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The Go To Theme?

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downsouth

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May 16, 2008
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Bournemouth
Whats everyones go to theme for WP? just mulling over some requirements, to include editable parallax front page, multi image image slider etc

Anyone have a favorite they like to base their sites on? keen to see a few real examples, thanks
 
downsouth said:
Whats everyones go to theme for WP? just mulling over some requirements, to include editable parallax front page, multi image image slider etc
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Why do you want any of that rubbish?

What matters is the content. Get that right and you can use pretty much any theme you want. Avoid anything with page builders, animations and plugins for layout.

I build my own. Much easier than trying to adapt someone else’s.
 
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Yeah I agree Twenty Seventeen but if your trying to develop your own theme check out Underscores as a theme to build off
 
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Wesley Cude said:
I agree, we really dislike Elementor. For our premium theme builds, we always use Salient as a framework to build websites.
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That theme uses WBbakery - which is almost as bad as Elementor. There is no need to use a page builder. Page builders are desktop devices that never work well on a phone (which is what most people use). And the demo has a performance score of 46/100.
 
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fisicx said:
That theme uses WBbakery - which is almost as bad as Elementor. There is no need to use a page builder. Page builders are desktop devices that never work well on a phone (which is what most people use). And the demo has a performance score of 46/100.
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What would you recommend as an alternative to use when building websites for clients when they want access and flexibility to build and edit pages ongoing?
 
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Wesley Cude said:
What would you recommend as an alternative to use when building websites for clients when they want access and flexibility to build and edit pages ongoing?
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That's a good question.

There can be a big difference between a good theme the person who built it and uses it on their own sites and a theme that someone who has little knowledge will be using

A lot of these site builders rely too much on making it easy for anyone to do anything by cramming them with everything.

I personally think a simpler theme and a bit of training how to use it is better than a theme that anyone can use - both have their places though.
 
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Wesley Cude said:
What would you recommend as an alternative to use when building websites for clients when they want access and flexibility to build and edit pages ongoing?
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Use WP blocks and any of the free themes. Avoid anything from themeforest.

Once installed, very few people ever fiddle with the layout of a site. all they do is add content so the theme doesn't matter too much.

I build my own themes and make them simple to use - removes all the complexity of a client looking after a premium theme and plugins.
 
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downsouth said:
Whats everyones go to theme for WP? just mulling over some requirements, to include editable parallax front page, multi image image slider etc

Anyone have a favorite they like to base their sites on? keen to see a few real examples, thanks
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It depends on your level of technical knowledge and skills, for a simple drag, drop and tweak then you can use a page builder like Elementor, whilst it has flaws it produces results and you can tweak the theme for different devices (make it responsive), there is a large user base and a ton of tutorials on YT if you need more information, as for themes, there are a few that are popular, Astra and Blocksy, again people will have their own views on these, but remember you are free to try them out locally and figure out what works for you.
 
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@AW-UK avoid drag and drop anything. They are all designed for use with desktops. People use their phones more than desktops which means the ux is always poor. Using blocks means you don’t have to rely on a plugin or particular theme.
 
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fisicx said:
@AW-UK avoid drag and drop anything. They are all designed for use with desktops. People use their phones more than desktops which means the ux is always poor. Using blocks means you don’t have to rely on a plugin or particular theme.
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It works absolutely fine for mobile, you just have to know how to use it properly.
If you just use the one layout then yes it will look pants.

A lot of the problem is people not knowing how to use it properly so they just think it is rubbish.

It allows you to make a good looking site fast, it might not meet 100/100 best practices but it does a good enough job, running on litespeed will make it respond quicker, and you can add the lightspeed cache plugin to WP.
 
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AW-UK said:
A lot of the problem is people not knowing how to use it properly so they just think it is rubbish.
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And that’s the problem. You need to get someone to build the site for you if you don’t want it to look pants.

If you just use a simple theme with blocks you can build an equally good looking site.

If you want to use a site builder that’s fine. But you don’t need to. There are plenty of alternatives.
 
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fisicx said:
And that’s the problem. You need to get someone to build the site for you if you don’t want it to look pants.

If you just use a simple theme with blocks you can build an equally good looking site.

If you want to use a site builder that’s fine. But you don’t need to. There are plenty of alternatives.
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There are plenty of step by step tutorials on the web that guides you through the entire process of using different site builders under WP just that they are a few hours long, so you need to really want to do it, if on the other hand you are not interested, as is true of a lot of people, it is an easy platform to get something up and running in a day or less (depending on if you need pictures etc).

You do not need to use a site builder, no, some people prefer to use it some do not, it is why I always suggest people try it out for themselves and see what works for them.
 
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Wesley Cude said:
I would be interested to see a website built with basic blocks that looks equally as good as a website built using WPBakery or Elementor. Does anyone have any references to something they have worked with?
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Yes, me too, I've never tried replicating a WP Elementor built site in plain WP Blocks, but I should imagine that it is more work at the very least, Elementor takes a lot of the leg work out and allows you to just concentrate on the UI/UX part of the site.
 
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Wesley Cude said:
I would be interested to see a website built with basic blocks that looks equally as good as a website built using WPBakery or Elementor. Does anyone have any references to something they have worked with?
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You have missed the point. You don't need all the cruft that comes with a page/site builder. All you need is great content. The actual layout plays very little role in the effectiveness of a site.

For example a hero image can be easily recreated using the cover block:

https://tradesman-theme.co.uk/hero-image-test/

Not done anything with the typography, this is just a demo.

That being said, hero images are rarely effective. Sites without them convert far better.
 
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One of the things that really triggers me is when you have a full sized desktop view and they use the "hamburger" menu still, there is loads of screen real estate left white / blank, you can easily fit the menu in.

More often than not the full view "hamburger" menu then spans the entire screen for a bit of measly text.
 
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AW-UK said:
One of the things that really triggers me is when you have a full sized desktop view and they use the "hamburger" menu still, there is loads of screen real estate left white / blank, you can easily fit the menu in.

More often than not the full view "hamburger" menu then spans the entire screen for a bit of measly text.
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Exactly. Which is why I build my own themes. I can configure it any way I want.
 
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I use templates that use separate header.php files

for instance;
template 1 will use header-1.php
template 2 will use header-2.php
template 3 will use header-3.php
etc.

As 95% of my pages haven't got sliders, galleries, etc. on them I use template 1 which uses a header with no scripts

If I a have a gallery on a page I will use template 2 with header-2.php which loads the scripts for the gallery.

If I want to display a different header completely on a page (or section) I use header-3.php

I even use a blank template which just gives me a blank canvas for a post or a page - https://www.podline.co.uk/a-simple-search-engine-experiment-by-podline/

The problem with a lot of the site builders is they load all the scripts whether needed or not
 
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Wordpress 5.8 also introduces the template editor. For supporting themes you can now create page/post templates on the fly.

And a whole load of new blocks that do all all sorts of funky things.
 
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The thing is with WordPress there are several ways to do it, which is what makes it a good platform, you can drag and drop if you want to and are a complete beginner, you can add custom CSS easily, if you are a bit more savvy you can go on to create your own themes and plugins.

I think it all depends on what the person is asking for, if they are asking you to do it then you can of course use any way you are comfortable with, but for people asking "how to do x" then I will always give them options to try, tell them what I found easiest if they ask and let them decide for themselves.
 
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UKSBD said:
The problem with a lot of the site builders is they load all the scripts whether needed or not
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Was looking at one site today (using elementor) and it had 20 style sheets and 15 scripts. Google's performance score was 23/100. You can do a lot to fix this but if you don't use a page builder the problem goes away on its own.
 
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fisicx said:
Was looking at one site today (using elementor) and it had 20 style sheets and 15 scripts. Google's performance score was 23/100. You can do a lot to fix this but if you don't use a page builder the problem goes away on its own.
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Does the use of Elementor Pro "optimise" the site do you know or does it just give you extra widgets?
Never used Pro myself, never needed the extra widgets and didn't see the benefit of it.
 
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AW-UK said:
Does the use of Elementor Pro "optimise" the site do you know or does it just give you extra widgets?
Never used Pro myself, never needed the extra widgets and didn't see the benefit of it.
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You just get more widgets and more scripts and more stylesheets. Makes things even slower.
 
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fisicx said:
You just get more widgets and more scripts and more stylesheets. Makes things even slower.
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Ah right, it's like anything though, anything that makes things easier are slower, it's like comparing assembly language to BASIC, there are trade-offs, but if you know BASIC but not assembler it'll be a lot quicker to program your widget in BASIC than it will to learn assembler and work out the intricacies.

Whilst there are the WP Blocks that essentially do the same but is not as friendly, I don't think i've seen any WP tutorials on the blocks but you get plenty on site builders.
 
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Gutenberg was the plugin before WP5. And it was pretty awful. But blocks are getting better and better with more and more functions.

For example, drag and drop a bunch of images from you pc into a page and it will automatically create a gallery. If you don’t want the gallery it’s one click to convert back to full sized images.
 
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fisicx said:
Gutenberg was the plugin before WP5. And it was pretty awful. But blocks are getting better and better with more and more functions.

For example, drag and drop a bunch of images from you pc into a page and it will automatically create a gallery. If you don’t want the gallery it’s one click to convert back to full sized images.
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Maybe i'll have a look at the latest WP and see what has changed, I do wonder why they put such god awful themes in place for first install, it just looks terrible.
 
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AW-UK said:
Maybe i'll have a look at the latest WP and see what has changed, I do wonder why they put such god awful themes in place for first install, it just looks terrible.
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Agree with that. But there are thousands of free plugins to choose from so switching isn't a chore. And you can preview all of them.

People get hung up on themes and layouts. Focus on the content and navigation and pretty much any theme will do.
 
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fisicx said:
Agree with that. But there are thousands of free plugins to choose from so switching isn't a chore. And you can preview all of them.

People get hung up on themes and layouts. Focus on the content and navigation and pretty much any theme will do.
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Yes there are but that initial theme is a major turn off if you are not aware you can install better ones.

I wouldn't say "hung up" but first impressions and all, they could have made an effort!
 
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Wesley Cude said:
I am not sure where this belief has come from that Elementor and WP Bakery are no good for responsive websites either. That couldn't be further from the truth.
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Have you looked at these sites on your phone? Elementor is particularly poor. There is almost zero font resizing and the default is to dump everything in a single column. Similar with WPbakery.

So yes, they are responsive but they don’t do a very good job of it. Look at your own site. On a desktop/tablet there is a grid of images. On a phone this changes to a single column when there is plenty of room for the grid. And performance is very poor: 41/100 according to Google - almost all because of the theme (1220 element in the DOM). You could do just about everything on your site using blocks.
 
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AW-UK said:
Yes, me too, I've never tried replicating a WP Elementor built site in plain WP Blocks, but I should imagine that it is more work at the very least, Elementor takes a lot of the leg work out and allows you to just concentrate on the UI/UX part of the site.
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Yeh, I think that Elementor is right for a lot of people. I don't build WP websites much anymore but I had fairly good experiences with it.

I experimented a few times with just using the base theme and then adding Gutenburg blocks with custom CSS. People give Gutenberg a lot of grief but I found this a good way to get the easy customisation of a drag and drop editor, without the speed drawbacks of a big, heavy editor / off the shelf theme.

Whether you go for editor, theme, or get an expert to build from scratch, it all depends on needs and budget.
 
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fisicx said:
Have you looked at these sites on your phone? Elementor is particularly poor. There is almost zero font resizing and the default is to dump everything in a single column. Similar with WPbakery.

So yes, they are responsive but they don’t do a very good job of it. Look at your own site. On a desktop/tablet there is a grid of images. On a phone this changes to a single column when there is plenty of room for the grid. And performance is very poor: 41/100 according to Google - almost all because of the theme (1220 element in the DOM). You could do just about everything on your site using blocks.
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The reason the portfolio items are displayed like this on mobiles is because of the theme, not because it is a limitation of WP Bakery.

I am completely open to switching to an alternative way of building websites, I would like to see a website that has been built using blocks but looks as good as a premium theme.
 
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