A set-up guide and general information to help you get the most out of your new plugin.

Thank you for purchasing ‘Boo Recipes – Schema Recipe WordPress Plugin’. This document covers the installation, set up, and use of this plugin and provides answers and solutions to common problems and issues – we encourage you to read this document thoroughly if you are experiencing any difficulties. If you have any questions that are beyond the scope of this document, feel free to post them at our dedicated Support Tab.

There are many different WordPress Plugins for recipes, however, what makes Boo Recipes so impressive is how easy it is to add new recipes, and it creates schema markups automatically. This plugin uses the Schema.org format that was jointly developed by Google, and other famous search engines, and is the most widely recognized. You can simply add multiple recipes from scratch, no coding needed. It is just as easy as copy, paste, select appropriate meta and publish. If you are entering a new recipe from scratch, all you need to do is separate the lines of ingredients in ingredients farm and instructions in instructions farm. The plugin will add schema tags to each item itself.
This plugin makes it simple what Google and other search engines need to understand your recipes better. This is how you get your recipe thumbnails in Google search page. Whatever layout you select recipes added using Boo Recipes are correctly formatted on the front end so that search engines can pull in additional information.

Features include:

• Schema.org format for recipe
• Full Customization
• Shortcode Supported
• Add Recipe anywhere (in post/pages)
• Show recipes  index anywhere
• 4 recipe index styles
• 2 single recipe styles
• Control visibility of elements of recipe
• Change Labels to suit your needs
• Translation Ready (.pot file included)
• Insertion points in single recipe
• Social Media Share buttons
• Recipe Categories Taxonomy
• Recipe Cuisines Taxonomy
• Recipe Tags Taxonomy
• Skill Level Taxonomy
• Cooking Method Taxonomy

It is a fully responsive WordPress plugin. Steps for modification and updating are described step by step in this exclusive documentation.

To install this plugin you must have a latest version of WordPress already installed. For information in regard to installing the WordPress platform, please see the WordPress Codex – http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress

Automatic Plugin Installation

1. Log in to your WordPress Site dashboard.
2. Go to “Plugins -> Add New”
3. Search for “Boo Recipes”.
4. Check the Author is “BooSpot”
5. Click to “Install Now” when you find the plugin.
6. Activate the plugin by clicking “Activate”.

Manual Plugin Installation

1. Download your WordPress Plugin to your desktop.
2. If downloaded as a zip archive, extract the Plugin folder to your desktop.
3. Read through the “readme” file thoroughly to ensure you follow the installation instructions.
4. With your FTP program, upload the Plugin folder to the wp-content/plugins folder in your WordPress directory online.
5. Go to Plugins screen and find the newly uploaded Plugin in the list.
6. Click Activate to activate it.

For more details, read: https://codex.wordpress.org/Managing_Plugins

WordPress Upload Plugin installation:

1. Download your WordPress Plugin to your desktop.
2. Navigate to Plugins > Add New > Upload.
3. Go to browse, and select the zipped plugin folder that you have downloaded from the link in purchase confirmation email.
4. Hit “Install Now” and the plugin will be uploaded and installed.
5. Once the plugin is uploaded, you need to activate it.
6. Go to Plugins > Installed Plugins and activate the Boo Recipes plugin.

FTP Plugin Installation

1. Download your WordPress Plugin to your desktop.
2. If downloaded as a zip archive, extract the Plugin folder to your desktop.
3. Read through the “readme” file thoroughly to ensure you follow the installation instructions.
4. With your FTP program, upload the Plugin folder to the wp-content/plugins folder in your WordPress directory online.
5. Go to Plugins screen and find the newly uploaded Plugin in the list.
6. Click Activate to activate it.

Once your plugin is installed WordPress will periodically check for updates, so keeping your items up to date is as simple as a few clicks. Keep your plugin up-to-date so that all the security patches are applied and you enjoy the new features as well.

Automatic Updates

Updating both Free and Premium Boo Recipes plugin is fairly simple and same as any other wordpress plugin.

1. Go to Site Admin > Plugins
2. Check if a new version is available (notification appears under the plugin entry in the plugin list)
3. Click on Update.

There is a comprehensive guide about it  with step-by-step instructions that you can check here: https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-properly-update-wordpress-plugins-step-by-step/

Manual Updates

To manually update the plugin, you need to download the plugin zip file and  then upload the plugin using FTP.

You may download the free plugin .zip file from wordpress.org and for premium plugin latest version, login to your BooSpot.com account and heads  to “download” section.

There is a comprehensive guide about it  with step-by-step instructions that you can check here: https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-manually-update-wordpress-plugins-via-ftp/

To start creating a recipe move to Admin > Recipes > Add New in your WP Dashboard.

Explanation of the points:

1. Short Description of the recipe. [A]
2. Time of Recipe in Hours or minutes [B]
3. Preparation Time for Recipe in format selected in point. 2. [C]
4. Cooking Time [D]
5. Total Time (auto calculated by adding Prep + Cook time) [E]
6. Recipe Yields.  e.g. 6 bowls, 2 cakes, three ice-creams [F]
7. If the “External Author” box is checked, it will show two more fields for Author  Name and Author URL. Use this option if you want to show recipe from external recipe author. [G]
8. Ingredients of the recipe. One per line. If you want to add a grouping/section for ingredients, use double star like this: ** before the group name and it will convert it to group name with proper formatting.  [H]
9. Instructions for recipe. One per line. If you want to add a grouping/section for ingredients, use double star like this: ** before the group name and it will convert it to group name with proper formatting.  [I]
10. This text will be used in the recipe archive view. It will only kick in in the “excerpt” section of the wordpress is blank.
11. Additional instructions of recipe. Usually not required. But if added will be placed at the end of recipe.

You may use image, image sliders and videos as Recipe Featured media.

Details as follows:

Recipe image can be uploaded using the normal “Featured Image” meta box (on the right side of the recipe edit window).

Technical Information:  

it will create additional cropped image sizes with following details:

• image size id: “recipe_image” and dimensions: 1024×576 pixels.
• image size id: “recipe_landscape_image” and dimensions: 768×500 pixels.
• image size id: “recipe_landscape_image_thumbnail” and dimensions: 150×100 pixels.

Filter available for image size array is:

boorecipe_recipe_add_image_sizes_array

Image Slider:

Explanation:

1. You may turn this option “on”. light green color means the option is turned “on”.
2. The images you have uploaded will be shown here.
3. The images upload window for the recipes.

Technical information:

Image sizes created are:

• image size id: “recipe_slider_thumbnail” and dimensions: 200×100 pixels.

You may add the Video Recipes as well. using the option available in Edit Recipe section. You may use any type of video that WordPress allows. Also, you may add the link to self hosted video as well.
Complete list of WordPress allowed embed sites can be found here: https://codex.wordpress.org/Embeds (You may use any with “Embed Type” as “Video” from the list.

Explanation of Points:

1. Turn this option “on” for video recipes.
2. Paste the link to recipe video.

Note:

• Featured image will not appear on the Single Recipe page for Video Recipe however, its used for archive/index view of recipes.

You may select to show Nutrition Label per-recipe basis.

If you turn this option “on”, nutrition label shall be created on the basis of the nutrition info provided.

Note:

• You may globally turn off to show nutrition info in the plugin settings page.

There are 5 types  of taxonomies associated with the Recipes.

• Recipe Categories
• Recipe Cuisines
• Cooking Methods
• Skill Levels
• Recipe Tags

Recipe Categories are usually used for categorizing recipes. You may use it for recipe timings such as:

• “Lunch”, “Dinner” etc. or
• “Main Course”, “Desserts”, “Side Dish” etc.

Its a hierarchical taxonomy and can have parent-child relationship. Taxonomy identification is ‘recipe_category’

Recipe Cuisines are used for identifying recipes for a style or method of cooking, especially as characteristic of a particular country, region, or establishment. Examples are:

• “American”, “Italian”, “French”, “Chinese” etc.

Its a hierarchical taxonomy and can have parent-child relationship. Taxonomy identification is ‘recipe_cuisine’

Recipe Cooking Method is not required but is nice-to-have option. Examples are:

• roasting, broiling or sautéing, braising, steaming or poaching.

Its a hierarchical taxonomy and can have parent-child relationship. Taxonomy identification is ‘cooking_method’

Skill Level is usually used for describing the expertise of required to make recipes. Examples include:

• “Not So Difficult”, “Moderate”, “Expert”, “Difficulty”

Its a hierarchical taxonomy and can have parent-child relationship. Taxonomy identification is ‘skill_level’

Recipe Tags are usually used for attaching multiple tags to a recipe. You may use it such as:

• “Onions”, “Tomatoes”, “Potatoes” etc. or
• “Halloween”, “Christmas”, etc.

Its a non-hierarchical taxonomy and cannot have parent-child relationship. Taxonomy identification is ‘recipe_tags’

Recipe index or Archive page is the page that shows the recipe list in different available formats like grid, list, modern, overlay etc.

It can be accessed using the following structure:
your-domain-name.com/recipe

To add it to navigation menu, you may add a custom link with just placing /recipe in the url input field.

Note: If you change the recipe slug in the plugin options, you will need to adjust accordingly.

You may also display recipes using shortcodes. It is discussed in the Shortcodes section. Please head to shortcode section  for more details.

Plugin Settings section is located at WordPress Dashboard > Recipes > Settings.

You may also access it from Site Dashboard > Plugins > Boo Recipes (in the plugin action links)

You may access the settings page by navigating to: Site Dashboard > Settings > Boo Recipe Settings > Recipe Single.

There are many options available on this screen, most of these are self explanatory. Here, we  will discuss the one needs special attention.

With this option, you may control the main color for  single recipe. It shall be the dominant color on the recipe single page. It will be applied to Recipe Title, Labels text color, instructions counter number etc.

There are two recipe styles available for single recipe template.

One is free and other is premium.

Style 1 is free.

Style 2 is premium.

This is the global settings to turn off nutrition facts label. If this option is enabled, only then nutrition will be shown on any recipe. Further, you may control this setting for individual recipe as well in the edit recipe screen.

If enabled, it will add the recipe sharing buttons row before the recipe meta section.

Enabling this option will show the icons on single recipe and disabling this will hide these.

Enabling this option will show the labels for key points on single recipe and disabling this will hide these.

Red highlighted labels shall be hidden if the option is disabled.

Enabling this option will show the author.

Enabling this option will show the recipe published date. Its the date of creating recipe post type.

If you turn off this option, the author name under title will not show and instead an author box will be added.

Explanation of Points:

1. Author box will be visible by enabling “Show Author Box” option.
2. Label for link to all recipes can be changed by using the option “Label for All Recipes By [Author Name]”. For instance, you may enter in the box like this: “Other cool recipes of %author”  %author will be replaced by the author name.

You may enable the option to show related recipes using the option “Show Related Recipes”.

Explanation of Points:

1. This will toggle the display of related recipes under the author box and before comments on single recipe page.
2. “Related Recipes Basis” give you the ability to fetch related recipes as you require, The drop down will have all the recipe specific taxonomies like (Category, Cuisine, Skill Level etc.)
3. “Related Recipes Layout” is used to select the layout for related recipes. Please note that not all the layouts support  the per-row option. For instance “list” supports only 1 per row and “overlay” layout supports maximum 2 recipes per-row. You may experiment with options to get the look that you need.
4. “Related Recipes Limit” will limit the related recipes results to the number entered.
5. “Related Recipes Per Row” will show the number of related recipes per row.

Enabling this option will start the recipe rating system and will add the star rating input for new comment form.

This rating input shall be used to show the recipe ratings on aggregate basis.

This defines the maximum height of featured image on single recipe page. IT will not crop the image and just allow the maximum height in pixels.

This option is helpful if some of the recipes do not have a featured image. In that case, this image shall be used when featured image is missing. Its a good place to show your site logo and brand the “image not found” scenario. Please paste the full url to image in this box.

Themes/templates have their own layout width set for post and pages. This option helps you control the maximum width of the single recipe. It will help you prevent the breaking of layout of your site for single recipes as well.

“Recipe Layout” options defines the single recipe page layout. The available options are:

• Full : It will turn the recipe page full width without sidebar
• Left: It will enable the left sidebar in the recipe page. 
• Right: It will place the sidebar on the right in the single recipe page.

Note: In the Widgets section, there is a dedicated widget area named “Recipe Single Sidebar” that appears as the sidebar on single recipe page.

With this option, you may change the slug for recipe custom post type. After changing the slug, you will need to re-save your permalinks in the Site Dashboard> Settings > Permalinks.

Caution: Changing the permalink will break the old URLs, you might need to setup redirects from old to new URLs after  changing the recipe slug. Its a fairly advance option and should be used by someone who knows what he/she is doing.

You may access the settings page by navigating to: Site Dashboard > Recipes > Settings > Recipe Archive.

There are many options available on this screen, most of these are self explanatory. Here, we  will discuss the one that need some explanation.

To get to know the Archive page url, refer to section  above on “Index/Archive Page”

This option defines the number of recipes to be shown on the archive page. The rest will go to the pagination system of the site.

This option defines the number of recipes to be shown on each row of the recipes index page.

Please note that not all the layouts support this option to its fullest. For instance “list” supports only 1 per row and “overlay” layout supports maximum 2 recipes per-row. You may experiment with options to get the look that you need.

This option defines the look of recipe cards on the index page. Following options are available:

• List
• Grid
• Modern *
• Overlay *

Each of these options are highly customizable. You may define the following for archive layouts:

• Recipe Title Color
• Recipe Excerpt Color
• Cards Background Color
• Key Points Text Color
• Key Points Background Color *
• Hover Overlay Color *
• Card Content Alignment *
• Card Rounded Border *
• Card Rounded Border Radius *
• Card border in pixels *
• Card Border Color *

* available in Premium Version Only

If you want to show recipe card in masonry view, you may enable this option. This option will only work with Grid view as all other views do not really need masonry.

Themes/templates have their own layout width set for post and pages. This option helps you control the maximum width of the recipe archive. It will help you prevent the breaking of layout of your site for recipe archive page.

Sometimes theme/template pagination does not go well with the archive page, in that case, you may try enabling this option.

Enabling this option will show the recipe excerpt in the archive view. If the recipe excerpt is blank, then recipe short description will be used instead of excerpt text.

“Show Search Form on archive page?” option will show the recipe search form widget on the archive page.

You may access the settings page by navigating to: Site Dashboard > Settings > Boo Recipe Settings > Search Form.

Explanation of Points:

1. This defines the recipe search form Background color.
2. Color of button of the Search form can be set here.
3. Button Text color can be defined here.
4. You may Select Filters to include in Recipe Search Form. (Available in Premium Version Only)

Note: If you want to change the Button Text, head to “Labels” section. This option is only available in Premium Version of Plugin.

You may access the settings page by navigating to: Site Dashboard > Settings > Boo Recipe Settings > Widget Settings.

Explanation of Points:

1. It will configure the size of images for recipe
2. Background color of the recipe list item in widget.

You may access the settings page by navigating to: Site Dashboard > Recipes > Settings > Labels.

There are many Labels that you may override for different labels used in the recipe single page, archive page, recipe widgets provided by the plugin. Following are the labels that you may override:

• Category Label
• Cuisine Label
• Skill Level Label
• Cooking Method Label
• Tags Label
• Prep Time Label
• Cook Time Label
• Total Time Label
• Minutes (time unit) Label
• Hours (time unit) Label
• Yields Label
• Keywords Label
• Ingredients Label
• Directions Label
• Nutrition Label
• Nutrition Facts Label
• Ratings Label
• Ratings string start with
• Ratings string “based on”
• Ratings string ends
• Related Recipes Label
• Submit Button Label

Note: If you want to use this plugin for a language other than English, please use the .pot file instead. For details check the Translation section of this documentation.

You may access the settings page by navigating to: Site Dashboard > Settings > Boo Recipe Settings > Insertion Points.

This is a very powerful option that gives you the ability to insert any text, code or shortcode using the input areas.

Following are the insertion points available:

• Before Recipe Media
• After Recipe Media
• Before Recipe Head
• After Recipe Head
• Before Recipe Meta
• After Recipe Meta
• Before Recipe Body
• After Recipe Body
• Before Recipe Start
• After Recipe End

For instance, You may disable the default sharing buttons through the plugin settings for single recipe and then place the shortcode of sharing buttons from the plugin of your choice.

You may access the settings page by navigating to:
Site Dashboard > Settings > Boo Recipe Settings > Settings Backup.

Explanation of Points:

1. You may paste the previously saved settings in this input area and click “Import a Backup”. This will override your existing settings for Boo Recipe Plugin
2. You may copy this long string to take the backup of existing settings. Alternatively, you may click the “Download Backup” button to download the settings string in text file.
3. “Reset All Options” will reset all existing settings. Proceed with caution.

You may access the settings page by navigating to: Site Dashboard > Settings > Boo Recipe Settings > Custom CSS.

Any Styling CSS you add here will be applied to single recipe page, archive page and recipe widgets. Its a good place to have your recipes related css separate from the main css of your site.

You may access the settings page by navigating to: Site Dashboard > Settings > Boo Recipe Settings > Uninstall.

If you ever decide to uninstall the plugin, these settings will be taken into account as its a good practice for plugins to clean the data they have inserted in the database at the time of uninstall. But, we don’t want you to loose your data accidentally. Please carefully read this section before uninstalling the plugin.

Explanation of Points:

1. If enabled, all the plugin settings saved in your site’s wordpress database shall be deleted. Its recommended to take backup of the plugin settings before uninstalling. Details about taking backup is discussed in the documentation section related to “Settings Backup and Restore”. Default value of this option is “Enabled”.
2. If enabled, It will delete all the recipes post type including the metadata of the “recipe” post type. There is no coming back after this action unless you can restore a previous backup of “recipe” post type. Default value of this option is “Disabled”.
3. If enabled, all the data related to Ratings shall be deleted. Since ratings data is stored as Comments meta, it will delete  the comments meta related to recipe ratings. Default value of this option is “Disabled”. This option will only affect the premium version of recipe since there is no rating system in free version.

If you have bought the premium plugin, then you will need to activate it to receive regular updates.
Please activate the plugin using the licence key you have received in the order email. it will be looking something like this: 5c572a497d732 

In order to activate the premium plugin, head to the settings page by navigating to: Site Dashboard > Recipes > Settings > Plugin Activation.

Explanation of Points:

1. Enter the Licence key string you have received in purchase confirmation email. Alternatively, login to your BooSpot.com account and heads  to “Licence” section on you “My Account” page.
2. Enter the email id you used to purchase the license of the premium plugin. Combination of these two fields is reqquired to authenticate the request to fetch new updates from our servers.

Shortcodes provided with the plugin offers vast possibilities to display recipes in single and archive. Shortcodes can be placed anywhere on the site like any regular shortcode in wordpress.

The shortcode used to display recipe cards is:
[recipes_browse]

By Default, this shorcode will show recipes using the settings of Recipes Archive located at : Site Dashboard > Settings > Boo Recipe Settings > Recipe Archive.

There are a number of parameters that you may use to override the settings and show the recipe cards as you want. All parameters are optional. The available arguments are:

Some of the parameters definition is only available in premium version, list is as below:

Example 1:

[recipes_browse recipe_ids='2168,2177,2180' recipe_archive_layout="modern" recipes_per_row="2" color_archive_title="#ffffff" color_archive_key_points_bg="#ff0000" ]

This will show recipes having ids 2168,2177 and 2180 using the layout style “modern” and two recipes per row. It will override the title color to white (#ffffff) and Key points background color to red (#ff0000)

Example 2:

[recipes_browse limit=6 recipe_category_ids='7' skill_level_slugs_exclude="very-expert"]

This will show maximum of 6 recipes using layout style defined in the settings. These recipes will have recipe category id 7 but excluding the Skill Level of “Very Expert”.

Note: A guide on how to find recipe id or find id or slug of taxonomy ( category, cuisine, skill level etc.) is described in section on “How to Find Ids” and “How to find Slugs“.

The following shortcode will show the recipe on any page or post of the site. This is specially helpful to insert a recipe in your blog.

[recipe_embed id="12"]

By Default, this shorcode will show recipe having id of 12 using the settings of Recipe Single located at : Site Dashboard > Settings > Boo Recipe Settings > Recipe Single.

There are a number of parameters that you may use to override the settings and show the recipe as you want. All parameters are optional except “id”. The available arguments are:

Note: A guide on how to find recipe id or find id or slug of taxonomy ( category, cuisine, skill level etc.) is described in section on “How to Find Ids” and “How to find Slugs“.

Example 1:

[recipe_embed id="33" recipe_style="style1" color_accent="#8224e3" color_icon="#71A866" show_share_buttons="no"]

This shortcode will show recipe having id 33 using the wide image style with title and labels color as purple (#8224e3) and icon colors green (#71A866) and will hide the share buttons. You may place this shortcode in pages or posts where you want the recipe to appear. All other settings will be used as defined in Settings page of Recipe Single.

Example 2:

[recipe_embed id="33" recipe_style="style2" featured_image_height="300" related_recipes_show="yes"]

This shortcode will show recipe having id 33 using the image and title/meta side-by-side. Featured image height will limit to 300px and also show related recipes. You may place this shortcode in pages or posts where you want this recipe to appear. All other settings will be used as defined in Settings page of Recipe Single.

The shortcode used to display recipe print button is:
[ boorecipe_print_button ]

Available paramas are:

align
text

Example: [ boorecipe_print_button align=”right” text=”Get me a Printed Copy” ]

The shortcode used to display recipe search form is:
[ boorecipe_search_form ]

There are no params available, all options for styling and configuration are fetched from plugin settings.

Following are some resources that can help you in this documentation and/or wordpress in general.

Here are some good resources that can guide you on getting the recipe or taxonomy ids.

• How to Find the Post ID in WordPress
• Find Category ID In WordPress
• How to Find Post, Category, Tag, Comments, or User ID in WordPress

To find the slug of a post, category, cuisine or any taxonomy, please check these resources:

• A Straight-Forward Guide To WordPress Slugs
• What is: Post Slug
• What is a slug in WordPress?
• What is a “Slug” in WordPress? + Tips for a Great Post URL