Community Forums › Forums › Archived Forums › General Discussion › Can someone please outline a typical use of themes?
- This topic has 8 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 7 months ago by Tom.
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September 8, 2015 at 2:42 pm #164957JohnMac67Member
Hi all,
I researched Genesis and found it to have very favourable reviews. I'm a designer and have been using WordPress for a few months, mostly using Themeforrest themes such as Avada, Enfold, The7 etc... These themes do look excellent in their basic forms and are very easy to personalise.
I feel like I'm missing something when looking at the Studiopress theme selection. They are all extremely basic, especially the page layouts. Sidebar left or right or a landing page template that's just a block of text without even a header or footer.
I realise that Themeforrest gets a lot of criticism for bloated themes but the modern page builders allow you to easily add all manner of things from multi-column layouts, icon boxes, accordions, tabs etc... in seconds.
I know that there is a page builder module available for Genesis but would I be right in saying that most people using Genesis are effectively custom coding and designing each part of the website?
I would be very grateful if anyone could point me to some typical Genesis usage stories so that I can get my head around how people use it.
Thanks,
JohnSeptember 8, 2015 at 7:36 pm #164989Victor FontModeratorMaybe this will help: http://www.studiopress.com/download/genesis-for-beginners.pdf
You may also want to look at the Showcase and Feedback forum. You'll see a lot of examples of how Genesis themes are used.
Regards,
Victor
https://victorfont.com/
Call us toll free: 844-VIC-FONT (842-3668)
Have you requested your free website audit yet?September 9, 2015 at 3:33 pm #165062JohnMac67MemberThanks Victor. I've had a really good look around and have viewed some video tutorials on Lynda.com. Basically my thoughts are as follows (I promise I'm not trying to be a troll, I've just bought the Pro Package and would be delighted to be wrong...).
When compared to the various Themeforrest themes I've used Genesis would appear to be very slow to work on. Adding content areas and styling them appears to take a LONG time. I agree that when you do it completely yourself you'll make something really unique but it will also take much, much longer resulting in a huge increase in development time.
If you don't know php it seems like you're dead in the water. It is something I've been meaning to look at for ages but learning php along with the slow development time is a big problem.
The themes on the Studiopress website are mostly old and lacking in style (many are from 2010, a lifetime ago in web years). I fell for the 'buy the lot and save $1000 line'. Silly me... On close inspection most are unusable in anything close to their existing form in 2015. I can see now why they are almost giving them away.
In summary I really don't know what to do. I realise this is a long rant but I think I've made a huge mistake here.
Any advice very gratefully received.
J.September 12, 2015 at 4:24 pm #165313MoodyRivieraMemberI can't disagree with much of what you've said here...but I'll add one thing: There are lots of other developers creating themes that run on the Genesis framework...StudioPress isn't the only player in the game. Just start googling.
Also, there are several options you can use to customize your Genesis child themes without having to learn PHP...the CobaltApps Dynamik Web Builder is one of them...there are lots of others, such as BeaverBuilder, etc.
*MoodyRiviera*
September 12, 2015 at 10:09 pm #165324Brad DaltonParticipantI've never found any themes from Themeforest easy to customize. In fact, most parent themes are not easy to customise and are poorly documented as far as filters and code examples unlike what you'll find here.
You'll find Genesis child themes are very different to use than any parent theme from Themeforest as they require the use of hooks to add and remove actions as well as modify the default output of functions.
Genesis includes dozens of plugins which enable you to add custom functionality and styling via your child theme. Its far easier to add custom functions and styling than to remove code from a fully featured theme.
If you prefer hand coding, the Pro Plus Package gives you access to 70 child themes. You can take the code from any child theme and use it in any other child theme giving you the option of adding hundreds of custom functions and different styling.
One thing you'll want to understand if coding a theme yourself is the genesis(); function.
September 17, 2015 at 7:55 pm #165948TomParticipant@johnmac67 I can understand buyer's remorse. It seems you've got a fair dose just now and your rant is fair enough. This is perhaps a bit counter-rant and maybe offers some answers, too.
"The themes on the Studiopress website are mostly old and lacking in style (many are from 2010"
Surely you made your all-themes package purchase decision based on the themes StudioPress currently has on offer. None of these themes is from 2010 - that's plainly false. The four oldest themes on display all date from 2012 for their *earliest* release (Balance, Decor, Mindstream, Mocha). Of course, the all-themes package you purchased includes previously published themes since withdrawn from sale because "you receive support and updates for all themes created by StudioPress". Do you now want to complain that these older themes - that aren't offered or displayed on the public website - are part of the deal?"most are unusable in anything close to their existing form in 2015"
They can each be made HTML5 capable with Genesis 2.x; if you don't have coding skills you can add a plugin for responsive display. Go retro, man. It's what all the cool kids want these days 🙂"If you don’t know php it seems like you’re dead in the water."
Now, this is true IF you want to write custom functions and loops on your own, and would have been obvious from the research you undertook and the reviews you read. But it's not really a limiting factor; as Moody noted, CobaltApps and others have good solutions for non-coders. What do you do when you need to code in Avada, Enfold and the other "bloaty" themes you have experience with? As a designer, a good strategy here might be to team up with a Genesis dev as buddy or partner; seehttps://www.emilywhitedesigns.com/portfolio/
Emily doesn't touch code, but each of her designs is built with Genesis."Genesis would appear to be very slow to work on"
I think you'll disagree as you get familiar. It is beyond simple to make widget areas, add or move menus, add or remove page elements, and a host of other items. You don't need a page builder for multi-column layouts( built in), icon boxes (simple CSS), accordions, tabs (Genesis or other plugins). Hooks and filters allow you to do almost anything, anywhere.StudioPress has only scores of Genesis themes - there are literally *hundreds* available, free and paid (see my sig). There are also scores and scores of plugins available designed solely for Genesis. There are hundreds of Genesis specific tutorials, thousands of code snippets and hundreds of Genesis-focused folks to lean on and learn from.
"if anyone could point me to some typical Genesis usage stories so that I can get my head around how people use it."
This is a good question. "Genesis" is what you bought into and you should recognize that the Genesis community is huge, both in terms of users and installations, but also in terms of the ecosystem that surrounds it with free and paid plugins, themes, services, etc. A few places to go and people to talk to, things to follow (this list is but a tiny excerpt of what's out there - I'm sure to be shamed for leaving someone or something out):Start in these forums: you'll find experiences from n00b to ace and everywhere in between
Follow #GenesisWP on social mediaJoin Genesis Slack: https://sridharkatakam.com/how-to-join-genesis-live-chat-in-slack/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/genesiswp/ http://genesiswp.guide/ https://dailybolt.com/ http://genesis.camp/sessions/
Examples of results:
http://www.studiopress.com/showcase http://www.web-savvy-marketing.com/website-design/portfolio/ http://shaybocks.com/foodie/foodie-showcase/ (one child theme used for food, decor, fashion, photography, et al) https://www.emilywhitedesigns.com/portfolio/
As a designer, you should consider what can be done with Genesis.
The developer in you will learn to love it too.
Choose your next site design from over 350 Genesis themes.
[ Follow me: Twitter ] [ Follow Themes: Twitter ] [ My Favourite Webhost ]September 18, 2015 at 6:57 am #165990Victor FontModeratorNice recap Tom!
Regards,
Victor
https://victorfont.com/
Call us toll free: 844-VIC-FONT (842-3668)
Have you requested your free website audit yet?September 18, 2015 at 7:02 am #165991JohnMac67MemberTom, thank you so much for spending the time to reply to me. It's very helpful. I can see that Genesis has a lot of very positive things going for it and I will definitely take it further.
Thanks again for your help.
JohnSeptember 18, 2015 at 12:46 pm #166027TomParticipantYou're welcome, John. Welcome to Genesis!
I missed a link that may help: http://www.studiopress.com/genesis-developers
... gives links to dev/designer sites with portfolios of work, so you can see more of user stories/results and what can be done with Genesis.
Choose your next site design from over 350 Genesis themes.
[ Follow me: Twitter ] [ Follow Themes: Twitter ] [ My Favourite Webhost ] -
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