Ironvale documentation

A WordPress theme for construction companies and builders: general contractors, home builders, renovation firms, roofers, commercial builders and handyman services. Six demos, a quote bar, services with area rates, a project portfolio with filters, sectors, team profiles, quote requests with a live guide price and a project cost estimator.

Thank you for choosing Ironvale. This guide takes you from a fresh WordPress site to a copy of the demo with your own details. If something is not covered here, write to support@codememory.com — we answer within one working day.

• Version1.0.0
• WordPress6.5 or later
• PHP7.4 or later
• Live demoOpen the demo

Highlights

• Six construction demos imported in one click
• Quote bar in the hero: service, area and postcode, sent to your quote page
• Services with a price per m² or a fixed price, timeline, crew size and warranty
• Project portfolio with sector filters, value, duration and a project timeline
• Sector tiles with a photo and the number of projects
• Quote request form with project area, start date, site, budget and a live guide price, saved in your dashboard
• Project cost estimator with a large-project discount
• Team profiles with role, licences, years with you and specialty
• Types of work and sectors to group services and projects
• Office hours with an "Open now" badge
• 19 Elementor widgets (free Elementor)
• Every section also works as a shortcode
• Call / quote bar on phones
• Light and dark mode
• Colours and fonts from the Customizer
• Block patterns and every core block styled
• Self-hosted fonts, nothing loaded from Google
• Translation ready, right-to-left support
• Child theme included

What is in the download

themeforest-ironvale-wordpress-theme/
├── ironvale.zip               ← the theme: upload this in WordPress
├── ironvale-child.zip         ← child theme, for your own code changes (optional)
├── plugins/ironvale-core.zip  ← the theme's plugin (also installed from inside the theme)
├── demo-content/              ← demo files for a manual import
├── documentation/             ← this guide, as HTML and PDF
└── licensing/                 ← GPL licence, font licences and credits

Requirements

• WordPress 6.5 or later (tested up to 7.1).
• PHP 7.4 or later (8.2 or later recommended).
• For the demo import: PHP memory_limit 256M, max_execution_time 300, upload size 32M. Most hosts already allow this; if an import stops half-way, ask your host to raise these values.

Every plugin the theme uses is free from wordpress.org. Nothing needs a paid licence.

Installing the theme

1. In your dashboard, go to Appearance → Themes → Add New Theme → Upload Theme.
2. Choose ironvale.zip and click Install Now, then Activate.
3. Optional: install and activate ironvale-child.zip the same way (see Child theme).

Upload by FTP instead: unzip ironvale.zip and copy the ironvale folder to wp-content/themes/, then activate it under Appearance → Themes.

Plugins

After activation, a notice at the top of the dashboard lists the plugins the theme uses. Click Begin installing plugins (or go to Appearance → Install Plugins), select them all, choose Install, then activate them.

The theme works without any plugin: posts, pages, menus, widgets and search are styled the same. The plugin is needed for the construction features (services, projects, team, quote form…).

Importing a demo

The import gives you the demo site: pages, services, projects, team members, reviews, posts, menus, widgets and the Customizer settings. Use it on a new site: it adds content next to what you already have.

1. Install the plugins above.
2. Go to Appearance → Import Demo Data.
3. Pick a demo and click Import. It takes one to three minutes; keep the page open.
4. Done: visit your site. The home page, menus and blog page are already set.

All six home pages are imported with every demo; the demo you pick decides which one is the front page and which colours and header the Customizer uses. To switch later, go to Settings → Reading and choose another home page.

Manual import

If the one-click import is blocked by your host, use the files in demo-content/:

1. Tools → Import → WordPress (install the importer when asked) → upload content.xml.
2. Install Widget Importer & Exporter → Tools → Widget Importer & Exporter → upload widgets.wie.
3. Install Customizer Export/Import → Appearance → Customize → Export/Import → upload customizer-<demo>.dat.
4. Appearance → Menus → Manage Locations: set the main, top bar and footer menus. Settings → Reading: choose the home and blog pages.

After the import: your details

The demo uses a made-up phone number, address, office hours and rates. Replace them with yours, in this order:

1. Phone number and top bar: Appearance → Customize → Ironvale options → Header and top bar. Set Phone number, Top bar text (a short line such as your office hours) and the Label next to the phone (the demo says "24/7 leaks"). Every "Call" button on the site uses this number.
2. Logo and site icon: Appearance → Customize → Site Identity.
3. Colours: Appearance → Customize → Colors. The six demo home pages each have their own accent colour (see Page options); clear it there to use the Customizer colour.
4. Quote page, office hours, estimator rates and quote emails: Settings → Ironvale Core (see Quote requests, Office hours and Project cost estimator).
5. Footer widgets: Appearance → Widgets → Footer column 1–4: edit the Contact details widget (address, phone, email).
6. Your content: edit the services, projects, team and reviews in the dashboard menus of the same names, and replace the grey placeholder photos with your own.

Services, projects, team and reviews

The Ironvale Core plugin adds four content types, a Types of work list and a Sectors list to the dashboard. Each content type has a Details box under the editor.

Sectors (under Projects) group projects and services by client type, for example Residential or Commercial. Each sector has its own page at /sector/<name>/, and the Sectors widget shows each one as a photo tile with its number of projects (the photo comes from the newest project in that sector). Types of work (under Projects) group projects by the kind of job, for example Extensions or Roofing, with a page at /work/<name>/. A project can have several of each; the Projects widget can show one sector or one type of work only.

Turn on Show filter buttons by sector in the Projects widget (or filter="yes" in the shortcode) to add a button per sector above the cards; visitors click one to see only those projects.

The featured image of a service, project or post is used on its card and at the top of its page. Use landscape photos at least 1600 × 900 px.

Quote requests

The Quote form widget (or the [ironvale_quote] shortcode) asks for the client's name, phone and email, the service, the approximate area, the start date, the site postcode, a budget range, how to reply (email, phone call or site visit) and an optional message. Name and a phone number or email are required. Spam protection is built in (a hidden field and a limit on repeated sends) and no other plugin is needed.

• When the client picks a service priced per unit of area and types the area, the form shows a guide price as they type (rate × area). Services priced per hour, visit or job show no guide price. The saved request gets its own estimate, worked out from the service rate on the server.
• Every request is saved under Quotes in the dashboard, with a counter of new ones. Open a request to see the details and set its status: New, Contacted, Site visit booked, Quote sent, Won, Lost.
• The services in the form come from your Services, so they stay up to date.
• Settings → Ironvale Core → Quote enquiries: choose the Quote page (the page with the Quote form widget), turn email alerts on or off, choose the address (empty = the site admin email), list your Budget ranges (one per line; leave empty to hide the budget field), and edit the thank-you message and the privacy note under the form.
• Emails are sent by WordPress. If they do not arrive, install an SMTP plugin such as WP Mail SMTP; requests are saved in the dashboard either way.

The quote bar

Turn on Show the quote bar in the Hero widget. Visitors pick a service, type the area and their postcode and press Get my quote: the quote page opens with the form already filled in. The Get a quote for this button on each service page opens the same form with that service chosen.

Use any unit of area: set Unit of area (m² or sq ft) under Project cost estimator; the quote bar, the form and the estimator all use it.

Office hours

Settings → Ironvale Core → Office hours: set an opening and a closing time for each day. Leave both empty on days you are closed, and add an optional note (for example "Site teams work Monday to Saturday").

• The Office hours widget (Elementor) or [ironvale_hours] shortcode shows the hours beside your address and phone number. The Ironvale: Office hours widget shows them in the sidebar or footer.
• Today's row is highlighted, and a badge says Open now (with the closing time) or Closed now. The badge uses the time zone in Settings → General, and it is worked out in the visitor's browser, so it stays right even when your pages are cached.
• The week starts on the day set in Settings → General → Week Starts On; times use the time format set there.

Project cost estimator

Settings → Ironvale Core → Project cost estimator: list your services, one per line as Service|rate per unit of area|smallest job, for example Kitchen remodel|1200|18000. Set the currency symbol, the unit of area (m² or sq ft), the large-project discount and the area that gets it, and the note under the result.

The Project cost estimator widget (or [ironvale_calculator]) lets a visitor pick a service and type the area. It shows the total and the price per unit ("About $24,000 in total, or $1,200 per m²"), never less than the smallest job, worked out in the browser: nothing is sent or stored. Turn on List the services and rates in the widget to show every service with its rate beside the estimator.

Page options

Each page has a Page options box in the editor sidebar:

• Accent colour for this page: overrides the Customizer accent on this page only. The demo uses it to give each demo home page its own colour.
• Colour scheme: light or dark for this page only (the Commercial builder demo is dark).
• Header layout: classic, centered or contact, for this page only.

Leave them empty to follow the Customizer.

Page templates

Customizer settings

Appearance → Customize. Colours are in the Colors section; everything else is in the Ironvale options panel. Changes show in the preview before you publish them.

The site title, tagline, logo, site icon, background and homepage settings are WordPress's own, in Site Identity, Background image and Homepage Settings.

Menus

Appearance → Menus. Create a menu, add pages, services or custom links, then tick a Display location:

• Primary menu — the header. Drag items under another to make a drop-down.
• Top bar menu — the small links in the top bar.
• Footer menu — the links in the footer's bottom row.
• Social links menu — links to your profiles (Facebook, Instagram…), shown in the footer. Add them as Custom Links.

Widgets

Appearance → Widgets. Areas: Blog sidebar and Footer column 1 to Footer column 4 (set the number of footer columns in the Customizer). The plugin adds three widgets, named Ironvale: … in the widget list:

• Contact details — phone, email, address, each with a link.
• Office hours — your hours from Settings → Ironvale Core, with an "Open now" badge.
• Services list — links to your services; the current service is highlighted.

Building pages with Elementor

All demo pages are built with the free Elementor plugin and the theme's widgets.

1. Create a page, set its Template to Full width, no title, and click Edit with Elementor.
2. Search for the widget or open the Ironvale group in the left panel and drag a widget onto the page.
3. Edit its text and options in the left panel. Every widget has a Background option (light, paper, dark or accent colour) so sections alternate like the demo.

The widgets fill themselves from your content: Services, Sectors, Projects, Team, Reviews and Latest posts show the items you add in the dashboard. List fields (prices, steps, questions…) take one item per line, with the parts separated by |, as the help text under each field shows.

Elementor's own Google Fonts loading is switched off by the demo import, so the site keeps using the theme's self-hosted fonts.

Without Elementor: shortcodes

Every widget is also a shortcode, so you can build the same sections in the block editor: add a Shortcode block and type, for example:

[ironvale_projects count="6" columns="3" filter="yes"]
[ironvale_services count="6"]
[ironvale_quote title="Request a quote"]

Options are the same as in Elementor. In list options, separate items with || and parts with |. Images take an attachment ID (Media → Library → the number in the address) or a full URL.

Shortcodes: [ironvale_hero], [ironvale_services], [ironvale_sectors], [ironvale_reviews], [ironvale_team], [ironvale_stats], [ironvale_features], [ironvale_steps], [ironvale_pricing], [ironvale_faq], [ironvale_cta], [ironvale_trust], [ironvale_calculator], [ironvale_projects], [ironvale_posts], [ironvale_emergency], [ironvale_about], [ironvale_quote], [ironvale_hours].

Block editor and patterns

Posts and simple pages use the WordPress block editor. Every core block is styled to match the theme, and the editor shows the theme's fonts and colours. Click + → Patterns → Ironvale for ready-made sections: hero with call button, three services, call to action, questions and answers, three reviews, price table and contact details. The theme also adds block styles: Card (Group), Check marks (List), Eyebrow (Paragraph) and Framed (Image).

Blog

Settings → Reading → Posts page sets the page that lists your posts (the demo uses "Blog"). Choose a grid or list layout and the sidebar position in Customize → Ironvale options → Blog. Posts show the author, date, category, share links (turn them off in Settings → Ironvale Core) and related posts.

Light and dark mode

Customize → Ironvale options → Style and fonts → Colour scheme: Light, Dark or Follow the visitor's device. With Show a light/dark switch on, visitors can switch with the moon button in the header; their choice is remembered on that device. A single page can be forced to light or dark in its Page options.

Child theme

If you want to change the theme's code, install ironvale-child.zip and activate Ironvale Child. Put your CSS in the child theme's style.css and your PHP in its functions.php; copy a template file from ironvale into the child theme to override it. Theme updates replace the parent theme only, so your changes are kept.

Small style changes do not need a child theme: use Customize → Additional CSS.

Translation and right-to-left

Every text in the theme and the plugin can be translated. The templates are ironvale/languages/ironvale.pot and ironvale-core/languages/ironvale-core.pot.

1. Easiest: install Loco Translate → Loco Translate → Themes → Ironvale → New language, and translate in your browser. Do the same under Plugins for Ironvale Core.
2. Or use Poedit: open the .pot file, translate, and save the files as ironvale-fr_FR.po/.mo in wp-content/languages/themes/.

Right-to-left languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Persian…) are supported: when WordPress runs in such a language, the layout mirrors automatically.

Updating

When a new version is released, download it from your ThemeForest Downloads page. Then either:

• Appearance → Themes → Add New Theme → Upload Theme → choose the new ironvale.zip → Replace current with uploaded; or
• replace the wp-content/themes/ironvale folder by FTP.

When the theme comes with a newer Ironvale Core, the dashboard notice offers to update the plugin. Your content, menus, widgets and Customizer settings are kept. Changes you made to the parent theme's files are lost: keep them in the child theme.

Questions

Support

Support is included with your purchase and covers questions about the theme's features and fixing bugs. It does not cover custom changes or problems caused by other plugins.

Email support@codememory.com with your purchase code and your site address. See the changelog for what changed in each version and third-party materials for credits.