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One of the greatest benefits of using SP themes is the ease of customization compared to other themes.
Whats the point in using a theme if you can't customize it fairly easily?
Who wants to use a theme out of the box without making it your own?
I've worked hard to learn how to customize different themes over the last 3 years and the child themes SP offers along with the code snippets, community support forums and tutorials written by many Genesis designers give you the best support to do this.
Its the whole package that is of the highest industry standards and provides incredible value at a one off investment.
All the themes now and in the future.
I could name a few theme providers who do offer a very bland canvas to start out with and don't offer anywhere near what you'll get from SP in respect of multiple support options.
Genesis and SP make it easier than other theme providers because they offer both an excellent framework and also a great range of child themes that is ever increasing.
Exactly Brad, I agree!! I tried to customize a few where my clients picked them from Themeforest. One in particular, as soon as I changed something in the CSS, the entire theme was destroyed! No matter what I did,
i couldI could not customize it. In another case, it was a church theme and all the areas you saw on the demo were NOT widgets. They had "hard coded" those blocks of "specific" areas into the theme and you couldn't change them unless you knew how really hack it. But why pay for something you have to hack like that. They disclosed widgetized area but there weren't any. I complained and they gave me a replacement theme. All that time I spent on that and the client could have just selected one from SP, I could have customized it and been done with it!
Need help with customization or troubleshooting? Reach out to me.
Exactly!
Add some high qaulity images and graphics, custom fonts, pallette colors and you can use all the code snippets and tutorials to create and customize a high qaulity website.If you ever get tired of your theme, you can easily change it as well because they're all built on a highly flexible framework.
Ever get stuck, you've got a helpful community forum who answers questions 24/7.
I think a lot of people confuse the themes on Themeforest with the high quality graphics they use with the themes. They look at them and go "Wow, that's nice." But then once they get it and they replace the images with their own or try to manipulate the theme in a different manner - all hell breaks loose. I try to strip down a site by just reading comments from others, then checkout out the themes layout, the CSS with Firebug and go from there.
Need help with customization or troubleshooting? Reach out to me.
@Susan - Thanks. I will add a comment in the separate thread.
@anitac - Just to be clear, I agree with the general thought of project_guy's observation, especially regarding recent theme introductions. See my comment on the trend toward blog style home pages.
@anitac & braddalton - A lot of the customization capabilities you comment on are features of the Genesis framework, not the child theme. It would be possible to address project_guy's observation with different Genesis child themes. One example that is a little more tricked out: Themedy's Grind. See the portfolio on our Grind demo. In general I agree that other premium theme vendors make customization harder, but your comments change the discussion to which is the best premium theme vendor. I think project_guy's original point is that SP child themes would be better if they included more elaborate designs, which is a narrower, more focused conversation than which is the best premium theme vendor. Further, the customization argument cuts both ways. Yes, it's easier to customize a Genesis framework child theme. On the other hand, because of the change in support around late Nov 2012, that customization capability is less accessible to newcomers. That makes it a less effective selling point.
@braddalton: You said:Ever get stuck, you’ve got a helpful community forum who answers questions 24/7.
That's true in a strict sense. The Genesis community is probably one of the biggest and most vibrant out there, and that's a good thing. However, in practice, praising these forums ignores the observations I made in an earlier post: a) some of the most experienced Genesis folks don't participate here as much as the old forums and b) because of (a), these forums tackle basic questions quickly and efficiently, but more involved questions often go unanswered. Nick & Susan tweet to draw more eyes and hopefully more replies to forum topics, something that never seemed to be necessary in the old forum.
I think everyone in the Genesis community would do well to re-read the last sentence in RonnyMac's last reply and figure out how to change his behavior. He's a level-headed guy and he's not wrong.
I’m visiting less often since the forum and support changed.
Web: https://wpperform.com or Twitter: @wpperform
We do managed WordPress hosting.
@Bill if you just click on your profile link you can see a list of Topics Started and Replies created...
I see you got more answers than questions...
Forum Role: Participant
Topics Started: 2
Replies Created: 275
You can also use links like this replies by Bill: http://www.studiopress.community/users/bill-murray/replies/
or you can add treads to your favorites..
But I have to agree with you... the forum is not what it used to be 🙁
Lately I learn less from the forum. But also guilty of B type behavior..
And on topic... I mainly use the themes as a starting point for customization, I hardly look at colors etc. just at the general layout, which is decisive to make it a starting point.
I realize that is a developer view and from the type of question asked (lately?) "how can I change the color of the header" etc. I can see a lot of people have a long way to go before finishing their sites
Simplicity is not Simple Webtaurus
Here's something I've noticed about using Genesis themes vs. using the more esthetically pleasing themes from ThemeForest or ElegantThemes and others where the designs and layouts are, shall, we say, prettier.
Generally speaking, Genesis themes are not as visually attractive as other themes, but they're usually more flexible, and more customizable. Therein lies the big difference. If you work on Genesis themes, customization and personalization, even of Genesis themes off the shelf, carry a common structure, therefore you're leveraging your knowledge of both the framework and plugins as well as the layout. That's not the case with most of those prettier themes with all the bells and whistles built-in. Customizing one of those is a nightmare most of the time because you have to learn where everything is, and why it's there, even before making cosmetic changes.
A mastery of CSS helps, yes, but I often dread the client who wants an ET theme and then wants a laundry list of customizations. There's only one remedy in such a situation.
Aren't billable hours wonderful?
ronnymac
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Ron McElfresh
Honolulu, HI
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http://mac360.com/
http://mcelfresh.org/
http://mcsolo.com/
http://pixobebo.com/
http://noodlemac.com/Aside from all the comments about ease of use and ease of customization...from the viewpoint of a designer (not a coder)...I *would* like it if StudioPress would come up with some more interesting designs. Are they all designed by the same designer? Maybe that's part of the problem.
If a client comes to me and says I'd like something like this:
http://static.livedemo00.template-help.com/wt_39868/#!/splash
What would you do? Can something like this be done using SP or would you just buy that theme?
This is pretty much the scenario that sparked my original posting. And the reason I am even asking this forum is because I too would like to adopt SP given the good reviews it gets. I want to start on good footing and focus on one or at the most 2 frameworks as opposed to using various different ones for my clients. That approach would be too all over the place and would cause my hair loss to accelerate.
In your opinion what would be the next second best framework to use?
Thanks!
What would you do? Can something like this be done using SP or would you just buy that theme?
The answer is, 'Yes.' Almost any layout and design can be built using Genesis and a customized Child theme. That's because Genesis is remarkably flexible.
But math enters into the equation. If a fully customized theme costs $100 and building the same layout and design in Genesis would cost $1,000, someone has to make a decision. There are times when billable hours are your friend. Other times, it's simple math.
I want to start on good footing and focus on one or at the most 2 frameworks as opposed to using various different ones for my clients.
For a developer it's usually a better practice to stick with one or two flexible frameworks vs. hopping and skipping all over the place. Unless billable hours is your objective.
That approach would be too all over the place and would cause my hair loss to accelerate.
Amen. There are few layouts or designs I've run into that cannot easily be used as inspiration for a Genesis Child theme project. The benefit of an out-of-the-box custom theme is that it's finished, complete with bells and whistles. And, some of those custom bells and whistles can burn through a lot of time trying to build in a Genesis Child theme (there's a point of diminishing returns then trying to reinvent the wheel).
I use Genesis for most sites and projects because it's fast, flexible, very easy to update and upgrade, as well as easy enough to add components without wrecking the whole site. That's not the case with the more esoteric frameworks, such as ElegantThemes, which are beautiful, but difficult to customize beyond what's there. But, I use ElegantThemes for sites and clients that need pretty more than flexibility and don't want to pay the billable hours required to replicate an ET site in Genesis.
After a year plus search for a WordPress framework (I came from pMachine/ExpressionEngine before WP) my favorite was Thematic. Free and very, very flexible (the leader developer was hired by Autommatic, which runs WordPress). I remember reading somewhere that Genesis was inspired by Thematic. The problem with free, of course, is ongoing development and support. The former is sporadic and the latter is almost non-existent.
ronnymac
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Ron McElfresh
Honolulu, HI
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http://mac360.com/
http://mcelfresh.org/
http://mcsolo.com/
http://pixobebo.com/
http://noodlemac.com/@And_or - Thanks, I'm aware of that. Here's the difference: if I click on "Replies Created", I see every reply POST. That's cluster and makes it harder to find what is important, which is the last poster in the THREADS I've replied to. In the old forum, the link to "My Forum Posts" actually produced paginated output (50 per page) of the threads I participated in, showing the thread starter and the date, time, and name of the last poster. For example, if I were answering a question from you in a thread and checked that link, I could easily see that you posted a new reply. That made followup easy. In the new forum, the "Replies Created" link shows the full content of my POST replies, 15 per page. That makes a world of difference for someone trying to pop in and answer a few questions. As I said before, I'm sometimes torn between giving an incomplete answer realizing I might not be able to easily find the thread again, or just skipping a reply altogether. If the forum software makes it more complicated than it should be, skipping providing a reply becomes the selected option.
@project_guy - As RonnyMac said, you can do that with Genesis. Although not as tricked out as your link, the Blink Theme from Themedy (a Genesis child theme) has the vertical menu. But there is a big difference between saying one CAN do it and actually doing it. RonnyMac covered some of those reasons - the value of the developer's time. But those reasons apply if you have the skill set to pull off the customizations. If you don't have the skill set and don't want to become a developer/designer so aren't prepared to invest the time to get the skill set, it is harder to access the customization power of Genesis unless you are prepared to pay someone to do it for you. Had I not had the opportunity to learn what I learned in the old forums (and for that I'm grateful), I don't think I would be jumping up and down about the customization capability of Genesis. A lot of the people struggling with customizations in this forum want a big customization but don't want to become developers and don't want to/can't afford to pay someone to do it for them. I don't think SP can create themes to serve all potential buyers without requiring any customization, but I think they can take important steps to have fresher, more widgetized (which are easier for newcomers to customize) designs and thereby get closer to your example theme.
Web: https://wpperform.com or Twitter: @wpperform
We do managed WordPress hosting.
For what it's worth, I have a client that I ported from Elegant Estate to Genesis AgentPress. I had done extensive work changing Elegant Estate's colors and typography to match her branding and had no problem at all making AgentPress look the way her site had looked in Elegant Estate, with one exception: neither of us really saw the need to keep the slider in the exact L-shape as EE. And it turned out she didn't much care for the stitching on major UI elements, so we made them bulbous.
Now, that means that with Genesis, you do have to bring more of your own design chops to the table and do more of your own CSS mods, but the code is so well organized its easy to do that.
Course, if you'd like help with striking design, there are those of us who'd be happy to help. I may have only been writing CSS for six years, but I've been a degreed designer since before WordPress and its founder, Matt Mullenweg, were born. 😉
Sharing the good news about the wonders of modern CSS and the split-step. Either one should get you moving fast. 😀
I was never around for the old Genesis customer support or forums; however, I can say this "new" support is the only drawback to this framework. I have had to submit a ticket, it's pointless really.
If Genesis wanted $30 of my dollars a month and put out plugins, themes, tutorials, graphics, etc... then I would be all in. The fact that you have to go to third party sites to get a list of functions etc... that genesis can perform is pathetic. There should be a better library and how to's. They could literally pay Sozo to write them and I think we would all be better off getting in to this.
Brian Gardner provides a code snippets page and there's also a list of Genesis plugins, graphics and tutorials.
haha, I have been reading that blog for months. I never once saw the link at the top of the page that said "code snippets." He just redesigned the site I guess. It popped out because you mentioned the snippets. Thanks!
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