The reason could be related to the cache. Clear your browser cache and if you have a cache plugin active clear also the server cache using that plugin. Then refresh the page where you want to see the modifications.

To learn more about cache visit the WordPress documentation page https://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Optimization/Caching

If you still don’t see any changes check if you have really saved your settings. After successful savings, you should always see a confirmation message with a green border.

First of all, check if the Sticky Menu is active in Freesoul Settings => Header => Main Menu.

If it’s active and you don’t see the sticky menu when you scroll the page, here you will find the most common reason:

The sticky menu needs more space than the normal one, If the screen is not wide enough, the sticky menu layout would be broken. Freesoul automatically prevents the menu to become sticky for screens that don’t allow enough space to have all the menu items aligned in one single row.

If you have too many menu items, try to decrease the menu font size or the menu items distances in Freesoul Settings, if you want the sticky menu for narrow screens.

Probably your screen is not wide enough to display all the menu items in one single row.

Freesoul automatically converts the normal desktop menu to a hamburger menu for screens that don’t allow enough space, in another case the menu layout would appear broken.

If you have too many menu items, try to decrease the menu font size or the menu items distances in Freesoul Settings.

Be sure you are not using a small screen. In the mobile version, many widths become full widths.

Attention! When a widget’s area is empty it will not be displayed anywhere, so if you expect to see  a sidebar on your website and you know that in Freesoul Settings that sidebar is active, and you are asking to your self what is wrong, go to Appearance => Widgets and check that sidebar is populated.

To have navigation with an image or the logo in the middle, the number of menu items have to be even.

Normally people could receive a failure message for the following reasons:

• they have tried to submit the form too frequently triggering the anti-spam protection function that is activated when the contact form handler is called earlier than 30 seconds after the last submission by the same IP address
• the server that is hosting your site had a problem during the submission
• you are using a not popular cache plugin and you didn’t delete the cache after you saved the contact form

Probably you need more explanations regarding the last reason. Freesoul has an anti-spam system for post comments, contact forms, and newsletter opt-ins.

Regarding the contact form, one of the features of the anti-spam is a secret key generated during every contact form update. On the front-end, every contact form has an alphanumeric code (visible if you inspect the DOM). The front end code and the secret key are not the same, but through a back-end algorithm, they can be compared to understand if the contact form submission comes really from the page that includes the contact form or from a spams robot that automatically sent a request to the contact form handler. This feature together with other anti-spam features drastically reduces the number of spams coming from the contact form, but if you have cached the page that includes the contact form before its last update, it will not work because on the front end the alphanumeric code will not fit with the secret key, simply because the cached page refers to an old version of the contact form, having an old secret key.

For the popular cache plugins, Freesoul automatically deletes the cache when a contact form is updated, for all the other cache plugins you need to delete the cache every time you update a contact form.

If you are a WordPress developer and you are asking to yourself why don’t use the built-in WordPress nonce for anti-spam purpose, the answer is: the nonce system works perfectly for the back-end but not for the front-end, because every time the nonce code is changed by WordPress, you will not know it and if the page that includes the contact form is cached, people will receive the failure message because the nonce will be not valid. 

Normally you could receive a failure message for several reasons:

• you have tried to submit  too frequently triggering the anti-spam protection function
• your MailChimp API key set in Mailchimp Settings is wrong or not set
• the server that is hosting your site had a problem during the submission
• the newsletter server had a problem during the submission
• you are using a not popular cache plugin and you didn’t delete the cache after you updated the Mailchimp settings

Probably you need more explanations regarding the last reason. Freesoul has an anti-spam system for post comments, contact forms, and newsletter opt-ins.

Regarding the Mailchimp opt-in, one of the features of the anti-spam is a secret key generated during the Mailchimp settings update. On the front-end, every Mailchimp opt-in has an alphanumeric code (visible if you inspect the DOM). The front end code and the secret key are not the same, but through a back-end algorithm, they can be compared to understand if the Mailchimp submission comes really from the page that includes the opt-in or from a spams robot that automatically sends requests to the opt-in handler. This feature together with other anti-spam features drastically reduces the number of requests that from your server are sent to MailChimplchimp, but if you have cached the page that includes the opt-in before last Mailchimp Settings update, it will not work because on the front end the alphanumeric code will not fit with the secret key, simply because the cached page refers to an old version of the Mailchimp settings, having an old secret key.

For the popular cache plugins, Freesoul automatically deletes the cache when the Mailchimp settings are updated, for all the other cache plugins you need to delete the cache every time you update the Mailchimp Settings.

If you are a WordPress developer and you are asking to yourself why don’t use the built-in WordPress nonce for anti spam purpose, the answer is: the nonce system works perfectly for the back-end but not for the front-end, because every time the nonce code is changed by WordPress, you will not know it and if the page that includes the opt-in is cached, people will receive the failure message because the nonce will be not valid. 

For back-end performance reasons, Freeoul doesn’t send requests to MailChimp every time you visit a back-end page, so the cause of the problem could be that you have added your list on MailChimp after you have saved for the last time the Freesoul MailChimp settings and no request was sent from Freesoul to MailChimp after then.

To solve the problem go to Freesoul => Mailchimp Settings and click on “Update and check data“.

Go to Landing Page settings and check the option “Check it to publish the site”.

After activating the plugin Freesoul Framework, that checkbox is deactivated and all the users that are not logged in will see a Coming Soon because it’s supposed that you prefer to don’t show the site in progress until it’s ready for publication. For more details look “Coming soon” of this documentation.

When you sign up with an Internet Service Provider you will either end up with a static IP address or a dynamic IP address, depending on the nature of your account.

A static IP address will be always the same excluding occasional times that it’s changed for technical reasons (e.g. after a storm).

A dynamic IP address will change many times, even at every internet connections.

Keep also in mind that an IP address doesn’t travel with you. If you took your laptop to a coffee shop and used their wireless network, the IP address will be different.

Considering all that said above, the reasons that the IP address set in Landing Page Settings doesn’t work could be two.

• It’s a dynamic IP address and it’s already different than what set in Landing Page Settings. In this case, it’s recommended to supply username and password to people who have a dynamic IP address. You will find the settings in Landing Page Settings.
• The person that has given you the IP address is not using his computer in the same place where he got the IP address. In this case, just inform that person that he can see the site in progress only using his computer in the same place where he got the IP address. Remember that you can put multiple IPs in case people need to see the site in progress in different places, but if you realize that for someone it’s too complicated to understand this stuff, maybe better to give the username and password.

You could not see the Google map for four reasons:

• you have used more than 1 map on the same page, Google clearly says to don’t put multiple maps on the same page and that some errors could occur
• your Google API key is not valid
• your domain is not validated in the Google app related to your Google API key
• your site has exceeded the number of free requests to Google

To solve the problem don’t put more than 1 map in a page, be careful to use a valid API key, validate your domain in your google app, and if your site has many visits, consider to pay Google to increase the maximum number of requests.

The Google API key and the Google app understanding requires a base knowledge if you are not a developer it will be hard for you to really understand this stuff. In case you are struggling too much remember that you can always embed the Google map as an iframe (style not customizable).

In this last case, follow the steps below.

1. Open Google Maps.
2. Make sure the map, Street View image you’d like to embed shows up on the map.
3. In the top left corner, click the Menu .
4. Click Share or Embed map.
5. At the top of the box that appears, choose Embed map.
6. Choose the size you want, then copy the HTML embed code.
7. Open the Freesoul Builder element “Google Maps” (not “Advanced Google Map”)
8. Paste the copied code in “Map embed iframe”.

Of course, you can, using Freesoul, you don’t really need it.

As you probably know child themes are perfect if you want to add your custom code and you don’t want to lose it after the theme update.

Consider that Freesoul for its modular system and high amount of options gives you the possibility to create every sort of layouts and styles, including full customization of headers and footers.

You don’t really need a child theme for custom code that is related to the style.

You can write your custom CSS in Freesoul Settings => General => Custom CSS or in Appearance => Customize => General => Custom CSS, and also for every single page using the Freesoul Builder custom CSS.

If you need custom functionality included neither in Freesoul nor in external plugins, you don’t have to add your code on the theme files (and you shouldn’t), but you can edit your custom PHP code going to Freesoul Settings => Advanced => Custom PHP.

Clicking on the Custom PHP button the Freesoul Custom plugin will be automatically activated and ready for your code editing.

We believe it’s better to write a custom plugin than a child theme for code that is related to the functionality, so you can reuse that code with other themes. The Freesoul Custom plugin will be ready for you.

If you need to customize a Freesoul template file, just copy and save it in the templates folder of Freesoul Custom plugin. Having Freesoul Custom plugin active, WordPress will first check in that folder, then in an eventual child-theme folder and at the end in the Freesoul parent theme.

In case you need to customize the Freesoul Templates output without modifying the files, visit the  Freesoul Filters and Action Hooks documentation page.

If for some reasons you still want to create a child theme, you can use the Freesoul-Child theme provided with Freesoul or of course create a new one.