TrestleSuite Core is the plugin behind everything TrestleSuite-branded in this LifterLMS site: course design, branding, learner personalization, certificates and badges, and the internal tools used to plan and build courses. This page is a working reference for what’s in the TrestleSuite admin menu and what each screen does.
Getting started
New sites run through the Setup Wizard (TrestleSuite → Setup Wizard) first, which walks through branding basics and creates the core pages the platform needs. From there, Brand Kit (TrestleSuite → Brand Kit) is where day-to-day configuration happens: logo, colors, fonts, and the site’s Design Theme.
Brand Kit and Design Themes
A Design Theme is one named preset that coordinates the whole learner-facing look at once: certificate layout, badge style, course page design, lesson navigation, quiz styling, button styling, and the course catalog cards. Choosing a theme in Brand Kit sets sensible defaults for all of these together, and each piece can still be fine-tuned afterward. TrestleSuite ships with sixteen built-in themes, including Institutional, Side Panel, Heritage, Regal, Skylight, and Duotone.
Course Catalog
The course catalog (the course archive page) shows a colored card grid rather than LifterLMS’s default: each card carries a real status pill sourced from the learner’s own enrollment and completion state (Not Enrolled, In Progress, Completed), an actual progress bar, and a call-to-action bar, all colored from the active Design Theme’s accent.
Cultural Theme and Learner Preferences
Learner Preferences, visible to logged-in learners on their course pages, lets each person choose their own accessibility settings and, separately, a regional Cultural Theme — China, Saudi Arabia, Dubai/UAE, or Japan — which shifts typography, accent color, and layout direction for just that learner, without changing the organization’s own brand for everyone else. The Arabic presets are genuinely right-to-left, not just mirrored text.
Language
TrestleSuite’s own interface text — buttons, labels, status text — is translated into Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Japanese, French, German, and Chinese. Switching a learner’s language changes TrestleSuite’s own strings; course and lesson content itself is regular WordPress content, and stays in whatever language it was written in unless a translated copy is created separately.
Production
Production (TrestleSuite → Production) is a lightweight project board for building courses: tasks pin to a course and, optionally, a lesson, get assigned to a team member, and carry a due date and status. Assignees are emailed when work lands on them and reminded before it’s due. The List view groups tasks by course with checkboxes and bulk actions; Kanban is a drag-and-drop board by status.
Credentials: certificates and badges
Credentials (TrestleSuite → Credentials) configures the certificate and badge a learner receives on course completion, drawing from the same sixteen layouts as the site’s Design Theme so credentials match the rest of the experience.
Templates and Quality
Templates (TrestleSuite → Templates) holds reusable course and lesson starting points. Quality (TrestleSuite → Quality) runs a pre-publish readiness check against a course — accessibility basics, wall-of-text warnings, contrast, captions — before it goes live.
Programs, Renewals, and Live Sessions
Programs group multiple courses into a single credential path. Renewals automate expiry reminders for credentials that need periodic renewal. Live Sessions schedules and links out to live class sessions tied to a course or lesson.
Client Brands, Import, and Audit Export
Client Brands supports running more than one branded look from the same install, for agencies managing multiple clients. Import and Import Users bring in courses and learner accounts in bulk. Audit Export produces a record of learner activity and completions.
Getting help
For anything not covered here, see the Support page, or email info@trestlesuite.com.