmd+Shift+R on Mac) or clear your browser cache and reload.

If you use a caching plugin (WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, LiteSpeed Cache, or similar), clear the plugin cache after making style changes. The plugin may be serving a cached version of the stylesheet to all visitors.

A CDN in front of your site adds another layer. If you use Cloudflare or similar, purge the CDN cache after changes.

WordPress updates occasionally change how certain core styles interact with theme styles. Check the following: did the update change the block editor CSS in a way that affects your front end? Is the theme itself up to date? Are any active plugins that modify styles still functioning as expected?

Comparing the site with caching disabled is the first step. If the issue is visible without caching, it is more likely a compatibility change. If it disappears when cache is cleared, the issue was a stale cache serving old files.

Use a staging environment that mirrors your live site. Most WordPress hosting providers include a staging option. Make the change in staging, verify it, then deploy to production.

If a staging environment is not available, use a child theme to contain all changes. This means a theme update does not overwrite your modifications. Never edit the parent theme files directly on a live site.

The child theme documentation explains the setup clearly.