Salient is one of the most popular premium themes you can find on Themeforest. This customizable multipurpose theme includes many built-in features such as page animations, sliders and a custom portfolio type. Find out all the details in our Salient review.
About Salient
Salient is one of the most popular and rated themes on Themeforest with over 133000+ sales. Developed by ThemeNectar.
Salient requires the plugin Salient Visual Composer to work. After installing and activating the plugin, you get a warning like this:
You can click on Start installing add-ons to decide which one to install and enable .
Although it recommends plugins Contact Form 7 and WooCommerce, you can install whatever you need from them.
WooCommerce is only required if you are going to sell products or services from your site.
Features of Salient
Salient has many options to completely customize the look of your site. Here are a few of the features that set this theme apart from the crowd:
Large Options Panel
After installing and activating Salient, you will see a new menu item in your control panel. Under the standout » General Settings , you can see all the new options available.
You can choose:
- icon and button styles
- background and font colors
- printing
- header colors, padding, and opacity
- footer columns and credit text
- …and more
Page Transitions and Animations
It includes a series of page transitions and animation effects for your standout site.
By default, the current page disappears when a link is clicked. Then an animated loading icon will be displayed until the next page is loaded.
By changing the fade effect to the “center mask emerging” effect, you can see the new page expand from the center.
If you stick to the upload icon, you can change the icon color or choose to upload your own custom icon (like your logo). You can also customize the icon animation, from a default rotation to a “smooth rotation” effect.
Global Call to Action Button
In the Salient » Call Action menu you can enable a ‘call action’ section that will appear right at the top of the footer on every page of your site. You can customize the text, button color, link and prevent it from appearing on certain pages.
Outstanding visual composer
As mentioned above, Salient requires the use of the Salient Visual Composer plugin.
Visual Composer is a drag and drop page builder plugin for WordPress. The Salient version lets you use the visual editor for both posts and pages and includes some unique options.
Internal Slider
After installing the theme, you will notice several new menu options such as Home Slider and Nectar Slider .
To enable the Home slider, you need to create a page using one of the “Home” page templates.
Then you need to go to Settings » Reading and set this page as your static front page.
You can add slides to the homepage slider by going to Home Slider » Add new . Here you can select images or videos to add and enter title text and buttons if you wish.
Images should be 1600-2000px wide and 700px high. If they are larger than 700px, they will be cropped to larger screen sizes. Regardless of width, the image is stretched to fit the entire screen, so smaller images appear multipixel on larger screens.
To change the slider style and functions, you need to go to Salient » Home Slider . You can change animations, autoplay settings, speed, etc. Where you can set.
Shortcodes
Nectar Shortcode is available elsewhere besides the home page. It includes many more options than Home Slider.
Your slides are displayed by Location (locations are similar to categories). So, to create a slider, you need to add all the slides in a certain place.
To use your Nectar Slider you need to embed it with shortcode.
While editing any post or page, you will see a blue Nectar Shortcode button.
You can click this to view the Nectar slider you created and then choose your options. Under “Elements” select “Nectar Slider” and then under “Location” choose the location where you have added all your slides.
Portfolio Custom Post Type
Salient comes with a custom post type for your portfolio. You can customize the style and appearance of your portfolio items under Salient » Portfolio and add your portfolio items by going to Portfolio » Add new . Just like posts, portfolio items can be assigned categories and tags.
Note that this portfolio custom post type is theme specific, so if you change themes you will lose all your portfolio information.
Support and Documentation
Six months of support from the developer is included with your Salient purchase. Support can be provided through a ticketing system.
Salient comes with a 16-page PDF document that provides a basic overview of the theme’s main features and settings.
But if you want to take more detailed information and steps, you should watch the tutorial videos. Unfortunately for those who cannot or choose not to use the videos, there are no transcripts or written lessons.
Many important instructions for using the theme are only available in video format and most of the videos are over 10 minutes long. Therefore, there is no way to search for the specific information you need – you have to watch the entire video (and hope it has what you need so you don’t waste any more time).
If you prefer written tutorials to video, this is probably not the theme for you.
Salient is one of the most popular themes on Themeforest and is highly appreciated.
If you don’t want to learn any code, but want an all-around highly customizable theme, Salient can be a good choice. It has some unique and interesting features like page transition animations that make your site stand out.
One possible issue with the Salient theme (besides the lack of written tutorials) is that if you decide to change the themes, all the information you’ve entered in the theme-specific properties will be lost. This includes your portfolio, slider, visual composer-generated pages, and all the other Salient features. According to WordPress rules, additional functionality should be built with plugins, not themes, due to this issue.
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