Everything you need to run Ostnica

Introduction #

Ostnica is a modern, fully responsive WordPress theme built by Codeholic IT Services Pvt Ltd. It gives you a visual Theme Options panel, deep typography and color controls, a drag-and-drop footer builder, flexible blog and page layouts, and per-page design overrides — all without touching a line of code.

This guide walks you through installing Ostnica, configuring every option in the Theme Options panel and the WordPress Customizer, setting up menus and widgets, choosing blog and page layouts, and getting support if you run into trouble.

Key features #

• Visual, tabbed Theme Options panel covering General, Menu, Header, Post Type, Page, Footer, Custom CSS and Reset
• Full typography controls for body text and Headings 1–6, each with independent desktop, tablet and mobile values
• Responsive controls throughout — most sizing, spacing and typography fields can be set per device
• Drag-and-drop Footer Builder inside the WordPress Customizer
• Per-page design overrides via a block-editor sidebar panel
• Three blog listing layouts — Grid Masonry, Classic List and Full-width List — plus single-post and category-listing layout controls
• Built-in social share controls for single posts
• Breadcrumbs, smooth scroll, back-to-top button, sticky header and sticky footer toggles
• Two sidebar widget areas and five footer widget areas
• Custom CSS field for quick tweaks without a child theme
• One-click reset to restore default settings
• Translation-ready, with the text domain ostnica

System requirements #

Before installing Ostnica, make sure your hosting environment meets the following minimums.

Installation #

From the WordPress dashboard #

1. Open ThemesLog in to your WordPress admin dashboard and go to Appearance → Themes.
2. Add a new themeClick Add New, then click Upload Theme at the top of the page.
3. Upload the zip fileClick Choose File, select ostnica-free-v1-0-theme.zip, then click Install Now.
4. ActivateOnce installation finishes, click Activate to make Ostnica your active theme.

Via FTP #

1. Unzip the packageExtract ostnica-free-v1-0-theme.zip on your computer.
2. Connect to your serverUse an FTP client such as FileZilla.
3. Upload the theme folderUpload the extracted ostnica-free-v1-0-theme folder to /wp-content/themes/.
4. ActivateIn your dashboard, go to Appearance → Themes, find Ostnica, and click Activate.

After activation #

Once the theme is active, a new Ostnica menu appears in your WordPress admin sidebar. It contains two pages:

• Welcome — a quick-start dashboard with shortcuts to Theme Options, the Customizer, Menus and Widgets.
• Theme Options — the full settings panel covered in the next section.

Getting started checklist #

Follow this order to get your site looking the way you want as quickly as possible.

1. Configure Theme OptionsSet your global colors, fonts, header and footer defaults from Ostnica → Theme Options.
2. Customize site identitySet your site title, tagline and logo through Appearance → Customize.
3. Build your menusCreate a Primary Menu and assign it to the Primary Menu location.
4. Add widgetsPopulate the sidebar and footer widget areas from Appearance → Widgets.
5. Build your footer layoutUse the drag-and-drop Footer Builder in the Customizer to arrange your widget areas and copyright text.
6. Fine-tune individual pagesUse the Page Settings panel in the block editor to override header, footer and typography on specific pages.

The Theme Options panel #

Go to Ostnica → Theme Options to open the main settings panel. Options are grouped into tabs down the left of the screen. Every field includes an inline description, and each tab keeps its settings independent of the others.

General #

Two sections: Theme Styling and Site Identity.

Theme Styling

Site Identity

Menu #

Header #

Post Type #

Two sections: General and Share Settings.

General

Share Settings

Manage Social Share (Single Post) — toggle which platforms, such as Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Pinterest and WhatsApp, show as share buttons on single blog posts.

Page #

Two sections: General and Page Headline.

General

Page Headline

Footer #

Custom CSS #

A code field for adding your own CSS rules, output on the front end without needing a child theme. Useful for small tweaks that fall outside the built-in options.

Reset #

Reset Settings restores every Theme Options field to its factory default. This action cannot be undone, so use it only if you want to start your styling over from scratch.

The WordPress Customizer #

In addition to the Theme Options panel, Ostnica adds controls to the native WordPress Customizer at Appearance → Customize.

Site Identity #

Set your Site Title, Tagline and Logo here as usual. Ostnica automatically syncs any logo you upload through Site Identity into Theme Options → General → Site Identity → Default Header Logo, so both stay in sync.

Footer Builder #

Ostnica includes a dedicated Footer section in the Customizer with a drag-and-drop layout tool.

• A palette lists every draggable footer element: the Copyright block plus Footer Widget 1 through Footer Widget 5.
• Drag items from the palette into the footer grid to arrange your footer into columns.
• A Copyright Text control sets the text shown in the Copyright block, and supports the current year automatically.
• Changes are previewed live and apply after a page refresh.

Once you have arranged your footer areas, populate each Footer Widget region with actual widgets from Appearance → Widgets.

Per-page settings #

For finer control than the global Theme Options allow, Ostnica adds a Page Settings panel to the block editor sidebar when editing any page. Open a page for editing, then look for the panel in the editor sidebar — click the gear icon if the sidebar is hidden.

From this panel you can override, for that page only:

• Transparent Header on or off
• Header Theme
• Light, dark, retina and default header logo overrides
• Header Background Color
• Sticky Header on or off
• Site Font Family
• Menu typography — size, color, weight, line height, spacing, transform and style, all responsive
• Footer Background Color and full footer typography, all responsive
• Page Headline visibility

Each field falls back to the corresponding Theme Options value until you explicitly set an override, and a Reset to Defaults button clears all per-page overrides at once.

Widgets & widget areas #

Manage widgets from Appearance → Widgets. Ostnica registers the following widget areas.

Whether the left or right sidebar appears — and how many columns your post listings use — is controlled per section from the Post Type and Page tabs in Theme Options.

Menus & navigation #

1. Open the menu screenGo to Appearance → Menus.
2. Create a menuClick Create a new menu, give it a name such as “Primary Menu,” and click Create Menu.
3. Add itemsAdd pages, posts, custom links or categories from the left-hand panel.
4. Assign the locationUnder Menu Settings, assign the menu to the appropriate theme location and click Save Menu.

Menu appearance — background color and typography — is controlled from Theme Options → Menu, and can be further overridden per page from the block editor Page Settings panel.

Blog & page layouts #

Blog listing layouts #

Ostnica ships with three post-listing layouts, selectable from Theme Options → Post Type → General.

• Grid Masonry — a Pinterest-style staggered grid, good for image-heavy blogs.
• Classic List — a traditional single-column list of posts.
• List Full-width — a full-width single-column list without a sidebar.

Each layout has its own Layout Settings (sidebar on/off, sidebar position, columns per row) and Query Settings (post order, posts per page), so the blog archive, category archive, author archive and search results can each be configured independently.

Single post layout #

Set independently from Theme Options → Post Type → General → Single Post Page Layout. Social sharing on single posts is controlled separately under Share Settings.

Page layout & headline #

Page width, and the page-title headline banner — visibility, alignment, height and typography — are controlled from Theme Options → Page. Individual pages can override header, footer and typography settings from the block editor Page Settings panel.

Translation & multilingual sites #

Ostnica is fully translation-ready, using the text domain ostnica and a /languages folder for .mo/.po translation files.

• Use a tool such as Loco Translate or Poedit to generate a translation for your language.
• Save the resulting .po/.mo files into the theme's /languages folder, or into /wp-content/languages/themes/ so they survive theme updates.
• For full multilingual sites with translated content, pair Ostnica with a plugin such as WPML or Polylang.

Custom CSS & advanced customization #

For design tweaks not covered by the Theme Options panel, use Theme Options → Custom CSS to add your own CSS. It's output safely on the front end and preserved across theme updates.

/* Example: tighten spacing under the page headline */
.cd-page-headline {
  padding-bottom: 24px;
}

/* Example: round the featured image on single posts */
.single-post .post-thumbnail img {
  border-radius: 12px;
}

Developers extending Ostnica further can hook into the theme's modular includes/ structure — config, customizer, widgets, functions and components — rather than editing core theme files directly, and should use a child theme for any PHP-level customization so changes survive future theme updates.

Troubleshooting & FAQ #

My changes in Theme Options aren't showing on the front end. #

Clear your browser cache and any caching plugin or CDN cache, then reload the page. If you've set a page-level override in the block editor Page Settings panel, remember it takes priority over the global Theme Options value for that page.

My logo looks different in the Customizer than in Theme Options. #

Ostnica syncs the Customizer's Site Identity logo into the Theme Options Default Header Logo field automatically. If you need a different logo for dark or transparent headers, set the Dark and Light Header Logo fields separately in Theme Options → General → Site Identity.

The footer widgets I added aren't visible. #

Footer widget areas only display once they're placed into a footer column using the Footer Builder in the Customizer. Adding a widget to Footer Widget 3 in Appearance → Widgets won't show anywhere unless Footer Widget 3 has also been dragged into the footer grid.

How do I undo all my Theme Options changes? #

Go to Theme Options → Reset and click Reset Settings. This restores every global option to its default value. This action cannot be undone.

Support & credits #

Getting support #

If you run into any issues, have questions, or want to request a feature, reach out through:

• Documentation: ostnica.codeholic.in/docs
• Support email: hello@codeholic.in
• Theme homepage: ostnica.codeholic.in

License #

Ostnica is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2 (or later). You may redistribute and/or modify it under the terms of that license — see the GPL v2 license text for full details. This program is distributed without any warranty, without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Credits #

Theme by Codeholic IT Services Pvt Ltd.

Changelog #