Suffusion theme is one of popular WordPress themes, it is much more robust than other free WordPress themes. And also, it actually is not a single theme, it provides multiple themes. However, you will feel hard to use it if you never used it before.
I am a new Suffusion user too. So let me record some simple settings which let me recall latter:
1: Select a theme skin:
I am using Suffusion 3.7.8, Suffusion provides 19 different skins in this version. So choose one which you like, Actually the default one in more popular and nice.
2: Choose a Sidebar Style:
Go to “Sidebar Configuration” and “Sidebar Layout”:
Scroll down the screen, you will see “How many Sidebar” section, here you can set a single sidebar or two sidebars in you blog, and set the sidebar’s location on the page, for example: both two sidebars are on right side, or on left and right…etc..
3: Select a template:
Set the template due to your blog page layout, for example, if you choose double right sidebars, you should set something for double right sidebars in here.
4: Adjust Header and Description alignment:
Go back to “Theme Skinning” menu and select “Header” tab:
If you want your settings work, please make sure you have changed default option to custom option:
Save it and your settings will work.
5: Set only excerpt shown on Home page:
Go to “Other Graphical Elements” and choose “Layout: Except/list/Tile/Full” tab. change each option from “Display full content” to “Display excerpts”
6: Top Menu:
By default Suffusion theme hidden top menu, change settings as following for showing top menus:
Select menu “Other Graphical Elements”, click “Top Navigation Bar”:
Scroll down to Show Home Page section, select option to show Home menu if you want.
If you want to show other page as menu, select options as following settings.