Which Theme Is Easiest For Beginners?

[tomgunterman]

I just got the Framework and Sample Genesis today, thinking it would be the most basic and easiest theme. I'm stuck. Just putting in a header image, using a 600X160px image as suggested, the image becomes a postage stamp at the top of the page. It is big enough for a mobile phone but it's on the computer. I am a beginner but I have made a decent site with plenty of customizations to Spacious, a Themegrill theme. It didn't stump me too badly. Sample Genesis did.

I read the instructions in the PDF, followed them as far as I know, and still came out with the postage stamp header image. I even tried putting a huge image in there just to experiment - still a postage stamp result.

I would really like to enjoy the hype and reputation and eventual convenience of Genesis' framework/child theme system. The question is, am I too dumb? Do I have to stick with non-Genesis? Was my reasoning faulty that Sample Genesis is a good place for a newcomer to start? I'll get another child-theme if so advised. I'm giving myself 29 days to figure it out and not return what I got. I will stick with Studiopress because of their return policy. 28 days left.

Any help welcome. The URL I am including as instructed below is with a non-Genesis theme. I switched themes while waiting for some advice with my problem.

http://alittlebitoffiddle.com

[Erin Ulrich]

The Genesis Sample theme is set up for a retina logo (as most, if not all Genesis themes will be). So when you upload a 600 x 180 pixel image for the logo, the theme resizes it to half of that, 300 x 90 pixels, so it will look great on retina screens.

You can certainly adjust the logo size if you are comfortable editing style.css and functions.php files. If you're uncomfortable editing code, you might want to choose a theme that you like more as-is.

I do encourage you to stick with Genesis! There is a learning curve at the beginning, but it's well worth the effort to become acclimated with the way things work. I switched to Genesis 8 years ago, and I'm so glad I did.

---

Erin Ulrich | Genesis Recommended Developer | Design by Insight

[tomgunterman]

Thank you for your response. It is encouraging. I have been able to do some CSS customization, changed the default font, header size.

There is quite a bit of a learning curve. A lot of it is terminology I'll just have to get used to. For example, header image and logo seem to be interchangeable in my situation and to me they seem very different. I'll have to learn the language.

Before getting Genesis I was looking at building a theme from scratch, which sounds way harder than what I thought first thought the Genesis system is. But the scratch building seemed more straight forward. Maybe it's because it is from zero, whereas this system assumes quite a bit of previous knowledge.

Yes, I will stick with it for at least the three remaining weeks of my trial period - I'm spending quite a bit of time on it, trying to get my sites up.

Thanks again for your help.

[krbutton]

Hi Erin,

I came to the forum for help inserting the logo in the header, and found this post. I adjusted the min-height in the .header-image .site-title>a tag in the style sheet, and changed the width and height in the php to add support for custom header in functions.php. However, the logo is still sized to half of what it needs to be, even with these changes. Can you provide me with the tags in both the styles.css and the functions.php of the sample theme so that I can make the necessary changes to eliminate the "retina logo?" Thank you.

[tomgunterman]

Erin, when I went to support for the same problem, they kindly said that such 1 on 1 instruction is not possible. I understand that.

But, very nicely, they gave me this (I had the problem with Genesis Sample and then bought my current Parallax child to see if was any easier - it’s not. Adjust snippet to your name and sizes):

For example, to make the header image show in its full size and centered, you can add following code at bottom of your child theme's "style.css" file:

(You can locate this file at "wp-content/themes/parallax-pro/style.css" on your web hosting and to edit it, can use hosting account's file editor, any FTP program or WordPress's file editor in admin -> Appearance -> Editor)

.header-image .site-container .site-title > a {

height: 140px;

width: 100%;

max-width: 720px;

margin: 0px auto;

}

Good luck. Let me know if it worked - I haven’t done it yet.

Tom

[Erin Ulrich]

@krbutton Having retina logo is highly advised so that your logo won't look terrible on retina screens, and I wouldn't suggest removing that. Can you provide a link to your site?

---

Erin Ulrich | Genesis Recommended Developer | Design by Insight

[krbutton]

@tomgunterman Thank you for your input, it helped me to get back into solving my problem. I was able to make things happen! (I am using the Genesis Starter child theme, which is different from yours):

To change width:

.title-area {
float: left;
padding: 10px 0;
/*width: 300px;*/
width: 600px; /* increased width */
}

To change height:

.header-image .site-title > a {
min-height: 200px; /* allows for higher logo size*/

}

&

@Erin Ulrich if there is a better way to do this, feel free to chime in! I can't send the link to the site at the moment, as I'm redesigning a live site. Thank you for enlightening me regarding the retina logo. I had also researched it and discovered the reasons ... so don't want to remove that, for sure!

[tomgunterman]

The learning curve is a lot about language. What we were trying to change is called header image. I imagined that as a header with one of those big banner pictures across the screen. As I received help, I was told about a logo and a retina logo (had to google that one). It's not supposed to be an image thing at all, probably - as a matter of fact an image can look real silly on a big screen. I'm starting to get it.

awholelottabassalittlebitoffiddle.com
Work in progress. Don't know how to do it un-live. Haven't learned how to work FTP, seems complicated.

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