Intro Generatepress Lms

Within the past ten years, I have used a great deal of different WordPress topics and have been really disappointed. Up until recently, I was utilizing MyThemeShop, that was pretty good. But I still had to perform a lot of customization to make it perform and work the way I wanted it to. A couple weeks ago I decided to give GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it is by far the finest WordPress theme I’ve found in a decade . I was dismissed and am moving all of my websites to GeneratePress. I will go into precisely why in my comprehensive GeneratePress review below. And if you are wondering, yes I’ve attempted Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X theme, Divi as well as many other lightweight and thicker multi-purpose themes. Generatepress Lms

To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.

GeneratePress Review

GeneratePress is a free WordPress theme made by Tom Usborne, a developer from Canada. I have really seen it for many years from the WordPress repository. Most of you realize that I am fairly picky when it comes to web performance, so I tend to ignore everything from the repository. Typically because a great deal of stuff on there isn’t that great, or not encouraged for long. Nonetheless, in this circumstance, this was a mistake. The motif now has over half a million downloads, 80,000+ active matches, with over 500 5-star evaluations. So obviously Tom is doing something right here.

I Actually 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 exactly how I was envisioning a theme should work. And I’ll go into that more below, but let us first look at some of the features. I’m going to be covering the premium version of the subject, since it’s worth . Actually, Tom, in the event that you read this and so are seeing Scottsdale, Arizona, coffees on me.

Features

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

Responsive, looks fantastic across all of the devices.

Schema built-in, for greater outcomes in SERPs.

Impressive integration using all the WordPress Customizer. I haven’t been a fan of this customizer previously, 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 all the popular fast-growing Elementor page builder. If you would like to dive into even more customizations, these are a terrific combo. I’ve also read that people using Beaver Builder have had success.

Translation ready.

Font awesome built in.

A lot of filters and hooks that make it great for developers.

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

The Documentation is also incredible. Besides have good documentation on their site, the theme has existed long enough that everything I Googled during the setup procedure was found inside a couple of seconds in their forum.

Going Deep Into GeneratePress

Now it is Time for the fun part! I test a new theme right from the box with no customizations to see how quickly the foundation is. This tells me a lot of what I can expect by the time that I add everything to it. Running the stock GeneratePress WordPress theme on Kinsta hosting clocked in at a whopping 265 ms loading time. I was quite impressed.

One Thing I was concerned about with GeneratePress was that the modular design was going to produce a lot of big files, but this isn’t the case. You can tell that Tom literally worked hard on making sure that every file loaded in GeneratePress is as small as possible. With HTTP/2, the amount of documents is not as significant. However, the size is! Take a look at a few 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

That is a developer that cares about functionality! And I’ve Seen exactly the same throughout each the premium add-ons. They’re as small as you can possibly get them. In fact, Font Awesome is most likely the largest file contained. And that is not even his. Together with Font Awesome 5 arriving round the cornerwe can anticipate that to get smaller also.

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

If You are interested, I’m using the next add-ons on this site:

Blog

Colors

Copyright

Hooks

Page Header

Spacing

Typography

No Child Theme Needed

One of The best features of GeneratePress is that I no longer need to use a young child motif . This makes my life much simpler. No longer editing my functions.php or header.php files. I will literally upgrade my GeneratePress motif this exact moment and not lose one customization. The hooks add-on certainly helps make this possible. It permits you to incorporate custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress website. Generatepress Lms

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

On each Page/post that you have a great deal of alternatives. You can alter the sidebar design and the footer widgets.

You Can easily swap a page involving the default option to a full width page, in addition to disable elements.

The WordPress customizer options is where GeneratePress really shines! Remember, a lot of these choices are enabled by the superior add-ons. I can’t show you everything, otherwise, we would be here all day. But let me show you few which really come in handy.

Responsive Columns

Another Plugin I highly recommend grabbing is your free Lightweight Grid Columns. Not to my surprise, this is also made by the exact same developer as GeneratePress. It enables you a super easy way to add responsive columns into any page or post. Features include:

Desktop grid thickness

Tablet grid thickness

Mobile grid thickness

Add custom classes

Insert custom inline designs

Equal height columns

Here is An example under:

You might want to Also grab his incredible WP Show Posts plugin too. See my featured posts on the sidebar of this site? That is using the WP Display Posts plugin. I have it set to display posts from a specific”featured” category. You might also get it show last modified/updated posts, recent posts, etc.. I am 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 allows you to perform all kinds of things in terms of design. Think of it like a page builder with no bloat. GeneratePress is certainly not just for blogs! I am in fact utilizing GeneratePress for our ecommerce site (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 you that are regular readers, you probably did not even notice I changed the whole motif that forces woorkup.com. It only took me about an hour to get GeneratePress to mimic my MyThemeShop motif which I had spent a year customizing. Here is a comparison below.

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

My old MyThemeShop motif was already pretty quickly, but I invested a lot of time customizing it. In reality, I’ve gotten a lot of emails from you guys asking me to publish all of my customizations. My advice now is, just get GeneratePress!

woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme

Together with the New GeneratePress theme I was able to achieve faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And remember, I do not have a child theme. All the customizations were made with the wonderful GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).

Like the WordPress theme I’ve running on woorkup? You’re in luck. Tom asked if he can make a replica of woorkup to your brand new GeneratePress blog library. I am happy to allow you to know that you can now put in my woorkup motif in your own GeneratePress site with only a click! It’s called the Marketer theme. Get started using a fantastic blog design instantly.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

I also Moved within my private website, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a motif from Array Themes. It is a fairly basic minimal website, since I do not use it to get much. As you can see it already loaded pretty quickly.

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

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

forgemedia.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

I also Moved over our business website, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a motif from Array Themes. It’s a pretty basic minimal website, as we simply use it to our LLC. As you can see it already loaded pretty quickly. Generatepress Lms

forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme

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

I can’t express my Excitement about finding GeneratePress and I am moving over all my sites for this (which includes some EDD e-commerce sites). Once I’ve got my 9 sites all running in GP without any child topics, my life is going to be a breeze! The developer has restored my faith in multi-purpose themes, which when done the correct way, can actually perform quicker.

And The best thing isI now have a billion more options to pick from than I did before.

What GeneratePress Is Great For…

GeneratePress Is the ideal option for performance-focused users that wish to be able to customize and control precisely 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 great base to make it load quickly.

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

However GeneratePress Might Not Be A Fantastic Combination If…

…you Want something that will immediately appear perfect out of the box.

For Example, if you realize you wish to produce a style blog, you might be happier choosing a niche theme that is developed exclusively for fashion bloggers.

While GeneratePress has gotten a lot simpler to use, as a result of its pre-built Website Library, GeneratePress still seems very barebones when you initially install it.

So To create GeneratePress look how you want it to, you’ll most likely will need to go in and customize matters. And while the significant benefit of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, some users, especially casual users, don’t like having to make those changes .

GeneratePress Features That Make It Unique

Here Are some of the specific features that clarify why GeneratePress is so common.

Lots Of Customization Options In The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

Past Functionality, another place where GeneratePress does well is its customization choices.

GeneratePress Utilizes the WordPress Customizer for customization, and this is convenient because you’ll have the ability to see all the changes that you make in real time.

The Free version of GeneratePress gives you decent possibilities, but should you have GeneratePress Premium, you will be able to customize nearly everything about your site.

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

• Header — you can move your header round and change its styling
• Navigation — GeneratePress gives you two different navigation options, including sticky menus
• Sidebar design — you can use a Couple of sidebars
• Blog post layout — like featured image size, metadata, etc..
• Footer layout — like the number of widgets to include

Likewise, The Typography area enables you to control the font for every single element on your site, such as buttons:

And You also receive a thorough area to control the colour of each and every element on your website.

All In all, GeneratePress will provide you a lot more customization choices from the WordPress Customizer than most other topics. This amount of detail may be a bit overwhelming if you are a newcomer. But once you understand how the preferences come together, you’ll have complete control over how your website appears.

Optimized Performance And Quick Page Load Times

Around All of its features, GeneratePress consistently includes a focus on excellent performance and clean code. The whole motif is less than 30 kB, which is about as small as you’ll ever 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 does not have any code dependencies, which will help you avoid the leave obstructing error that Google Pagespeed Insights often cites.

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

First, I put up a vacant site using a haphazard popular WordPress.org motif (Envo Magazine). After testing its functionality with Pingdom, it:

• Had a performance tier of 77
• Loaded in 1.05 moments
• Had a page size of 243.9 kB
• Had 15 requests

That is Not bad in any way! However, GeneratePress can perform.

Next, I triggered GeneratePress on the same test site without changing anything else. Here is how GeneratePress did:

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

If You do the exact same test with different themes, you are going to continue to see that GeneratePress is among those fastest-loading WordPress topics in existence. Generatepress Lms

Other Helpful Premium Extensions, Plus Much Modular Approach

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

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

To Remain lightweight, GeneratePress also provides you a modular interface where you could select and choose what characteristics you would like to trigger.

That Way, you do not have to slow your site down for a feature which you’ll never 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 no matter what, which made the motif difficult for casual users to install.

Earlier In 2018, though, the developer added a fresh Site Library attribute for GeneratePress Premium users that allows you easily import any one of the 25+ pre-built demonstration websites .

You Can import them right from your WordPress dashboard.

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

Page-Level Settings Provide You Detailed Control Over Every Bit Of Content

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

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

You Can utilize this meta box to:

• Change how many sidebars your website uses, or the sidebar orientation (like altering the sidebar from right to left)
• Choose the number of footer widgets to utilize
• Disable certain elements, like your header, navigation menu, article featured image, article 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 components, you’re able to produce the proper baseline for your page builder layout, making it effortless to create custom articles as needed. Generatepress Lms

GeneratePress Pricing: Affordable And Works On Unlimited Sites

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

That said, If you’re seriously interested in utilizing GeneratePress, I believe you should buy the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that’s what makes the theme so elastic. The free version does not give you nearly as numerous settings from the WordPress Customizer. And you’ll also lose out on the premade Site Library.

GeneratePress Premium can be still quite reasonably priced. It costs just $39.95, and that gives you use on unlimited websites . You’ll also get a 40% discount if you would like to renew to keep on receiving support and updates after the initial year (you can, obviously, keep using GeneratePress after the first year without renewing — you won’t get any more upgrades ).

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

Wrap-up

As I mentioned, I don’t believe GeneratePress is for everybody.

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

However, If you are willing to spend some time altering settings, GeneratePress’ style controls give you the flexibility to flip it into any type of WordPress website. Or, you might even have the ability to locate a starter website that fits your needs to save some time.

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

If You combine it with fast-loading hosting, you should have no problem making your site load in under one second. Generatepress Lms

To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.