Lusterly documentation

A WordPress theme for beauty salons, day spas, hair and nail studios, barbershops, brow and lash bars and massage studios. Six demos, a booking bar, treatments with prices and times, a price list with tabs, a filterable gallery, stylist profiles, appointment requests with time slots and a live total, opening hours with an "Open now" badge, packages and a gift card banner.

Thank you for choosing Lusterly. 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 beauty demos imported in one click
• Booking bar in the hero: pick a treatment and a day, land on the appointment form
• Treatments with a price, a duration, who does it and who it suits
• Price list grouped by category, with tabs and a "Book" link on every line
• Appointment form with stylist, date, time slots from your opening hours, extras and a live total, saved in your dashboard
• Filterable gallery of looks with the treatment, the stylist and the price
• Stylist profiles with role, years of experience, training and working days
• Opening hours with an "Open now" badge
• Packages and a gift card banner
• Reviews, FAQ, steps, stats and a blog
• 19 Elementor widgets (free Elementor)
• Every section also works as a shortcode
• Call / booking 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-lusterly-wordpress-theme/
├── lusterly.zip               ← the theme: upload this in WordPress
├── lusterly-child.zip         ← child theme, for your own code changes (optional)
├── plugins/lusterly-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 lusterly.zip and click Install Now, then Activate.
3. Optional: install and activate lusterly-child.zip the same way (see Child theme).

Upload by FTP instead: unzip lusterly.zip and copy the lusterly 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 salon features (treatments, price list, gallery, team, appointment form…).

Importing a demo

The import gives you the demo site: pages, treatments, looks, team stylists, 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, opening hours and prices. Replace them with yours, in this order:

1. Phone number and top bar: Appearance → Customize → Lusterly options → Header and top bar. Set Phone number, Top bar text (a short line such as your opening hours) and the Label next to the phone (the demo says "New clients 15% off"). 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. Booking page, opening hours, extras and appointment emails: Settings → Lusterly Core (see Appointment requests and Opening hours).
5. Footer widgets: Appearance → Widgets → Footer column 1–4: edit the Contact details widget (address, phone, email).
6. Your content: edit the treatments, gallery, team and reviews in the dashboard menus of the same names, and replace the placeholder photos with your own.

Treatments, gallery, team and reviews

The Lusterly Core plugin adds four content types, a Menu categories list and an Occasions list to the dashboard. Each content type has a Details box under the editor.

Menu categories (under Treatments) group treatments and looks, for example Hair, Nails or Brows & lashes. Each category has its own page at /menu/<name>/, and the Menu categories widget shows each one as an arched photo tile with its number of treatments. Occasions (also under Treatments) group treatments and looks by the moment they suit, for example Wedding or Everyday. A treatment or look can have several of each.

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

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

Price list

The Price list widget (or [lusterly_pricelist]) lists every treatment grouped by menu category, with a dotted line to the price, the time in the chair, the price note and a Book link that opens the appointment form with that treatment chosen. It reads your Treatments, so it is always up to date.

• Show tabs adds a button per category above the list (and "Full menu" to see everything).
• Only these menu categories limits the list, for example menu="barbering".
• Treatments are listed in their Order (Page attributes in the editor), then by name.

Appointment requests

The Appointment form widget (or the [lusterly_booking] shortcode) asks for the treatment, the stylist (or "Anyone available"), the day and a start time, optional extras, the client's name, phone and email, how to confirm (text message, phone call or email) and an optional message. Name, day, time 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.

• Time slots: once a day is picked, the time list only shows start times inside your opening hours that leave room for the treatment and extras before closing. Closed days say so. The same check runs again on the server when the form is sent.
• Live total: as the client picks a treatment and extras, the form shows the total price and the time in the chair. The saved request gets its own total, worked out from your prices on the server.
• Every request is saved under Appointments in the dashboard, with a counter of new ones. Open a request to see the details and set its status: New, Confirmed, Rescheduled, Completed, No-show, Cancelled.
• Settings → Lusterly Core → Appointment requests: choose the Booking page (the page with the Appointment form widget), the currency symbol, the minutes between time slots, your Extras (one per line as Name|price|minutes, for example Deep conditioning mask|18|15), turn email alerts on or off, choose the address (empty = the site admin email) and edit the thank-you message and the privacy note.
• Requests are not confirmed bookings: you confirm each one by the way the client chose.
• 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 booking bar

Turn on Show the booking bar in the Hero widget. Visitors pick a treatment and a day and press Find a time: the booking page opens with both filled in, ready to choose a time. The Book this treatment button on each treatment page and the Book with button on each team profile open the same form with the treatment or the stylist chosen.

Opening hours

Settings → Lusterly Core → Opening 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 "Late opening on Thursdays until 8 pm").

• The Opening hours widget (Elementor) or [lusterly_hours] shortcode shows the hours beside your address and phone number. The Lusterly: Opening 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 same hours decide which time slots the appointment form offers.
• The week starts on the day set in Settings → General → Week Starts On; times use the time format set there.

Gift cards and packages

The Gift card widget (or [lusterly_giftcard]) shows a gift card drawn in your accent colour with your site name, a title, a short text, the amounts you sell (one per line) and a button. Link the button to your shop, your phone number or a contact page; the theme does not sell gift cards itself.

The Packages widget (or [lusterly_pricing]) shows price cards, one per package, with what is included and a button. Mark one as featured to highlight it.

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 Barbershop 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 Lusterly 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 Lusterly: … in the widget list:

• Contact details — phone, email, address, each with a link.
• Opening hours — your hours from Settings → Lusterly Core, with an "Open now" badge.
• Treatments list — links to your treatments; the current treatment 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 Lusterly 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: Treatments, Price list, Menu categories, Gallery, 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:

[lusterly_pricelist tabs="yes"]
[lusterly_looks count="6" columns="3" filter="yes"]
[lusterly_booking title="Book an appointment"]

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: [lusterly_hero], [lusterly_treatments], [lusterly_pricelist], [lusterly_menus], [lusterly_looks], [lusterly_reviews], [lusterly_team], [lusterly_stats], [lusterly_features], [lusterly_steps], [lusterly_pricing], [lusterly_faq], [lusterly_cta], [lusterly_trust], [lusterly_posts], [lusterly_giftcard], [lusterly_about], [lusterly_booking], [lusterly_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 → Lusterly 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 → Lusterly options → Blog. Posts show the author, date, category, share links (turn them off in Settings → Lusterly Core) and related posts.

Light and dark mode

Customize → Lusterly 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 lusterly-child.zip and activate Lusterly Child. Put your CSS in the child theme's style.css and your PHP in its functions.php; copy a template file from lusterly 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 lusterly/languages/lusterly.pot and lusterly-core/languages/lusterly-core.pot.

1. Easiest: install Loco Translate → Loco Translate → Themes → Lusterly → New language, and translate in your browser. Do the same under Plugins for Lusterly Core.
2. Or use Poedit: open the .pot file, translate, and save the files as lusterly-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 lusterly.zip → Replace current with uploaded; or
• replace the wp-content/themes/lusterly folder by FTP.

When the theme comes with a newer Lusterly 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.