Genesis landing page help

[streak]

Hi All, first post here.
We have just had a new website built by a local developer.
It is apparently a custom website based on the Genesis them.

__Mulligan Funding Homepage

We have had a number of issues with the developers which I wont go into right now. The immediate problem is that we wish to create a landing page.

The landing theme exists which is supposed to automatically remove most of the website components like Header,Sidebar,Footer etc. It does indeed remove most of this but does leave a newsletter sign up form as well as BBB logo.

I have looked at the PHP code for this theme and can see how it goes about removing what should not be there for a landing page.

I asked the developer why the landing page theme is not performing as expected and their reply is that the site was a fully custom design so these other templates that come with the genesis theme may lay out different because of coding of the homepage and internal pages.

They now want to charge us a few hours of development time to fix this.

One of the reasons for going the WP route was to avoid having to revert to the developers every time something needed changing.

Am I able to deal with this myself without screwing anything up?
Is the developer making sense or are they just looking to charge us more money for something which is not hard to do?

Many thanks.

[nutsandbolts]

Do you have a link to a landing page on the site so I can take a look? Generally it's not difficult to remove elements from the landing page template and should only take a few minutes.

---

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

[Tom]

other templates that come with the genesis theme

They built this on top of Minimum Pro (Did they leave a copy of Minimum for you?):

Theme Name: Mulligan Funding
Theme URI: http://my.studiopress.com/themes/minimum/
Description: A mobile responsive and HTML5 theme built for the Genesis Framework.
Author: Tinyfrog Technologies 
Author URI: http://tinyfrog.com 

Your BBB logo and newsletter signup form are in two footer divs inside the footer section
You can remove the Minimum footer in your landing page template using the following code, Your mileage may vary. Trial first on a sandbox would be best.

remove_action( 'genesis_footer', 'genesis_footer_markup_open', 5 );
remove_action( 'genesis_footer', 'genesis_do_footer' );
remove_action( 'genesis_footer', 'genesis_footer_markup_close', 15 );

In the footer you can also find the div that displays the developer link.

Let us know how this works out for you.

---

Choose your next site design from over 350 Genesis themes.
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[streak]

Many thanks for the help.
When I look under appearance/themes I do see Minimum Pro listed, so I guess they did live me a copy.
Here is an example of a test page using the landing theme

http://www.mulliganfunding.com/test-2/

Tom, the code you mention is already in place as follows:-

<?php
/**
* This file adds the Landing template to the Minimum Pro Theme.
*
* @author StudioPress
* @package Generate
* @subpackage Customizations
*/

/*
Template Name: Landing
*/

//* Add custom body class to the head
add_filter( 'body_class', 'minimum_add_body_class' );
function minimum_add_body_class( $classes ) {

$classes[] = 'minimum-landing';
return $classes;

}

//* Enqueue Backstretch scripts
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'minimum_enqueue_backstretch' );
function minimum_enqueue_backstretch() {

//* Load scripts only if custom background is being used
if ( ! get_background_image() )
return;

//* Load Backstretch scripts
wp_enqueue_script( 'minimum-backstretch', get_bloginfo( 'stylesheet_directory' ) . '/js/backstretch.js', array( 'jquery' ), '1.0.0' );
wp_enqueue_script( 'minimum-backstretch-set', get_bloginfo('stylesheet_directory').'/js/backstretch-set.js' , array( 'jquery', 'minimum-backstretch' ), '1.0.0' );
wp_localize_script( 'minimum-backstretch-set', 'BackStretchImg', array( 'src' => get_background_image() ) );

}

//* Force full width content layout
add_filter( 'genesis_pre_get_option_site_layout', '__genesis_return_full_width_content' );

//* Remove site header elements
remove_action( 'genesis_header', 'genesis_header_markup_open', 5 );
remove_action( 'genesis_header', 'genesis_do_header' );
remove_action( 'genesis_header', 'genesis_header_markup_close', 15 );

//* Remove navigation
remove_action( 'genesis_after_header', 'genesis_do_nav', 15 );
remove_action( 'genesis_footer', 'genesis_do_subnav', 7 );

//* Remove Minimum after header
remove_action( 'genesis_after_header', 'minimum_site_tagline' );

//* Remove breadcrumbs
remove_action( 'genesis_before_loop', 'genesis_do_breadcrumbs' );

//* Remove site footer widgets
remove_action( 'genesis_before_footer', 'genesis_footer_widget_areas' );

//* Remove site footer elements
remove_action( 'genesis_footer', 'genesis_footer_markup_open', 5 );
remove_action( 'genesis_footer', 'genesis_do_footer' );
remove_action( 'genesis_footer', 'genesis_footer_markup_close', 15 );

//* Run the Genesis loop
genesis();

[nutsandbolts]

This reply has been marked as private.

[Tom]

Streak,

Is the landing page template you posted here in "themes/minimum" or is it in "themes/mulll" ?

It appears to be the former, i.e. the standard landing page template for Minimum, however it doesn't appear to be that landing template that is inserting different markup for foot-left with your newsletter widget, plus foot-right and the developer's footer link. Since these are structured differently than your other pages I suspect that they have used javascript to insert the footer bits with the Gravity Forms newsletter form, BBB logo, etc. You'd have to sort that out as well as removing the sharing widget on landing pages if that is also not desired. I don't think they did you any favors with this technique (nor the responsive design - but that's just my opinion).

Perhaps someone more fluent in Javascript will chime into prove me right/wrong.

---

Choose your next site design from over 350 Genesis themes.
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[streak]

Tom when I click on customize for my active theme, the URL is http://www.mulliganfunding.com/wp-admin/customize.php?theme=mulll so I guess the landing page template is in Mulli and not minimum.

For my own education I would be interested to hear why you think they did not do us any favors wrt to the technique they used as well as the responsive design.

Andrea, many thanks for the kind offer. The developers have not given us access yet to the style sheet for fear that we will screw something up. They are prepared to let us have access bu we would have to sign a waiver absolving them of any responsibility should anything go wrong. Also, I would like to be in a position learn and try and deal with these issue myself.

From what I have read on the Genesis theme, the whole beauty of choosing the landing page theme is that it automatically removes most of the website components like Header,Sidebar,Footer etc.
All we want is for it to present the way the landing theme intended it to present. We can then go ahead and add some content to it. When I took this up with the developers their response was

"I’m fully aware of how the templates are in Genesis as a default, however your site was a fully custom design so these other templates that come with the genesis theme may lay out different because of coding of the homepage and internal pages. We can customize the “Landing” Page template but it was not in the original agreement to have a 3rd custom template."

[nutsandbolts]

Personally, I'm a little concerned about any dev that doesn't allow you full access to your own website. If the project is complete and you've paid for it, YOU are the site owner and should be able to do whatever you want with it. I understand that if you break the whole thing and want them to fix it, that should involve another fee, but that shouldn't mean they hold your site hostage. The whole thing seems shady to me - just my two cents.

---

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

[streak]

I agree Andrea. The site is only a few weeks old and while ironing out any issues I would prefer it that they cant blame us for screwing anything up.
eg. right now, if I create a new page and click the insert/edit image button, the insert image pop box comes up but its blank with no options to insert an image the way that insert/edit video does. I have asked them to look into this. Although the fix may have nothing to do with me having full site access I can put pressure on them to sort this out without them accusing me of screwing something up. As a matter of interest have you come across this problem before?

[nutsandbolts]

That's almost always a plugin conflict. Try deactivating all your plugins, then go back and see if you're able to add an image to a test post or page. If so, activate one at a time until it stops working again - that will tell you which one is causing the problem. Once you know the problem, if you'll post back here, we can help you look for an alternative plugin.

---

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

[Tom]

I can see that you are on a learning curve with WordPress/Genesis, but I think you've come a good place for help and learning. You are correct to sort out what your site is/is not doing, seeing if the developer did what you asked for and if they broke anything in the process. The first two are really up to you and your measurements; I think others can help you out with the third. Some feedback will be opinion, some will be technical fact. But, once you have tested, are satisfied with the hand-off and have full access, you can then fix, change and improve easily and you should look forward to that flexibility.

Re: the landing page template - this is not something you can tell from the WordPress customizer, rather it is the actual folder where the template file resides. The landing page template in "/wp-content/themes/mulll/" is what will be available to you in the page editor and what will control the page output. Some plugins (eg. social media buttons) may infringe on the "bare screen" that a landing page promises, but can often be turned off in the plugin. I think, but cannot be certain, that the newsletter form + logo + dev link are being placed via a plugin (Gravity Forms - Placeholders add-on) and/or javascript. I'm not sure why they did it this way as there are other simpler ways to achieve the same thing and *not* impact your landing page template.

Frankly, an untouched template delivered with the original theme isn't a customization and shouldn't be counted as a "3rd custom template" *unless* they told you upfront that the landing page wasn't going to function normally. This is a part of your evaluation and sign-off. It can be fixed by the original developer or later by other resources. As Andrea found , I too think there's a bit of sleight-of-hand involved. To tell you that you have a "fully custom design" when your site uses another theme as a foundation is also a misdirection IMHO. Customization and design is involved, but not in the way they seem to imply.

Re; my comment on the responsive web design (it is only my opinion, not related to this forum or StudioPress or anybody else). I probably shouldn't have mentioned it at all as you are chasing other issues and didn't ask for a design critique from strangers. But ... RWD aims to deliver an attractive, functional and appropriate user experience on devices of all sizes and types. At its simplest this means displaying components adaptively, depending on screen size. My observation is that this could have been done better for you. For example:

• The search box pops in and out of the menu bar at different screen widths.
• The menu fonts shrink on smaller screens making them less readable,
• Second level menu items are severed from the first level menu items at the 668px breakpoint.
• The mobile/hamburger menu could be invoked at a larger width to help with this or other methods could be used.
• The slider text is unreadable at smaller screen resolutions.
• Your four main marketing points are contained in 4 boxes across the middle of the full-screen layout. At 1179px they are squeezed tight then jump to a narrow, single column at 960px, and stay that way down to 320px. l think it would be more appealing to grow them when the screen space allows, perhaps in pairs, then to a column, then to a smaller column when required.
• The block of three action buttons in the top right of the screen jumps down and out of place at one point, (BTW, those three buttons could employ better labels. I don't know what "main switchboard" is until I hover and find it's a phone number; same with "customer service". They don't call me to do anything. The "go to application" button might get better click-through if it said "Click to Get Funding Now" or similar.)
• The newsletter form in the footer: the submit button is always orphaned and never centered. The form fields should adapt to the screen in size and position.
• The BBB logo and copyright notice are awkwardly placed and should be centered at some screen widths.
• The hovering share widget gets in the way at some screen sizes. Is it useful on the front page?
• Their dev link is the only item that is consistently placed on the screen.

Run your pages through the StudioPress screen width emulator to view by devices width; use this bookmarklet to see how your site has been designed to adapt to screen sizes.

I'd first go back to Andrea's comment: be certain that they have delivered what you ordered and paid for, then assume ownership and plan your site's future.

---

Choose your next site design from over 350 Genesis themes.
[ Follow me: Twitter ] [ Follow Themes: Twitter ] [ My Favourite Webhost ]

[streak]

Thanks Tom. You summed it up quite well.
We have signed off and made our final payment. Each time I think they have delivered what we paid for I find problems like this landing page issue as well as the image insert problem mentioned above and others. They continue to blame the custom design which was a feature they offered us rather than something that we asked for.
Saying that a custom design meant breaking other aspects of the theme without telling you before hand leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
I wont go into how many time they tried to hand over the site to us as complete with glaring errors that a novice could pick up. It got to the point where continuing to argue was being unproductive and we needed the site to go live.
I want to try and get them to fix all that is broken on their dime before I ask for the style sheet and then hand over to another developer. We need the application form re-written and there is no way I'll be asking them to do this.

I think we now (compared to the old site) have some great content which can be used again even if we have to slightly modify the site to be more responsive and to perform the way that this theme was designed to perform by the developers.

[essaysnark]

@streak, you do have FTP access to your server, correct? That's really your key to move forward with all of this. Or is this developer also providing hosting for the site? You said that you haven't been given the stylesheet, but even if they've modified your WP admin screen to prevent access to that, it's still on the server which you could retrieve via FTP, or from this link:

http://www.mulliganfunding.com/wp-content/themes/mulll/style.css

Or maybe I'm missunderstanding what you mean when you say they won't give it to you?

To ask you again what Tom was asking:

Is there a landing page template in the "mulli" theme folder on your server? Log on via FTP and navigate to the wp-content/themes/mulli/ directory and see if there's a file called page_landing.php in there - that's what you would want to edit. You should also be able to find this through the WP admin screens, if they haven't been modified: Go to Appearance -> Editor and choose the Mulli theme from the dropdown menu at the top right. The list of theme files will appear down the righthand column. If you don't have a "landing page" template there, then copy it in from the Minimum Pro theme and assign that to your test page.

[streak]

No I don't have FTP access, they are hosting our site on their servers at WPengine.com.
They dont want me fiddling in the stylesheet. for example, I wanted to add some analytics tags to the header and they had to do it for me explaining as mentioned above that they don't want me fiddling there.

I do have a landing page template in the mulli folder. I copied the php code for it above. It is this theme that is not displaying the way I want it to and they way that it should as can be seen here

http://www.mulliganfunding.com/test-2/

I was expecting a blank page with everything removed, but based on the way they designed the site this is what's happening.

[Tom]

@streak: Andrea nailed this @nutsandbolts: I understand that if you break the whole thing and want them to fix it, that should involve another fee, but that shouldn’t mean they hold your site hostage. The whole thing seems shady to me – just my two cents.

Its seems that they delivered (something); you approved and paid (something). That's history, and I expect that if you want anything else customized or modified using their services you would make an arrangement. But you own it and (pending whatever hosting arrangement you've setup) you can manage this. We're all pulling for you to come out on top of the situation. (Y) b^.^d

---

Choose your next site design from over 350 Genesis themes.
[ Follow me: Twitter ] [ Follow Themes: Twitter ] [ My Favourite Webhost ]

[streak]

Thanks all for the support.
My plan is to get full total control soon and to then find another partner to help us going forward.
Before doing that I want to understand my rights better and to establish what parts of what's broken they should be obliged to fix based on the design approach they chose to follow.

IMO the site is either fully custom and all pages need to be designed, or it is based on a theme in which case all other features of theme should work.

[streak]

Thanks for all of the help so far.
I have been in touch with the developers and hope to get things resolved soon.

In the meantime, please help me understand the theme/child theme structure.
I can see two themes, Genesis and Mulligan.
If I select Genesis to edit and click on say footer.php, despite the fact that it warns you

"WARNING: This file is part of the core Genesis Framework. DO NOT edit this file under any circumstances.
Please do all modifications in the form of a child theme."

I see that this file has in fact been edited as it contains my Quantcast Tag, likewise the header.php contains my Google analytics tag.

If I select Mulligan theme to edit, there is no instance of header.php, footer.php and a bunch of others that appear in the Genesis theme but don't appear in the Mulligan theme.

Looking in Mulligan functions.php I can see where the copyright notices, "Developed by TinyFrog" etc. appear.

So my question is, if one is not supposed to edit the php files on the Genesis them then how come they have been edited?
It looks like that when the site runs it uses php files from both Genesis (header.php, footer.php) and Mulligan (functions.php etc.)?

Is this how things are supposed to be?

Please educate me.

[nutsandbolts]

The Genesis framework files should NEVER be edited. If the devs wanted to include things that go in header.php or footer.php, they can do that in the two boxes at the bottom of the Genesis > Theme Settings screen. At the very least, they should have duplicated the files in the child theme folder and made their edits there.

It sounds to me like they are either completely unfamiliar with Genesis or trying to create future work for themselves - as soon as Genesis updates again, your tracking/stats will stop working and that sounds like an opportunity for them to charge you more money to "fix" it. Again, just my two cents.

---

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

[essaysnark]

Yes to all that Andrea said, and to add further:

It seems like you are actually understanding things quite well.

The way that a parent and child theme work together is, if a file exists in the child theme directory, it will take precedence over the same file that is in the parent. Your child theme should always have many fewer files than what are in the parent because the parent theme - Genesis - is what's running the show.

The reason that the Genesis (parent) files should never be edited is because those files are overwritten whenever you install an update to Genesis. It's just like how WordPress core should never be edited. All customizations should be done to the child theme (and oddly, just as Andrea said, there's a really easy way to implement the tracking codes that were added to those Genesis files, so it's a bit of a head-scratcher why a developer would do it any differently).

[streak]

Many thanks.
I remember that the tracking tags were done by the developers SEO contact, a third party, I have emailed him to get some clarification.

Fortunately it looks like I am finding my way around and if necessary should be able to handle these edits myself.

As a matter of interest, how would one create/copy the header and footer files from Genesis to the child theme?

I took a look at the Genesis > Theme Settings screen and noticed the Header and Footer scripts boxes.

The footer box is empty and the header box contains

"<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://www.mulliganfunding.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/favicon6.ico" type="image/x-icon">
<script type="text/javascript">
jQuery(document).ready(function($){

/* prepend menu icon */
$('.nav-primary').prepend('<div id="menu-icon">Menu</div>');

/* toggle nav */
$("#menu-icon").on("click", function(){
$(".menu-primary").slideToggle();
$(this).toggleClass("active");
});

});
</script>"

[Author]

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