Can non-Genesis themes be converted to Genesis?

[FrankJohnson]

Hi - I'm new to StudioPress, as of a couple days ago. I've used WordPress before (and have a few sites up and running), but I am far from an expert (I'm a long-time Expression Engine user but started using WordPress a few months ago for some personal sites).

I became a StudioPress user because some of the "backend" features (SEO, security, etc.) resonated with me quite a bit. Being able to rely on a framework which helps with those issues was very attractive.

On the other hand, I have to be honest - I'm not a huge fan of the design of the available themes. I'm curious, therefore, how difficult it would be to start with a third-party, non-Genesis theme and convert it to work with the Genesis framework. For example, I'm thinking of this theme.

I searched a bit on the forums yesterday, but did not find anything that would answer my question - apologies in advance if I missed something.

Thanks much for any help anyone can offer - I really appreciate it.

Frank

[nutsandbolts]

Hi Frank,

It would probably be easiest to start with a Genesis child theme and recreate the style of the theme you linked to - there's really no way to convert another theme to work with the framework. Part of my business involves converting existing sites to Genesis, i.e. rebuilding it to look exactly the same way, so that's something I do for clients all the time.

Does that theme have certain functionality that you need, or is it more about the style? If you just want a site that looks like the Kellir theme, you could hire a dev to build it for you. StudioPress has a listed of recommended developers, which is a great place to start.

---

Andrea Whitmer, Owner/Developer, Nuts and Bolts Media
I provide development and training services for designers • Find me on Twitter and Google+

[FrankJohnson]

Thanks Andrea. I like the style of the Keilir theme, but visual aspects typically don't excite me as much as functionality. In this case, I particularly like these aspects of the theme's functionality:

1) The way the video shows up above the textual content in the Youtube video post

2) The way the photo gallery shows up above the textual content in the Gallery post (in addition to the ability to navigate through the gallery photos in the presentation above the textual content)

3) The way some of the photos zoom in slightly when you hover over them (check the John Kennedy quote post for example)

My hope is that I could learn the process necessary to do the "conversion," or as you said, build an equivalent child theme. I'm unfortunately not in a position to pay a developer right now. But I'm not a PHP programmer - I can look at PHP code and know what's happening, but I haven't done much from scratch. That's probably going to be the problem.

I may just have to go ahead and choose an existing child theme.

Thanks again for your response - I really appreciate it!

Frank

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