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WordPress Club Themes

Maelstrom WordPress Theme

Maelstrom Maelstrom, the August 2011 release, illustrates the elegance of merging a complex style infrastructure, with a dynamic, and flexible feature set. Perfect for your portfolio or gallery site.

The theme features animated header background images, configurable to be cross-fading or scrolling, whether in the horizontal or vertical axises. This, in combination with the diverse number of widget variations, create a perfectly designed sandbox to develop a beautiful online presence.

Features and Screenshots


Maelstrom Preset Styles Gantry Settings Scrolling Widgets Widget Variations Widget Positions
  • Animated Background Images
  • New RokStories Layout
  • Scrolling Widget Rows
  • Gantry Framework
  • 8 Preset Styles
  • Fusion with MegaMenu & Splitmenu
  • RocketTheme Plugins Styling
  • Custom Typography
  • Custom JS Form Styling
  • 70 Widget Positions
  • 31 Widget Variations - Over 250 Combinations
  • FF 3.6, Safari 4, Opera 10.x, IE7-IE8 Compatible
  • W3C XHTML 1.0 / CSS 3 Valid

NOTE: Gantry v1.17+ is required for Maelstrom to work correctly.

Animated Header Background Images

Each Preset Style has an animated header, ranging from transition to scroll animation types.

image image image
  • Transition: Automatically cycle/rotate through a series of background images, as part of a sequence to create a moving animation.
  • Scrolling: A vertically/horizontally scrolling effect for the background image, simulating object movement and animation.
  • Configuration: Control type, speed and duration via the intuitive Gantry administrator.

Over 250 Widget Variation Combinations

Maelstrom has 31 inbuilt variations with 25 stylistic variations. These can be combined to create a diverse range of widget styles. The box, title, icon and button variations can be combined, such as box5 title5 icon2 button2. You can see how the widget style develops in the screenshot below:

image

Scrolling Widget Rows

Stacked widgets placed to the Top, Showcase, Feature or Bottom Module rows will load this feature; this places stacked widgets inside a rotation element, triggered automatically or via arrows.

image
All images sources in the Adobe Fireworks PNG format.

Installation


Downloading the Theme Files

To install the theme, you need two files:-

  • Maelstrom Theme (rt_maelstrom_wp.zip) - This file is the standalone theme package you will use to install your theme into WordPress.
  • Gantry Plugin (gantry_wordpress_framework.zip) - This file contains the Gantry Framework Plugin and it's required in order to have our themes working.

There are other files that you may wish to download that accompany the release, but are not required for the theme to work.

  • Maelstrom Source PNG(s) (rt_maelstrom_wp-sources.zip) - This contains all the Adobe Fireworks PNG source files for the theme, and if applicable, the logo font.
  • Maelstrom RocketLauncher (rt_maelstrom_wp-rocketlauncher.zip) - The RocketLauncher pack is a full WordPress install that contains all the demo content, including plugins and the theme.
Please note that the Gantry plugin needs to be installed first and activated (doesn't apply to RocketLauncher).

Using the RocketLauncher

RocketLauncher includes a FULL WordPress install, in addition to the theme and demo contents. The WordPress installation process is necessary in creating the demo content, therefore RocketLauncher will only work properly as a new WordPress installation. It can not be used on an existing WordPress installation.
  • Download the Maelstrom RocketLauncher Package (rt_maelstrom_wp_rocketlauncher.zip) from the Maelstrom theme downloads section
  • Unzip the zip packaged onto your computer to reveal the rt_maelstrom_wp_rocketlauncher folder
  • Upload this to your site using your FTP client
  • Direct your browser to the installation such as www.yoursite.com/rt_maelstrom_wp_rocketlauncher or to whatever directory your uploaded to
  • Follow the standard WordPress installation, after which the theme and gantry framework will automatically be activated, along with the sample content.

Using the WordPress installer

  • Login into the WordPress administrator dashboard (http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/)
  • In the left menu sidebar, go to Appearance → Add New Themes → Upload
  • Select the Choose File button
  • Locate the rt_maelstrom_wp.zip file on your computer
  • Click Install Now
  • Maelstrom will now be installed
  • Click Activate under Maelstrom Theme

Using FTP

  • Extract rt_maelstrom_wp
  • Load your FTP client, such as FileZilla
  • Upload the rt_maelstrom_wp folder to the http://www.yoursite.com/wp-content/themes
  • Login into the WordPress administrator dashboard (http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/)
  • In the left menu sidebar, go to Appearance → Themes
  • Click Activate underneath the Maelstrom section

Installing Gantry Framework Plugin

Using the WordPress installer

  • Login into the WordPress administrator dashboard (http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/)
  • In the left menu sidebar, go to Plugins → Add New → Upload
  • Select the Choose File button
  • Locate the gantry_framework_plugin.zip file on your computer
  • Click Install Now
  • Gantry Framework Plugin will now be installed
  • Click Activate under the Gantry Plugin

Using the FTP

  • Extract gantry_framework_plugin.zip
  • Load your FTP client, such as FileZilla
  • Upload the gantry folder to the http://www.yoursite.com/wp-content/plugins
  • Login into the WordPress administrator dashboard (http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/)
  • In the left menu sidebar, go to Plugins
  • Click Activate underneath the Gantry Framework Plugin

Frequently Asked Questions


Where can i find theme settings?
  • Login into the WordPress administrator at http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/
  • Select the Maelstrom Settings tab on the left of the dashboard