Intro Generatepress Hooks

Within the past 10 years, I’ve used a great deal of different WordPress themes and have been very disappointed. Up till recently, I was utilizing MyThemeShop, that was fairly good. But I had to do a lot of customization to allow it to do and work how I needed it to. A couple of weeks ago I decided to provide GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it is by far the finest WordPress theme I’ve discovered in a decade . I had been dismissed and am now moving all my sites to GeneratePress. I will enter exactly why in my in-depth GeneratePress review below. And if you are wondering, yes I’ve tried Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X motif, Divi as well as several other lightweight and thicker multi-purpose themes. Generatepress Hooks

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.

GeneratePress Evaluation

GeneratePress is a totally free WordPress theme created by Tom Usborne, a developer from Canada. I have really seen it for years from the WordPress repository. Most of you realize that I’m pretty picky when it comes to web performance, so I have a tendency to dismiss everything from the repository. Typically because a great deal of things on there is not that good, or not encouraged for long. However, in this case, that was a mistake. The theme currently has more than half a million downloads, 80,000+ busy installs, 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 superior version. I could tell right off the bat, the developer was thinking precisely how I was imagining a theme should work. And I’ll go into that more below, but let’s first look at a number of the features. I’m going to be covering the premium version of the subject, because it’s worth very penny. In fact, Tom, in the event that you read this and so are visiting Scottsdale, Arizona, coffees on me.

Characteristics

Super lightweight and quick. Modular design allowing you to enable/disable items you don’t need running. This is only one of the greatest reasons I love GeneratePress.

Responsive, looks fantastic across all of the devices.

Schema built-in, for greater outcomes in SERPs.

Dramatic integration using the WordPress Customizer. I have not been a lover of the customizer in the past, but Tom does it right.

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

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

Resumes prepared.

Font wonderful built-in.

A lot of hooks and filters which make it great for programmers.

Great active service from the programmer. Normally, 3 updates per month.

The Documentation is also incredible. Besides have good documentation on their site, the subject has existed long enough that what I Googled during the setup procedure was found within a few seconds in their forum.

Diving Into GeneratePress

Now it’s Time for the fun part! I test a new theme right out of the box with no customizations to see how quickly the base is. This tells me a lot of what I could 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 quite impressed.

One Thing I was concerned about with GeneratePress was that the modular design was going to generate a lot of big files, but that is not the situation. You can tell that Tom literally worked hard on ensuring that every record packed in GeneratePress is as little as possible. Together with HTTP/2, the number of documents isn’t as significant. However, the size is! Have a peek at some of the center 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

That is a programmer that cares about functionality! And I have Seen exactly the same throughout all of the premium add-ons. They’re literally as small as you can possibly get them. In fact, Font Awesome is most likely the biggest file included. And that is not even his. Together with Font Awesome 5 coming round the cornerwe can anticipate that to secure smaller also.

The premium add-ons Are setup in what I’d call a modular design. It is possible to activate/deactivate anything you aren’t using to ensure they don’t load on your site. Since the co-developer of this perfmatters plugin which has a script supervisor built-in, I felt at home for this. Everything should be made this way.

If You are curious, I am using the next add-ons on this site:

Blog

Shades

Hooks

Page Header

Spacing

Typography

No Child Theme Needed

One of The best features of GeneratePress is that I no more have to use a Child motif . This makes my life much simpler. No longer editing my functions.php or header.php documents. I can literally upgrade my GeneratePress motif this exact minute rather than shed one customization. The hooks add-on certainly helps make this possible. It allows you to add custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress website. Generatepress Hooks

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

On every Page/post you have a lot of alternatives. You can change the sidebar layout and the footer widgets.

You Can easily swap a page between the default option to a complete width page, in addition to disable components.

The WordPress customizer choices is where GeneratePress really shines! Remember, lots of these choices are permitted from the superior add-ons. I can’t show you everything, otherwise, we would be here all day. But allow me to show you few which actually come in handy.

Responsive Columns

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

Desktop grid thickness

Tablet grid width

Mobile grid thickness

Add Customized classes

Insert custom inline styles

Equal height columns

This is An example below:

You might want to Also grab his incredible WP Display Posts plugin too. See my featured posts on the sidebar of this site? That’s using the WP Display Posts plugin. I have it set to display posts from a specific”featured” category. You can also get it show past modified/updated articles, recent articles, etc.. I am using the free version and it works terrific.

To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.

Sections Add-on

The Segments add-in in the premium version of GeneratePress allows you to do all sorts of things concerning design. Consider it like a page builder without the bloat. GeneratePress is definitely not just for blogs! I am in fact utilizing GeneratePress to our ecommerce site (perfmatters.io) that is operating Easy Digital Downloads. Don’t hesitate to check it out. However, as you can see below, it looks like a blog.

Speed Tests

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

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

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

woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme

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

Like the WordPress theme I have running on woorkup? You’re in luck. Tom asked if he can make a replica of woorkup to your brand new GeneratePress site library. I’m happy to let you know that now you can install my woorkup theme on your own GeneratePress site with just a click! It is called the Marketer theme. Get started using a fantastic blog design instantly.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

I also Moved within my personal site, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a motif from Array Themes. It is a fairly basic minimal site, as I don’t use it to get much. Since you can see it already loaded pretty fast.

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I was Able to replicate the entire look 100% in GeneratePress in under one hour. And as you can see it loads even faster! Amazing. I was even able to get rid of a couple plugins that weren’t needed due to GP.

forgemedia.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

I also Moved over our organization site, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a theme from Array Themes. It’s a pretty basic minimal website, as we just use it to our LLC. As you can see it already loaded pretty fast. Generatepress Hooks

forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme

I had been Able to move everything over and get it looking just how I needed it in under an hour. And since you can see it loads even faster! Amazing. I was able to get rid of a total of four plugins and it dropped my total page weight 2x!

I can not express my Excitement about locating GeneratePress and I’m moving over all of my websites for this (which includes some EDD e-commerce sites). Once I’ve got my 9 websites all running in GP with no child themes, my entire life is going to be a breeze! The programmer has revived my faith in multi-purpose themes, which when done the right way, can actually perform quicker.

And The best news is, I now have a thousand more options to pick from than I did earlier.

What GeneratePress Is Great For…

GeneratePress Is the perfect option for performance-focused users that wish to be able to personalize and control exactly how their site appears.

You Can make GeneratePress perform 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 quickly.

Because Of that, people who assemble WordPress websites for a living love GeneratePress. They’ll normally pair it with a WordPress page builder and use it for literally any type of website.

However GeneratePress Might Not Be A Good Combination If…

…you Want something which will instantly appear perfect out of the box.

For Example, if you know you want to produce a fashion blog, you might be happier choosing a market theme that’s developed exclusively for fashion bloggers.

While GeneratePress is becoming a great deal easier to use, thanks to its pre-built Site Library, GeneratePress still seems very barebones when you first install it.

So To make GeneratePress look how you would like it to, you will most likely will need to go in and personalize things. And while the significant benefit of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, some users, particularly casual users, do not like having to make those changes themselves.

GeneratePress Features Which Make It Unique

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

Plenty Of Customization Options In The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

Beyond Performance, another area where GeneratePress does nicely is its customization options.

GeneratePress Uses the WordPress Customizer for customization, which can be convenient as you’ll have the ability to see all the changes that you create in real time.

The Free variant of GeneratePress provides you adequate possibilities, but if you own GeneratePress Premium, you’ll have the ability to customize nearly everything about your site.

For Example, if you go in the Design region, you may configure detailed settings for your:

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

Similarly, The Typography area lets you control the font for each and every element on your website, including buttons:

And You also get a thorough region to control the color of each and every element on your site.

All Whatsoever, GeneratePress will provide you much more customization choices in the WordPress Customizer compared to most other themes. This amount of detail may be a bit overwhelming if you’re a newcomer. But once you realize how the settings come together, you’ll have full control on how your website appears.

Optimized Performance And Fast Page Load Times

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

GeneratePress Also has no code dependencies, which helps you avoid the leave blocking error that Google Pagespeed Insights often mentions.

Put That collectively, and you obtain a superfast-loading theme. How quickly? To give you a sense, I conducted a little test.

First, I put up an empty website utilizing a random popular WordPress.org motif (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 asks

That’s Not bad in any way! But GeneratePress can perform.

Next, I activated GeneratePress on the exact same test site without changing anything else. Here is 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 asks, ~40% less

If You perform the exact same test with different topics, you are going to continue to see that GeneratePress is one of the fastest-loading WordPress topics in existence. Generatepress Hooks

Other Helpful Premium Extensions, Plus A Modular Approach

Past Giving you more design controls from the WordPress Customizer, GeneratePress Premium comes with a lot of other helpful features such as:

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

To Stay lightweight, GeneratePress also provides you a modular port where you can select and choose what features you want to trigger.

That Way, you don’t have to slow down your site for a feature which you’re never going to use.

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

In The last, you had to build GeneratePress sites from a blank canvas regardless of what, which made the theme difficult for casual users to set up.

Earlier In 2018, however, the programmer added a fresh Site Library attribute for GeneratePress Premium users which lets you easily import any among those 25+ pre-built demo sites.

You Can import them right from your WordPress dashboard.

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

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

With Most topics, every post and page will use the very same configurations for the most part. You might have some custom templates or formats — however you don’t have very much control past that.

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

You Can utilize this meta box to:

Change how many sidebars your website uses, or the sidebar orientation (such as changing the sidebar from right to left)
Choose the number of footer widgets to use
Disable certain components, like your header, navigation menu, post featured picture, post title, or footer
Create a special”container” for your 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 able to produce the proper baseline for your own page builder design, making it easy to create custom articles as needed. Generatepress Hooks

GeneratePress Pricing: Affordable And Works On Unlimited Sites

The Core GeneratePress theme can be obtained for free at WordPress.org.

That said, If you are serious about using GeneratePress, I feel you should purchase the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that’s what produces the theme so elastic. The free version doesn’t give you almost as numerous configurations from the WordPress Customizer. And you will also miss out on the premade Site Library.

GeneratePress Premium is also still fairly reasonably priced. It costs just $39.95, and that provides you use on unlimited sites. You will also get a 40% discount if you want to renew to continue receiving support and updates following the initial year (you can, of course, continue using GeneratePress after the initial year without beating — you just won’t get any more updates).

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

Summary

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

If You want a niche-specific motif, you can probably save time by buying a theme that satisfies your needs for your niche out of day one.

However, If you are willing to spend some time changing settings, GeneratePress’ style controls give you the flexibility to turn it into any sort of WordPress site. Or, you may even have the ability to locate a starter website that fulfills your needs to save a little time.

Additionally, It is among the fastest-loading WordPress themes that you will find. Therefore, if you’re seeking the best performance possible, using GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s foundation is a good choice.

If You blend it with fast-loading hosting, you shouldn’t have any problem making your site load in under one minute. Generatepress Hooks