Getting Started
Here are the first steps on a new Dirigible site: run the setup wizard, find your way around the Customizer, and build your first page.
Browse documentation in WordPress
Open Dashboard → Documentation to read Dirigible Support docs inside wp-admin. Pages that map to a Customizer section or admin screen on your site show an Open button that launches that destination in a new tab.
See In-Admin Documentation for details.
Run Theme Setup first (recommended)
On a fresh install, WordPress may send you to Appearance → Theme Setup automatically. You can also open it anytime from the admin sidebar.
The wizard walks you through:
- Activating licenses and installing core plugins (Blocks, Fonts, SEO, and others).
- Setting the site title, tagline, and tone.
- Picking a starting palette and fonts.
- Uploading or generating a logo.
- Creating starter pages such as Home, About, and Contact (optional).
Use Next, Back, or Skip to move between steps. When you reach Ready, jump into the dashboard or the Customizer.
Full step list: Guided Theme Setup.
Open the Customizer
Most site-wide choices live in one place:
- Go to Appearance → Customize.
- Open a Dirigible panel on the left: Styles, Settings, Header & Menus, Footer & Contact, and more.
- Change a setting. The preview on the right updates as you go.
- Click Publish to make the changes live.
Global Styles and Live Preview explains how colors, fonts, and widths set here carry through every page.
Suggested order for a new site
You don't have to follow this exactly, but most sites come together in roughly this order:
| Step | What to do | Learn more |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Finish Theme Setup, or skip it and set things up by hand | Guided Theme Setup |
| 2 | Choose site colors and fonts | Palette and Typography |
| 3 | Set content widths | Widths and Layout |
| 4 | Build the header and menus | Header Setup |
| 5 | Add footer contact details and a footer logo | Footer and Contact |
| 6 | Set up blog cards and single posts | Blog Cards and Single Posts |
| 7 | Build pages in the block editor | True-to-Site Block Editor |
Settings worth checking early
Under Customize → Settings:
- General: your 404 page, page background color, image lightbox color, and whether the header and footer run full width.
- Social Media: profile links used by social icons, the Socials block, and search engine data.
- Animations: page-load and scroll effects (see also Magic Classes and Scroll Animations).
- Search Results Page: the message shown above site search results.
Build your first page
- Go to Pages → Add New.
- Give the page a title.
- Click + and insert Dirigible blocks (Hero, Section, Columns, and others).
- Use the block sidebar to adjust layout, colors, and content.
- Click Publish.
The editor loads your theme styles, so the canvas looks close to the live site. For media tips, see Smarter Media Library and Image Focal Points.
Back up or move settings
Before a big redesign, export your styles and settings from Dirigible → Import/Export. You can restore them on the same site or copy them to another one.
Details: Import and Export Theme Settings.
Related guides
- Palette and Typography
- Widths and Layout
- Header Setup
- Tools and Maintenance: cache, media, and cleanup tools
Add Dirigible plugins
Open Dashboard → Home and scroll to Plugins. A line above the grid sums it up (for example "11 active · 1 ready to install · 3 need a license"), and each Dirigible plugin has a card with a short description, a Docs link and its status:
| Mark | Meaning | Button |
|---|---|---|
| Green check | Active, with a license | none |
| Yellow check | Licensed but not installed yet | Install |
| Orange ! | Active without a license, so it gets no updates | Add license |
| Empty circle | Not installed and no license yet, or installed but switched off | Add license or Activate |
To license a plugin, click Add license on its card, paste the key and click Save (or press Enter; Escape closes the field). The card turns to the yellow check and Install is ready to click. If the key is rejected, the reason appears under the field and the key stays put so you can check it. Password managers leave the field alone.
Install downloads the plugin from Dirigible and activates it, so there's no zip to find and upload. The card shows Installing…, then turns green with "Installed and active" and a Reload link: the plugin's own menu appears after the next page load. Activate works the same way for a plugin that is installed but switched off. Nothing reloads on its own.
Dirigible → Licenses has the same cards under Plugins to install, after the license sections of the plugins that are already active. Once a plugin is active, its own license section appears there on the next page load.
Only administrators who can install plugins see the buttons. On a site that blocks file changes (DISALLOW_FILE_MODS), plugins have to be copied into wp-content/plugins instead.
Keep Dirigible up to date
Theme and plugin updates show up under Dashboard → Updates, like any other WordPress update. The Dirigible theme and every Dirigible plugin update automatically: WordPress checks twice a day and installs new Dirigible releases in the background, so on the Plugins screen their auto-update setting shows as on and can't be switched off there. Your other plugins keep their own setting. Each product needs an active license under Dirigible → Licenses to receive updates.
While an update is replacing the theme's or a plugin's files (usually a few seconds), a visitor who lands mid-way gets a short "This site is updating, refresh in a minute" page instead of a broken page or an error. Browsers and the host's cache retry it on their own.
Dirigible updates are signed by Dirigible Studio, and the theme checks the signature before an update installs. If an update's files don't match its signature, an alert appears in wp-admin: please let Dirigible Studio know. Zips you upload yourself (Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin) aren't checked.
To keep a site on its current Dirigible versions (for example while you test something), add define('DS_AUTO_UPDATES', false); to wp-config.php. Updates still appear under Dashboard → Updates for you to install by hand.
To check right away, open Dashboard → Home and click Check for updates at the bottom of the Welcome card, next to the version number. It checks the theme and every Dirigible plugin, then shows the result in place of the link: Up to date, or a count of available updates with a link to the Updates screen. Only administrators see this link.
To check many sites at once, for example right after a release, run this snippet on each site (ManageWP Code Snippets, or wp eval over SSH):
if (function_exists('ds_check_dirigible_updates_now')) { print_r(ds_check_dirigible_updates_now()); }
It runs the same check as the Check for updates link and prints what it found: the products checked, updates available, any that couldn't be checked, and any without a license. It doesn't install anything. New versions then show up in ManageWP and under Dashboard → Updates straight away, and sites with automatic updates on install them on their next background update run.