Few more "stupid" questions

So after about 5 hours of really digging around the backend of the new responsive theme I like most of what I see but I am stumbling on a few things that you guys might be able to help me with.

First – slider on the homepage – trying get the same functionality out of the old theme into the new. I have tried the vslider version 5 but not having much luck with it pulling “Listing Categories” it is pulling categories but for posts.

2nd – I am trying to change the color of the breadcrumb area and did change it in the color area but nothing seems to be working. I guess since I am using a child theme (Lemisto) it won’t all me to change it via the color change area – so I guess I need to add custom css to the “new css styles” area?

3rd – also related to custom CSS but can I assume if I want to expand the header by 10px and shrink the menu by 5 to 10px I would also do this in the “new css styles” area much like the “Custom CSS” area from the old PPT.

4th – shortcodes – on my old PPT site I was using shortcodes in my widgets on my listings and using theses shortcodes to create a dynamic “contact” information widget that would put the author of the listings information in the widget i.e. name, cell phone etc. The same plugins that allow shortcodes do NOT seem to work in the new framework any suggestions?