Introduction Beaver Builder Generatepress Tutorial

Over the past ten years, I’ve used a great deal of different WordPress topics and have been really disappointed. Up till recently, I had been utilizing MyThemeShop, that was pretty good. But I had to perform a lot of customization to make it do and operate how I needed it to. A couple weeks ago I decided to provide GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it is by far the best WordPress theme I have found in a decade . I had been blown away and am moving all of my websites to GeneratePress. I will enter precisely why in my in-depth GeneratePress review under. And if you’re wondering, yes I have tried Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X theme, Divi in addition to several other lightweight and heavier multicolored themes. Beaver Builder Generatepress Tutorial

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.

GeneratePress Review

GeneratePress is a totally free WordPress theme made by Tom Usborne, a programmer from Canada. I’ve actually seen it for many years in the WordPress repository. Most of you know that I’m fairly picky when it comes to web performance, so I have a tendency to dismiss everything from the repository. Typically because a lot of things on there is not that good, or not supported for long. Nonetheless, in this circumstance, this was a mistake. The theme now has more than half a million downloads, 80,000+ active matches, with over 500 5-star evaluations. So clearly Tom is doing something right here.

I Really set up the free version of the theme and in a matter of 15 minutes bought the premium version. I could tell right off the bat, the developer was thinking precisely how I was imagining a theme should get the job done. And I will go into that more below, but let us first look at some of the features. I’m going to be covering the premium edition of the subject, since it’s worth . Actually, Tom, if you ever read this and so are seeing Scottsdale, Arizona, coffees on me.

Characteristics

Super lightweight and fast. Modular design allowing you to enable/disable items you do not need running. This is only one of the biggest reasons I love GeneratePress.

Responsive, looks great across all of the devices.

Schema built-in, for greater results in SERPs.

Impressive integration using the WordPress Customizer. I haven’t been a fan of the customizer in the past, but Tom does it right.

Compatible with all popular plugins, Yoast SEO, WooCommerce, EDD, BuddyPress, bbPress, and WPML. Fantastic browser support back to IE8.

Additionally, it works great with all the favorite fast-growing Elementor page builder. If you want to dive into even more customizations, these really are a great combo. I’ve also read that individuals using Beaver Builder have had success.

Translation ready.

Font wonderful built-in.

Tons of filters and hooks that make it great for developers.

Excellent active service from the programmer. On average, 3 updates per month.

The Documentation can be incredible. Besides have good documentation on their site, the theme has been around long enough that everything I wholeheartedly during the setup procedure was found inside a couple of seconds in their own forum.

Going Deep Into GeneratePress

Now it is Time for the fun part! I test a new theme right out of the box with no customizations to just see how quickly the base is. This tells me a great deal of what I can expect by the time that I add everything for this. Running the stock GeneratePress WordPress theme on Kinsta hosting clocked in at a whopping 265 ms load time. I was very impressed.

One Thing I was concerned about with GeneratePress was that the modular layout was going to generate a lot of big files, but this is not the situation. You can tell that Tom actually worked hard on making sure that every file packed in GeneratePress is as small as possible. Together with HTTP/2, the amount of files isn’t as important. But the dimensions is! Have a look at some of the core GeneratePress files under:

/generatepress/css/unsemantic-grid. min.css 2.9 KB

/generatepress/style. css 7.1 KB

/generatepress/css/mobile. min.css 1.6 KB

/generatepress/js/navigation. min.js 1.1 KB

/generatepress/js/dropdown. min.js 1.5 KB

This is a programmer that cares about functionality! And I have Seen the same throughout each the premium add-ons. They’re literally as small as you can possibly get them. In fact, Font Awesome is most likely the largest file included. And that isn’t even his. With Font Awesome 5 coming round the cornerwe could anticipate that to get smaller too.

The premium add-ons Are setup in what I’d call a modular design. You can activate/deactivate anything you are not using to guarantee they do not load on your site. Since the co-developer of the perfmatters plugin that has a script manager built-in, I felt right at home for this. Everything ought to be made this way.

If You’re curious, I am using the next add-ons on this website:

Blog

Colors

Hooks

Page Header

Spacing

Typography

No Child Theme Needed

One of The best features of GeneratePress is I no longer have to use a Child motif . This makes my life so much simpler. No longer editing my functions.php or header.php files. I will literally upgrade my GeneratePress motif this exact minute rather than lose a single customization. The hooks add-on certainly can help make this possible. It allows you to add custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress website. Beaver Builder Generatepress Tutorial

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

On each Page/post that you have a lot of options. You can alter the sidebar layout and the footer widgets.

You Can quickly swap a page between the default to a full width page, in addition to disable components.

The WordPress customizer choices is really where GeneratePress really shines! Bear in mind, a lot of these choices are permitted from the premium add-ons. I can not show you everything, otherwise, we’d be here daily. However, let me show you few which actually come in handy.

Responsive Columns

Another Plugin I highly suggest grabbing is your free Lightweight Grid Columns. Not to my surprise, this can be created by the exact same programmer as GeneratePress. It allows you a super simple way to incorporate responsive columns to any page or article. Characteristics include:

Desktop grid thickness

Tablet grid width

Mobile grid thickness

Insert custom courses

Add custom inline designs

Equal height columns

Here is An example below:

You might want to Also catch his amazing WP Show Posts plugin too. See my featured articles on the sidebar of this website? That’s using the WP Show Posts plugin. I have it set to show posts from a particular”featured” category. You can also have it show last modified/updated articles, recent articles, etc.. I’m using the free version and it works great.

To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.

Sections Add-on

The Segments add-in in the premium edition of GeneratePress lets you perform all sorts of things in terms of design. Consider it like a page builder with no bloat. GeneratePress is certainly not only for blogs! I am in reality using GeneratePress to our ecommerce website (perfmatters.io) that is operating Easy Digital Downloads. Feel free to look it over. But as you can see below, it looks nothing like a site.

Speed Tests

For all those Of those who are regular readers, you probably did not even notice I changed the entire theme that powers woorkup.com. It only took me about an hour for GeneratePress to mimic my MyThemeShop motif that I had spent annually customizing. Here’s a comparison below.

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

My older MyThemeShop theme was already pretty quickly, but I invested a great deal of time scrutinizing it. In reality, I have gotten a lot of emails from you guys asking me to publish all of my customizations. My advice now is, simply get GeneratePress!

woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme

With the New GeneratePress motif I managed to achieve faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And keep in mind, I do not have a child theme. All the customizations were created using the awesome GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).

Like the WordPress theme I have working on woorkup? You’re in luck. Tom asked if he can create a copy of woorkup for the brand new GeneratePress blog library. I’m pleased to allow you to know that you can now install my woorkup motif on your GeneratePress website with just a click! It is known as the Marketer theme. Get started with a fantastic blog design instantly.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

I also Moved within my private site, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a motif from Array Themes. It’s a fairly basic minimum website, as I do not use it to get much. As you can see it loaded pretty fast.

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I had been Able to duplicate the entire appearance 100 percent in GeneratePress in under an hour. And since you can see it loads even faster! Amazing. I was able to get rid of a few plugins that weren’t needed due to GP.

forgemedia.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

Additionally, I Moved over our organization site, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a theme from Array Themes. It’s a fairly basic minimum website, as we just use it for our LLC. Since you can see it loaded pretty quickly. Beaver Builder Generatepress Tutorial

forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme

I had been Able to move everything over and get it looking just how I wanted it in under one hour. And since you can view it loads faster! Amazing. I managed to eliminate a total of four plugins and it dropped my whole page weight 2x!

I can’t express my Excitement about finding GeneratePress and I’m moving over all of my websites for this (which comprises some EDD e-commerce sites). Once I’ve got my 9 sites all running in GP with no child themes, my life will be a breeze! The developer has revived my faith in multi-purpose themes, and that when done the correct way, can actually perform quicker.

And The best thing is, I finally have a thousand more choices to choose from than I did before.

What GeneratePress Is Great For…

GeneratePress Is the ideal option for performance-focused users who wish to be able to customize and control exactly how their site appears.

You Can make GeneratePress do pretty much anything. And because GeneratePress has a focus on performance, the website that you build will have a fantastic foundation to make it load fast.

Since Of that, those who assemble WordPress sites for a living love GeneratePress. They’ll typically pair it with a WordPress page builder and use it for literally any type of website.

But GeneratePress Might Not Be A Fantastic Fit If…

…you Want something which will immediately look perfect from the box.

For Example, if you know you wish to create a style blog, you might be happier picking out a niche theme that is developed exclusively for fashion bloggers.

While GeneratePress is becoming a lot simpler to use, thanks to its pre-built Website Library, GeneratePress still seems very barebones if you first install it.

So To create GeneratePress look how you want it to, you will almost certainly will need to go in and personalize matters. And though the substantial advantage of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, some users, especially casual users, do not like having to make those changes .

GeneratePress Features Which Make It Unique

Here Are a few of the particular features that clarify why GeneratePress is indeed common.

Lots Of Customization Options From The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

Past Functionality, another area where GeneratePress does nicely is its customization choices.

GeneratePress Uses the WordPress Customizer for customization, and this is convenient because you will have the ability to see all the changes that you create in real time.

The Free version of GeneratePress provides you adequate possibilities, but if you own GeneratePress Premium, you’ll be able to customize pretty much all about your site.

For Example, if you go into the Layout region, you may configure detailed settings to yourown:

Header — you can move your header around and alter its styling
Navigation — GeneratePress gives you two different navigation options, including sticky menus
Sidebar layout — you can utilize one or two sidebars
Blog post design — such as featured image dimensions, metadata, etc..
Footer layout — like how many widgets to include

Similarly, The Typography place enables you to control the font for every single element on your site, including buttons:

And You also receive a thorough area to control the colour of every single element on your site.

All In all, GeneratePress will provide you a lot more customization options from the WordPress Customizer compared to most other themes. This level of detail might be a little overwhelming if you are a newcomer. But as soon as you understand how the settings come together, you will have full control over how your site looks.

Optimized Performance And Fast Page Load Times

Across All of its features, GeneratePress consistently has a focus on excellent performance and tidy code. The entire motif is less than 30 kB, which will be about as little as you are ever going to find for a WordPress theme. Even most other optimized WordPress themes are still 200+ kB. And some poorly coded themes can even exceed 1 MB!

GeneratePress Also does not have any code dependencies, which helps you avoid the render obstructing error that Google Pagespeed Insights often cites.

Put That collectively, and you get a superfast-loading motif. How fast? To give you a sense, I ran a small test.

First, I put up an empty website using a random popular WordPress.org theme (Envo Magazine). After analyzing its functionality with Pingdom, it:

Had a performance grade of 77
Loaded in 1.05 seconds
Had a page size of 243.9 kB
Had 15 requests

That is Not bad at all! But GeneratePress can do better.

Next, I activated GeneratePress on exactly the exact same test website without altering anything else. Here’s how GeneratePress did:

Had a performance tier of 87, 10 points greater
Loaded in 666 ms, ~37% quicker
Had a page size of 26.8 kB, ~90% smaller
Had 9 requests, ~40% less

If You perform that same test with different themes, you are going to continue to see that GeneratePress is among those fastest-loading WordPress topics in existence. Beaver Builder Generatepress Tutorial

Other Helpful Premium Extensions, Plus Much Modular Approach

Past Giving you more style controls from the WordPress Customizer, GeneratePress Premium also comes with a lot of other helpful features like:

Elements — a unique feature which lets you create customized hooks, page headers, or design templates.
Page Header — lets you create a exceptional page header onto a per-page basis.
Sections — that is kind of like lightweight page building. It lets you create separate”sections” on a webpage, each with their own design and column settings.

To Remain lightweight, GeneratePress also gives you a modular port where you could pick and choose exactly which features you would like to activate.

That Way, you don’t need to slow down your site for a quality which you’ll never use.

Pre-Made Starter Sites Make It Easier To Design Your Site

In The last, you had to build GeneratePress websites from a blank canvas no matter what, which left the theme difficult for casual users to set up.

Earlier In 2018, though, the programmer added a new Website Library attribute for GeneratePress Premium users that allows you easily import any among those 25+ pre-built demonstration websites .

You Can import them right from the WordPress dashboard.

Yes — this Website still uses GeneratePress! All I did was click on a few buttons to import a demo site.

Page-Level Settings Provide You Comprehensive Control Over Each Bit Of Content

With Most topics, each post and page will use the very same configurations for the most part. You might have some custom formats or templates — however you do not have very much control beyond that.

GeneratePress Changes that by providing you a new Layout meta box for every single post and page:

You Can use this meta box to:

Change how many sidebars your website uses, or the sidebar orientation (such as altering the sidebar from right to left)
Choose the number of footer widgets to utilize
Disable certain components, such as your header, navigation menu, article featured image, post title, or footer
Produce a special”container” for your own page builder

Where These controls would be the most useful is if you’re using a WordPress site builder.

By Disabling certain elements, you are in a position to produce the correct baseline for your page builder design, which makes it easy to create custom articles as needed. Beaver Builder Generatepress Tutorial

GeneratePress Replies: Affordable And Works On Unlimited Sites

The Core GeneratePress theme can be obtained at no cost at WordPress.org.

That said, If you’re seriously interested in using GeneratePress, I feel you need to purchase the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that is what produces the theme so elastic. The free version does not give you almost as numerous settings from the WordPress Customizer. And you’ll also miss out on the premade Site Library.

GeneratePress Premium is also still fairly affordable. It costs just $39.95, and that provides you use on unlimited websites . You’ll also get a 40% discount if you want to renew to keep on receiving support and upgrades after the first year (you can, of course, keep using GeneratePress after the first year without beating — you just won’t receive any more updates).

When You believe that the typical premium WordPress theme will usually cost around $60, GeneratePress provides a great value.

Summary

As I said, I do not think GeneratePress is for everybody.

If You desire a niche-specific motif, you can probably save time by buying a theme that fits your requirements for your market from day one.

But If you are willing to spend time altering preferences, then GeneratePress’ mode controls give you the flexibility to turn it into any type of WordPress website. Or, you might even be able to find a starter site that fulfills your needs to save a little time.

Additionally, It’s one of those fastest-loading WordPress topics you will locate. So if you’re seeking the best performance possible, using GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s base is a great decision.

If You blend it with fast-loading hosting, so you should have no problem making your website load in under one second. Beaver Builder Generatepress Tutorial