Intro Generatepress Menu Shadow

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 fairly excellent. However, I had to perform a great deal of customization to make it perform and operate how I wanted it to. A couple of weeks ago I decided to give GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it is by far the best WordPress theme I have discovered in a decade . I was blown away and am moving all my websites to GeneratePress. I will enter precisely why in my comprehensive GeneratePress review below. And if you’re wondering, yes I’ve attempted Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X theme, Divi in addition to several other lightweight and heavier multicolored themes. Generatepress Menu Shadow

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.

GeneratePress Review

GeneratePress is a free WordPress theme made by Tom Usborne, a programmer from Canada. I have actually seen it for many years from the WordPress repository. Most of you know that I am pretty picky when it comes to web performance, so I tend to dismiss everything in the repository. Typically because a lot of things on there isn’t that great, or not encouraged for long. However, in this circumstance, that was a mistake. The motif currently has more than half a million downloads, 80,000+ busy matches, with over 500 5-star ratings. So obviously Tom is doing something right here.

I Really set up the free version of the motif and in a matter of 15 minutes bought the superior version. I could tell right off the bat, the programmer 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 some of the qualities. I’m going to be covering the superior edition of the theme, since it’s worth . In fact, Tom, if you ever read this and so are seeing Scottsdale, Arizona, java 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 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. Fantastic browser service back to IE8.

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

Translation ready.

Font wonderful built in.

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

Great active support from the developer. Normally, 3 updates per month.

The Documentation can be incredible. Besides have good documentation on their site, the theme has been around long enough that what I Googled throughout the setup procedure was found within a few seconds in their own forum.

Diving Into GeneratePress

Now it’s Time to the fun part! I test a brand new theme right out of the box without any customizations to see how quickly the base is. This tells me a great deal of what I can expect by the time I add everything to it. Running the stock GeneratePress WordPress motif 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 generate a whole lot of big files, but this isn’t the case. You may tell that Tom literally worked hard on ensuring every record loaded in GeneratePress is as small as possible. With HTTP/2, the amount of files isn’t as significant. However, the dimensions is! Have a look at some of the core GeneratePress files below:

/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 performance! And I’ve Seen exactly the same throughout each the premium add-ons. They are literally as small as possible get them. In reality, Font Awesome is probably the biggest file contained. And that is not 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. It is possible to activate/deactivate whatever you are not using to guarantee they don’t load on your website. As the co-developer of the perfmatters plugin that has a script manager built, I felt right at home with this. Everything should be designed this way.

If You’re curious, I am using the following 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 more need to use a Child theme. This makes my life much simpler. No longer editing my functions.php or header.php files. I can literally update my GeneratePress motif this exact minute and not lose one customization. The hooks add-on certainly can help make this possible. It permits you to incorporate custom code/PHP anywhere throughout your WordPress site. Generatepress Menu Shadow

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

On every Page/post that you have a lot of options. You are able to alter the sidebar design and the footer widgets.

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

The WordPress customizer options is really where GeneratePress really shines! Bear in mind, lots of these options are enabled by the premium add-ons. I can’t show you everything, otherwise, we’d be here all day. However, allow me to show you couple which really come in handy.

Responsive Columns

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

Desktop grid width

Tablet grid width

Mobile grid width

Insert custom courses

Insert custom inline styles

Equal height columns

Here is An example below:

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

To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.

Sections Add-on

The Sections add-on in the premium edition of GeneratePress lets you perform all kinds of things concerning design. Consider it like a webpage builder with no bloat. GeneratePress is certainly not only for blogs! I’m in reality utilizing GeneratePress for our ecommerce website (perfmatters.io) that is operating Easy Digital Downloads. Feel free to check it out. However, as you can see below, it looks like a blog.

Speed Tests

For those Of you who are regular readers, you probably didn’t even notice that I changed the whole theme that powers woorkup.com. It only took me about an hour to get GeneratePress to mimic my MyThemeShop motif which I had spent annually customizing. Here is a comparison below.

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

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

woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme

With the New GeneratePress motif I managed to attain faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And remember, I don’t have a child theme. All the customizations were made with the awesome GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).

Like the WordPress theme I’ve working on woorkup? You are in luck. Tom asked if he can make a copy of woorkup for the brand new GeneratePress site library. I’m happy to allow you to know that now you can put in my woorkup theme in your GeneratePress site with only a single 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 over my personal site, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a theme from Array Themes. It’s a fairly basic minimal site, since I don’t use it to get much. As you can see it loaded pretty quickly.

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I had been Able to replicate the entire look 100 percent in GeneratePress in under an hour. And since you can see it loads faster! Amazing. I was able to eliminate a couple plugins which 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 had been using a theme from Array Themes. It’s a pretty basic minimum site, as we just use it to our LLC. Since you can see it already loaded pretty quickly. Generatepress Menu Shadow

forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme

I was Able to again move everything over and get it looking exactly how I wanted it in under an hour. And since you can see it loads even faster! Amazing. I was able to eliminate a total of four plugins and it dropped my whole page weight 2x!

I can not express my Excitement about locating GeneratePress and I’m moving over all of my websites to it (which comprises several EDD e-commerce sites). Once I’ve got my 9 sites all running in GP without any child topics, my entire life is going to be a breeze! The developer has revived my faith in multi-purpose subjects , and that when done the right way, can actually perform faster.

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

What GeneratePress Is Good For…

GeneratePress Is the perfect alternative for performance-focused users who want to be able to customize and control precisely how their site appears.

You Can make GeneratePress perform pretty much anything. And since GeneratePress has a focus on functionality, the website that you build will have a fantastic foundation to make it load quickly.

Because Of that, those who assemble WordPress websites for a living love GeneratePress. They’ll typically pair it with a WordPress site builder and use it for literally any type of site.

However GeneratePress Might Not Be A Fantastic Combination If…

…you Need something that will instantly look perfect out of the box.

For Example, if you realize you wish to produce a style blog, you may be happier choosing a niche theme that’s developed exclusively for trend bloggers.

Even though GeneratePress has gotten a great deal easier to use, as a result of its pre-built Site Library, GeneratePress still looks very barebones when you first install it.

So To create GeneratePress look how you want it to, you will almost certainly need to go in and customize matters. And though the significant benefit of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, some users, particularly casual users, don’t like having to make those changes themselves.

GeneratePress Features Which Make It Unique

Here Are a few of the specific features that explain 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 Utilizes the WordPress Customizer for customization, which is convenient because you will be able to see all the changes that you create in real time.

The Free variant of GeneratePress gives you adequate options, but should you have GeneratePress Premium, you’ll be able to customize pretty much everything about your website.

For Example, if you go in the Design area, you can configure detailed 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 layout — you can use one or two sidebars
Blog post design — like featured picture size, metadata, etc..
Footer layout — like the number of widgets to include

Likewise, The Typography place enables you to control the font to get every single element on your website, such as buttons:

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

All In all, GeneratePress will give you a lot more customization options in the WordPress Customizer than most other themes. This level of detail might be a bit overwhelming if you’re a newcomer. But once you understand the way the preferences come together, you will have complete control over how your site looks.

Optimized Performance And Quick Page Load Times

Around All its features, GeneratePress always has a focus on excellent performance and clean code. The whole motif is less than 30 kB, and it 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 a few badly coded topics can even exceed 1 MB!

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

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

First, I put up an empty website utilizing a random popular WordPress.org theme (Envo Magazine). After testing its performance 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’s Not bad in any way! However, GeneratePress can perform.

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

Had a performance grade 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 do that same test with different topics, you’ll continue to find that GeneratePress is among the fastest-loading WordPress topics in life. Generatepress Menu Shadow

Other Helpful Premium Extensions, Plus A Modular Approach

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

Elements — a unique feature that 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 — that is kind of like lightweight page construction. It lets you create different”sections” onto a page, each with their own design and column settings.

To Remain lightweight, GeneratePress also gives you a modular port where you can pick and choose what features you want to trigger.

That Way, you don’t need to slow down your site for a quality that you’re never going to use.

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

In The past, you needed to construct GeneratePress websites from a blank canvas regardless of what, which made the motif difficult for casual users to install.

Earlier In 2018, though, the programmer added a new Website Library attribute for GeneratePress Premium users that lets 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 presentation site.

Page-Level Settings Give You Detailed Control Over Each Piece Of Content

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

GeneratePress Changes that by giving you a brand new Design meta box for every single page and post:

You Can use 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 utilize
Disable certain elements, like your header, navigation menu, post featured image, post title, or footer
Produce a special”container” for your page builder

Where These controls would be the most useful is if you are using a WordPress page builder.

By Disabling certain elements, you are in a position to create the correct baseline for your own page builder design, making it effortless to create custom content as needed. Generatepress Menu Shadow

GeneratePress Replies: Cheap And Works On Unlimited Sites

The Core GeneratePress theme is available for free at WordPress.org.

Nevertheless, If you are serious about using GeneratePress, I believe you should purchase the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that’s what produces the theme so flexible. The free version does not give you nearly as numerous settings in the WordPress Customizer. And you’ll also lose out on the premade Site Library.

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

When You believe the typical premium WordPress theme will often cost around $60, GeneratePress offers a fantastic price.

Conclusion

As I mentioned, I do not believe GeneratePress is for everyone.

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

However, If you’re willing to spend some time changing preferences, then GeneratePress’ style controls give you the flexibility to turn it into any sort of WordPress site. Or, you may even be able to locate a starter website that fits your needs to save a little time.

Additionally, It is one of the fastest-loading WordPress themes that you will locate. So if you’re seeking the best performance possible, utilizing GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s foundation is a great decision.

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