Install and update

Requirements

Needs
WordPress 7.1 or newer. The theme is a block theme with theme.json v3; it will not run on an older release.
PHP 7.4 minimum. Use a version that still receives security updates.
Browsers Current Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge. The scroll reveals need a browser with scroll-driven animations; every other browser shows the finished page without them. See Motion.
Editor The Site Editor. There is no page builder and none is claimed.
Commerce Lumina Edu takes no payment and sells nothing. WooCommerce is not supported and not claimed.
Server Nothing unusual. Outbound HTTPS to tailthemes.com is used three times: to install the companion plugin from the dashboard, to fetch the demo photographs during an import, and for the companion plugin's update check. Each has an offline route below.

Where the download comes from

Lumina Edu is sold on tailthemes.com, and only there. A purchase gives you a licence, and the licence gives you the download:

Keep the licence mail. It identifies your purchase when you write to support.

The installable zip, and the package

This is where most installs go wrong, so it is worth one minute.

The download is one zip, lumina-edu-package-<version>.zip. It is not a theme. Unpack it on your own computer and you get:

lumina-edu-package-1.2.2.zip
├── lumina-edu.zip              ← the theme. THIS is what you upload.
├── lumina-edu-child.zip        ← the child theme, optional
├── plugins/
│   └── lumina-edu-core.zip     ← the companion plugin (the demo content file is inside it)
├── documentation/              this guide, offline
├── licensing/                  the GPL text, the licences and the credits
└── changelog.txt

The offline documentation/ folder is this guide. Its screenshots are linked from our server rather than carried in the zip, so they need a connection; the text does not.

The companion plugin

lumina-edu-core holds the content: programs, sessions, instructors, departments, campuses, delivery options, admissions deadlines and Site details, plus the blocks that print them, the demo importer and Appearance → Getting started. Without it there is no Getting started screen.

Two ways in, and they install the same file:

  1. Appearance → Install Plugins. Lumina Edu Core is listed as recommended, never required; WordPress downloads it from https://tailthemes.com/wordpress/plugins/lumina-edu-core.zip. Nothing is force-activated and the notice can be dismissed. The same screen offers One Click Demo Import, free from wordpress.org, for the demo.
  2. Plugins → Add New Plugin → Upload Plugin → plugins/lumina-edu-core.zip from your download. Use this when your server cannot reach ours.

The plugin is downloaded rather than packed inside the theme zip, because a theme that carries another zip inside it cannot be checked or updated on its own. The identical file sits in your download's plugins/ folder.

What the companion plugin adds

With the plugin off With it on
Every page renders. Every section, heading, photograph slot and action is there, as blocks you can edit. The same pages, with every section that states a record filled from your records.
Sections that would state a record show a still example: the example school's programs, tutors and hours under a day and an hour (Tue · 18:30), never a date. Programs, prices, start dates, deadlines, sessions, tutors, campuses, counts and opening hours come from your records. A dated row leaves the page when its day passes, on a cached page too.
The program finder's sentence is words; the board is three still rows. The sentence is four real choices and the board answers them.
The header's telephone is the example school's. The header prints Site details → Phone, or nothing when it is empty.
No program, instructor, department or campus pages. Each record has its own page.

Deactivating it deletes nothing, and neither does switching theme: the records stay in your database. Deactivating and exporting has the details.

The child theme

Install lumina-edu-child.zip the same way, then activate it instead of the parent. Keep the parent installed: the child inherits it. Use the child when you want PHP or CSS of your own and still want to update the parent.

You usually do not need it. Changes you make in Appearance → Editor — colours, fonts, templates, template parts — are stored in the database, not in files, and survive a theme update with or without a child theme.

Updating without losing anything

Your content is safe across an update because of where it lives:

What Where it lives Survives a theme update Survives a theme switch
Programs, sessions, instructors, departments, campuses, deadlines, Site details The companion plugin's database records Yes Yes
Pages you built, and the blocks on them The database Yes Yes
Colours, fonts and spacing you changed in Styles The database Yes They belong to this theme
Templates and parts you edited in the Site Editor The database Yes They belong to this theme
theme.json, style.css, patterns, fonts, the shipped templates The theme's own files Replaced

So never edit the theme's files directly. Anything you want to keep goes in the Site Editor, in Styles, or in the child theme.

The companion plugin updates itself

Lumina Edu Core appears on Dashboard → Updates and on the Plugins screen like any other plugin when a new version exists. It finds out by reading one small file, https://tailthemes.com/wordpress/plugins/lumina-edu-core.json, at most once every twelve hours, only from the admin or from WordPress's own scheduled tasks, never while a visitor is loading a page. The request carries nothing about your site: no address, no licence key, no statistics. If your host blocks outbound requests, the check fails silently and you update by upload instead.

The theme is updated by upload

  1. Back up files and the database.
  2. Read changelog.txt in the new package. Update Lumina Edu Core first when it says the plugin changed.
  3. tailthemes.com/account → Download package, and unpack it.
  4. Appearance → Themes → Add New Theme → Upload Theme → the new lumina-edu.zip. WordPress recognises the theme, shows the installed and the uploaded versions side by side, and offers Replace active with uploaded. Press it.
  5. Check that the version in this guide's footer matches Appearance → Themes, then look at Programs, one program page, Sessions, the header and one action while logged out.

There is no licence-key field in the theme or the plugin, and nothing on your site checks a licence. Updates are included for the period your licence states; see Support, licence and credits.

If a template looks wrong after an update, you had customised it and your copy is still in use. Appearance → Editor → Templates, open it, and use Reset to take the theme's new version. The header and footer are the same: the demo import saves neither, so they follow the theme unless you saved your own.

Coming from 1.1.x

Your pages keep the blocks they hold. The header and footer take the new design unless you saved your own copy in the Site Editor. The three homes and the new inner pages are offered as page patterns (Full pages in the inserter) and in the demo. The Testimonial pair pattern has left the inserter: a page that already uses it keeps working in 1.2.0, and the pattern is removed in 1.3.0, so replace it before then.