Headway Framework

[Excel Expert]

At this point I dont want to spend a ton of money on my website but I desperately need to give it a major overhaul.

In the past I have put together a number of Wordpress sites using a mixture of templates, plugins and a lot of tinkering with CSS etc.

So on the skills levels I would class myself as a keen amateur, certainly no expert.

Searching for a template and I'm finding premium templates that come near to what I want but fall down with a missing feature or option. I have a very clean and flat design all mapped out and I know exactly where I want to put everything.

Is the Headway Framework a good option for someone of my skill levels?

http://headwaythemes.com/

How does it compare to the other frameworks

 

[That Bates Girl]

I use Headway - I don't know how it compares to other frameworks because I've not used any others, but I find it pretty good.

Like you, I'm at the keen amateur end of things - my (slightly neglected) site is at http://whatshesaid.co.uk/

Lyds

 

[Sam@UTS]

I have never used Headway so I'm afraid can't comment on it. Bear in mind however that most (possibly all, I can't remember off the top of my head) WordPress themes are released under licenses which allow you to make changes so I would consider taking one of the themes that is closest and just adding in the required functionality yourself. Given the prevalence of WordPress its usually pretty easy to find how to do things using Google so even a keen amateur should be able to implement most things after a few hours head scratching!

 

[Excel Expert]

I've done that approach before Sam and found it to be a lot of trial an error - I will edit something in the CSS to change an elements colour and it would have knock on effects for other things. I understand how CSS works but not enough to read through and follow someone else's work.

Headway has a really good GUI interface when you get used to the controls. Place wrappers, place blocks in the wrappers and tell the system what the blocks are (content, widget area, header etc). This builds up the basic shape of your page. You can then edit the style and look of those blocks and wrappers just be clicking on them and adjusting the settings for them.

I've installed it and it seems ideal for my level of knowledge. However I can see people with less knowledge of CSS struggling with it as it will be overload. I'm now plugging away at a new design for the site and I will stick the results up here when I'm done

 

[That Bates Girl]

Funnily enough I'm building a brand new site with it at the moment too.

race ya!

Lyds

p.s. joking

 

[Excel Expert]

I will let you win Lyds it is going to be slow going for me.

The strange thing I find about sitting down to redesign my site is, as soon as I do I get mega busy again.

BTW - There is a YouTube channel called Headway101 with about 30 odd free tutorials on it -

https://www.youtube.com/user/Headway101/videos

I've watched a fair few now and they are helping me no end

 

[Nuno]

If you change your mind, (or if anyone else is reading) Divi from Elegant Themes is a drag and drop and cheaper. It does have the usual Elegant Themes annoyances, but these are surmountable.

Non Drag 'n' Drop: Suffusion is excellent, and free.