child theme from scratch, genesis framework advantages

[nuvorm]

Hi All,

I am Wouter Visser, freelance creative developer from Rotterdam the Netherlands. I am looking into the genesis framework and did a fair amount of google search about why the genesis framework should be so awesome to use. I did not get any satisfying results.

I understand there are some hooks to for instance place a block of code in a specific order but i fail to see the big picture i guess.

Could someone explain to me with a real use case (doesn't have to be in code) about why this framework is worth to use compared to build just a theme from scratch without the framework? I would like to build the genesis child theme also from scratch.

Thanks in advance.

Kind regards,
Wouter

[Brad Dalton]

Because all the power to build your child theme is built into Genesis.

Adding, removing and modifying default functions can be done simply be using hooks either in a template file or functions file with conditional tags.

If you look in any child theme folder, you'll find a handful of files which show you how easy it is to create your own child theme compared to what you need to do to make a parent theme.

A simple example is comparing the 2016 default theme to the Genesis default theme.

If you open up both theme folders, you'll see what the difference is.

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Tutorials for StudioPress Themes.

[nuvorm]

Thanks for your feedback Brad,

I see al lot less files in the genesis child theme then in the twentysixteen child theme.
The function.php file seems to do all the work in the genesis sample.

So is there no need for a file like footer.php? Do i understand that correct?

kind regards,
Wouter

[Brad Dalton]

The footer.php is already built into genesis.

You can enable footer widgets simply by adding 1 line of PHP code to your child themes functions file like this

//* Add support for 3-column footer widgets
add_theme_support( 'genesis-footer-widgets', 3 );

Here are more examples of how you can use code to build your child theme. http://my.studiopress.com/snippets/

You never modify any code in Genesis or copy files over to your child theme and modify theme like whats normally done with the default themes. You use action hooks and filters.

---

Tutorials for StudioPress Themes.

[nuvorm]

Thanks Brad,

I see. and the power lies within the extra parameter you can set i guess. So now you don't have to rewrite footer code.

Kind regards,
Wouter

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