DOCUMENTATION

Theme Dashboard Documentation

The PluginHub theme gives the whole Revolutionary suite a home. From one dashboard you set your brand once, and every plugin, button, and heading falls in line automatically. This guide covers installing, licensing, customizing, importing demo content, and the tools that ship inside.

Getting started

Install the theme, activate your license and import a demo pack.

Header

Pick a layout, add an announcement bar and a brand CTA without code.

Branding & tokens

Set your brand once; every plugin reads it through the token contract.

Footer & content

Build footer columns, menus and widgets, and import demo content.

Tools

Plugin installer, updates, Login Designer and maintenance mode.

Help

Troubleshooting and answers to common questions.

Overview

PluginHub is the official theme for the Revolutionary Plugins suite. It does two jobs at once: it gives your public site a clean, fast front end, and it gives your admin a single Theme Dashboard where you control branding, header and footer layouts, demo content, and the suite's built-in tools.

The dashboard lives under Appearance -> Theme Dashboard (a top-level "Revolutionary" hub also collects the suite). Most of what you'll touch day to day is in the WordPress Customizer, opened straight from the dashboard, where every change previews live before you publish.

The most important idea in this whole theme is the token contract. You pick your brand colors and heading fonts once, and the theme publishes them as CSS custom properties that every Revolutionary plugin reads. Set a green primary button, and your forms, popups, sliders, and store buttons all turn green too, with no per-plugin settings.

Installing & activating the theme

PluginHub installs like any WordPress theme. You can upload the bundled .zip or install it from the Revolutionary Plugins hub.

  1. Upload the theme. In your WordPress admin, go to Appearance -> Themes -> Add New -> Upload Theme and choose pluginhub-theme.zip. Click Install Now.
  2. Activate it. Click Activate. A new Theme Dashboard entry appears under Appearance, and the Revolutionary hub is added to your admin menu.
  3. Open the dashboard. Go to Appearance -> Theme Dashboard. You'll see setup cards for license, demo content, plugins, and customization.
  4. Install the recommended plugins. The dashboard's Plugin Installer offers the whole suite. Install only what you need now; you can always add more later.

Heads up: PluginHub ships as a parent theme with an optional child theme. If you plan to add custom PHP or CSS, activate the child theme so your edits survive updates. Never edit the parent theme files directly.

Activating your license

Your license key unlocks automatic theme and plugin updates, premium demo packs, and priority support. One key activates the entire suite across the sites in your plan.

  1. Copy your key. Find it in your account at revolutionaryplugins.com/account, or in your purchase email.
  2. Open the license panel. Go to Appearance -> Theme Dashboard -> Updates & License.
  3. Paste and activate. Paste the key and click Activate. A green "Active" badge confirms the connection and registers this site against your plan.
  4. Confirm updates flow. Once active, theme and plugin updates appear under Dashboard -> Updates like any other WordPress update.

Tip: Moving a site? Deactivate the license here first to free the seat, then activate it on the new install. The same key works on staging and production, just count both against your site limit.

General

The General panel covers your site's identity. Open the Customizer from the dashboard and you'll find:

  • Logo: upload a logo image for the header and footer. The theme scales it cleanly and swaps in a light version for dark/overlay headers if you provide one.
  • Favicon (Site Icon): set the browser-tab icon and app icon. A square PNG of at least 512x512 looks best across devices.
  • Tagline: a short line shown under the logo on some layouts and used as a fallback in social previews.

These map to standard WordPress settings, so anything you set here is respected by plugins and SEO tools that read your site identity.

Header

The header is the most-customized part of the theme. Pick a layout, decide whether it floats over your hero, and add an announcement bar or a call-to-action button, all without touching code.

Layout What it does Best for
Center Logo centered, navigation balanced on either side. Editorial sites, portfolios, brands that want symmetry.
Right Logo left, menu and CTA aligned right. The classic SaaS header. Product and marketing sites.
Stacked Logo on its own row, navigation centered on a second row. Large menus, magazine and content-heavy sites.
Overlay Transparent header that sits on top of a full-bleed hero, then solidifies on scroll. Landing pages with a big hero image or video.
Custom Renders a Revolutionary Blocks template as the header so you can design it pixel by pixel. Anyone who wants total control over the header.

On top of the layout, the header panel adds a transparent hero option, an announcement bar above the header for a sale or notice, and a header CTA button that uses your brand button automatically.

Branding & the token contract

This is the heart of the theme. The Branding panel is where you set your colors, button style, and heading typography. What makes PluginHub special is that it doesn't just style itself with these choices, it publishes them as CSS custom properties that every Revolutionary plugin reads. Set your brand once; the whole suite matches.

The rule is simple and it runs in two directions. The theme emits tokens: from your Branding choices, PluginHub writes a :root block of --rev-btn-* and --rev-heading-* variables, on the front end (wp_head), in the admin (admin_head), and inside the block editor. Plugins consume tokens: every plugin styles its buttons with var(--rev-btn-*, <fallback>) and its headings with var(--rev-heading-font), falling back to its own default if no token is present.

:root {
  --rev-btn-bg:        #84CC16;
  --rev-btn-bg-hover:  #65A30D;
  --rev-btn-color:     #0B1220;
  --rev-btn-radius:    10px;
  --rev-heading-font:  "Inter", system-ui, sans-serif;
}

And here is how a plugin consumes them, keeping its old value as the fallback so it works even with no theme present:

.rev-btn-primary {
  background:    var(--rev-btn-bg, #6366f1);
  color:         var(--rev-btn-color, #fff);
  border-radius: var(--rev-btn-radius, 8px);
}
Token Set by Controls
--rev-btn-bg Primary color Solid button background across theme & plugins.
--rev-btn-bg-hover Primary + hover style Button background on hover.
--rev-btn-color Auto-contrast Button text color (picked for readability).
--rev-btn-radius Button shape Corner radius from sharp to pill.
--rev-heading-font Global heading font Font family for suite headings.
--rev-h1-size ... --rev-h6-size Per-tag heading size Size for each heading level.

Why this matters: A block's own typography or color always wins. The contract only fills in the default, so a heading or button you styled by hand inside Blocks stays exactly as you set it. If you add a custom button, wire it to the contract with var(--rev-btn-bg, ...) rather than pasting a fixed hex.

Footer

The footer panel lets you build a footer that fits your site instead of a fixed template:

  • Columns 1 to 6: choose how many widget columns the footer shows. Each column is a widget area you fill under Appearance -> Widgets.
  • Footer logo: show your logo (or a light variant) above the columns. Falls back to the site title if none is set.
  • Copyright: a free-text line at the very bottom. Use {year} and it stays current automatically.
  • Widget areas: drop menus, contact details, social links, or a newsletter form (from Forms) into any column.

Import demo content

Demo content is the fastest way to a finished site. The importer (powered by Revolutionary Importer) ships ready-made packs: pages, menus, widgets, and sample settings that show the theme at its best.

The flagship pack is "Revolutionary Plugins (Official)", the exact marketing site you see at revolutionaryplugins.com, including the home, plugins, pricing, docs, and support pages. Import it, then replace the copy with your own.

  1. Open the importer. Go to Appearance -> Theme Dashboard -> Import Demo Content. Each pack shows a thumbnail and a short description.
  2. Pick a pack. Choose "Revolutionary Plugins (Official)" for the full suite site, or a lighter starter pack if you want a blank-but-styled base.
  3. Run the import. Click Import. A progress bar tracks pages, menus, widgets, and media as they sideload.
  4. Review & edit. When it finishes, your menus and homepage are set. Edit the pages, swap the logo, and you're live.

Best on a fresh site: Demo import is designed for new installs. On a site that already has content, import into staging first. The importer keeps a rollback point so you can undo, but a clean start is always tidiest.

Menus

PluginHub registers several menu locations: a primary header menu, an optional secondary menu (used by stacked and center headers), and one or more footer menus. Build them under Appearance -> Menus and assign each to its location.

The primary menu supports dropdowns and a CTA item: tag a menu item with the button CSS class and it renders as your brand button, again pulling straight from the token contract. Demo content sets all of this up for you.

Widgets & sidebars

The theme exposes widget areas you can fill with blocks or classic widgets:

  • Header widget area: a small slot for a phone number, a search, or social icons (depending on layout).
  • Footer columns 1 to 6: one widget area per footer column, shown based on your footer column count.
  • Blog sidebar: shown on post and archive templates for recent posts, categories, or a search.

All widget areas accept the block-based widget editor, so you can drop in a Revolutionary Forms newsletter signup, a Slider, or a Popups trigger without any code.

Plugin installer

The dashboard's Plugin Installer lists every plugin in the suite with a one-click install/activate. It pulls the bundled, license-aware versions, so installs are fast and updates flow through your license.

  • See which suite plugins are installed, active, or available at a glance.
  • Install a single plugin, or install the recommended set in one click.
  • Activated plugins immediately pick up your brand through the token contract, no extra setup.

Updates & license

This is the same panel you used to activate your license. Beyond activation it shows:

  • License status, active or inactive, your plan, and the seat count against your limit.
  • Update channel, theme and plugin updates appear in the normal WordPress Updates screen once the license is active.
  • Re-check, force a license re-check if you just upgraded a plan or moved a site.
// Gate a custom feature on the active license.
if ( function_exists( 'pluginhub_license_active' ) && pluginhub_license_active() ) {
    // premium-only code here
}

Login Designer

The Login Designer restyles the WordPress login screen to match your brand. Open Theme Dashboard -> Login Designer and you can set:

  • Logo, replace the WordPress mark with yours, linked to your homepage.
  • Background, a solid color, your brand gradient, or an image.
  • Form card, colors, rounding, and shadow for the login box.
  • Button, the "Log In" button reads the same --rev-btn-* tokens, so it matches the rest of your site automatically.

Maintenance & loading screens

Two related tools live together here:

  • Maintenance mode: show a branded "we'll be right back" page to visitors while logged-in admins keep working. Set a heading, message, and a countdown, and choose who can bypass it.
  • Loading screens: a short branded splash (with a few preset animations) while the page paints, so first impressions feel polished instead of blank.

Tip: Maintenance mode never locks you out. Logged-in administrators always see the real site, so you can preview changes while visitors see the holding page.

Troubleshooting

Most theme issues fall into one of these buckets. Work through them before opening a ticket:

  • Plugin buttons don't match my brand: confirm the plugin styles its button with var(--rev-btn-*). A hardcoded color won't follow the contract. Also clear any page or CSS cache after changing your brand.
  • Updates aren't appearing: your license is almost certainly inactive. Re-activate it under Updates & License.
  • Customizer changes don't save: a caching or security plugin may be blocking the save request. Clear cache and retry, or temporarily disable the conflicting plugin.
  • Demo import stalls: raise your host's max_execution_time and memory, or import on staging where limits are looser.
  • Header overlaps content: if you enabled the transparent/overlay header on a page without a full-bleed hero, switch that page to a standard header or add a hero section.

Tip: When in doubt, switch the theme to a default WordPress theme briefly to confirm whether an issue is the theme or a plugin.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

No. PluginHub is a perfectly capable standalone theme. The token contract simply means that when you do run the suite, everything matches automatically. Other plugins work fine too; they just will not inherit your brand tokens unless they read them.

No, that is the whole point. Change it once in Branding and every plugin button, link, and accent updates the moment the page reloads, because they all read the same --rev-btn-* tokens.

No. The contract only provides the default. Anything you styled explicitly, a heading font inside Blocks, a hand-built button, wins over the token. The contract fills the gaps, it does not fight your choices.

Yes, through the bundled child theme. Put custom PHP in the child theme functions.php and custom CSS in its stylesheet (or the Customizer Additional CSS). Parent updates then never wipe your work.

Yes. All strings are internationalized via the pluginhub text domain, and a .pot file ships in languages/. The theme is RTL-friendly out of the box.

Was this helpful?

Browse the rest of the documentation or see what is included in each plan.

Back to all docs