Intro Generatepress Slide Out Navigation

Within the past 10 decades, I have used a great deal of different WordPress topics and have been really disappointed. Up till recently, I was using MyThemeShop, which was pretty good. But I had to do a lot of customization to allow it to perform and operate the way I needed it to. A couple of weeks ago I decided to provide GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it’s undoubtedly the finest WordPress theme I have discovered in 10 years. I was blown away and am moving all my websites to GeneratePress. I’ll enter exactly why in my in-depth GeneratePress review below. And if you are wondering, yes I have attempted Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X theme, Divi in addition to several other lightweight and heavier multi-purpose themes. Generatepress Slide Out Navigation

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.

GeneratePress Evaluation

GeneratePress is a totally free WordPress theme created by Tom Usborne, a programmer from Canada. I’ve actually seen it for years in the WordPress repository. Most of you know that I am fairly picky when it comes to web performance, and so I tend to ignore everything from the repository. Typically because a lot of things on there is not that good, or not encouraged for long. However, in this circumstance, this was a mistake. The motif currently has more than half a million downloads, 80,000+ active installs, with over 500 5-star evaluations. So clearly Tom is doing something right here.

I Really set up the free version of the motif and in a matter of 15 minutes purchased the superior version. I could tell right off the bat, the developer was thinking exactly 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 superior version of the theme, because it’s worth . In fact, Tom, in the event that you read this and are visiting Scottsdale, Arizona, coffees on me.

Features

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

Responsive, looks great across all devices.

Schema built-in, for better outcomes in SERPs.

Dramatic integration with all the WordPress Customizer. I haven’t 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 service 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 have also read that people using Beaver Builder have experienced success.

Translation ready.

Font awesome built in.

Tons of hooks and filters which make it good for programmers.

Excellent active service from the developer. Normally, 3 updates per month.

The Documentation can be unbelievable. Besides have great documentation on their site, the subject has been around long enough that everything I Googled throughout the setup procedure was found inside a few seconds in their forum.

Diving Into GeneratePress

Now it is Time to the fun part! I always test a brand new theme right from the box without any customizations to just see how fast the base is. This tells me a lot of what I could expect by the time that I add everything for this. Running the inventory GeneratePress WordPress motif on Kinsta hosting clocked in at a whopping 265 ms load time. I was very impressed.

One Thing I was worried about with GeneratePress was that the modular layout was going to produce a lot of big files, but that is not the case. You can tell that Tom actually worked hard on ensuring every file packed in GeneratePress is as little as possible. With HTTP/2, the number of documents is not as significant. However, the dimensions is! Take a look 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

This is a developer that cares about functionality! And I have Seen exactly the same throughout all 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. Together with Font Awesome 5 coming around the cornerwe can expect that to get smaller also.

The premium add-ons Are installation in what I’d call a modular design. You can activate/deactivate anything you are not using to guarantee they don’t load on your site. As the co-developer of the perfmatters plugin which has a script supervisor built, I felt at home with this. Everything ought to be designed this way.

If You are interested, I’m using the following 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 longer need to use a young child motif . This makes my life much easier. No longer editing my functions.php or header.php files. I will literally update my GeneratePress motif this exact minute and not shed a single customization. The hooks add-on certainly can help make this possible. It permits you to add custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress website. Generatepress Slide Out Navigation

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

On each Page/post that you have a lot of alternatives. You are able to change the sidebar layout and the footer widgets.

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

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

Responsive Columns

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

Desktop grid width

Tablet grid thickness

Mobile grid thickness

Insert Customized courses

Insert custom inline styles

Equal height columns

Here is An example below:

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

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. Think of it like a webpage builder without the bloat. GeneratePress is definitely not only for blogs! I am in fact utilizing GeneratePress to our ecommerce site (perfmatters.io) that is running Easy Digital Downloads. Don’t hesitate to check it out. However, as you can see below, it looks like a site.

Speed Tests

For 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 theme that I had spent a year customizing. Here is a comparison under.

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

My older MyThemeShop theme was already pretty fast, but I spent a great deal of time customizing it. In reality, I have gotten a lot of emails from you guys asking me to print all my customizations. My advice today is, just get GeneratePress!

woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme

Together with the New GeneratePress theme I managed to attain faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And keep in mind, I don’t have a child motif. Each of the customizations were created using the awesome GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).

Like the WordPress theme I’ve working on woorkup? You’re in luck. Tom asked if he can make a replica of woorkup for the new GeneratePress blog library. I’m pleased to let you know that you can now put in my woorkup theme on your GeneratePress website with just a click! It is known as the Marketer theme. Get started using a great blog design instantly.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

Additionally, I Moved within my personal website, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a theme from Array Themes. It is a pretty basic minimal site, since I do not use it for much. Since you can see it already loaded pretty quickly.

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I had been Able to duplicate the whole look 100 percent in GeneratePress in under one hour. And since you can see it loads faster! Amazing. I was able to get rid of a couple plugins which weren’t needed because of 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 website, as we simply use it for our LLC. Since you can see it loaded pretty fast. Generatepress Slide Out Navigation

forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme

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

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

And The best news isI finally have a thousand more choices to choose from than I did earlier.

What GeneratePress Is Great For…

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

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

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

However GeneratePress Might Not Be A Good Combination If…

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

For Example, if you know you want to produce a style blog, you might be happier choosing a niche theme that is developed exclusively for trend bloggers.

Even though GeneratePress has gotten a great deal 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 would like it to, you’ll most likely need to go in and customize things. And while the substantial advantage of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, many users, particularly casual users, do not like having to make those changes themselves.

GeneratePress Features That Make It Unique

Here Are some of the specific characteristics that explain why GeneratePress is indeed popular.

Lots Of Customization Options In The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

Beyond Functionality, another place where GeneratePress does nicely is its customization choices.

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

The Free variant of GeneratePress provides you decent possibilities, but should you have GeneratePress Premium, you will have the ability to customize nearly everything about your website.

For Example, if you go in the Layout area, you can configure detailed settings to yourown:

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

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

And You also receive a detailed region to control the color of every single element on your site.

All Whatsoever, GeneratePress will give you much more customization options from the WordPress Customizer than most other topics. This amount of detail may be a bit overwhelming if you’re a newcomer. But once you understand the way the preferences come together, you’ll have complete control over how your site looks.

Optimized Performance And Quick Page Load Times

Around All of its attributes, GeneratePress consistently includes a focus on exceptional performance and clean code. The entire theme 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 some poorly coded topics can even surpass 1 MB!

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

Put That together, and you get a superfast-loading theme. How fast? To give you an idea, I conducted a small test.

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

Had a performance grade of 77
Loaded in 1.05 moments
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 exact same test site without altering anything else. Here’s how GeneratePress failed:

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

If You perform that same test with different topics, you are going to continue to find that GeneratePress is one of those fastest-loading WordPress topics in existence. Generatepress Slide Out Navigation

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 unique feature which lets you create customized hooks, page headers, or layout templates.
Page Header — lets you create a unique page header on a per-page basis.
Sections — that is sort of like lightweight page building. It permits you to create different”sections” onto a page, each with their own design and column preferences.

To Remain lightweight, GeneratePress also gives you a modular interface where you can select and choose exactly which features you want to activate.

That Way, you do not need to slow your site down for a feature that you’ll never use.

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

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

Earlier In 2018, though, the programmer added a fresh Website Library attribute for GeneratePress Premium users that lets you easily import any one of those 25+ pre-built demo sites.

You Can import them right from the WordPress dashboard.

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

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

With Most topics, 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 past that.

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

You Can utilize this meta box to:

Change the number of sidebars your site uses, or the sidebar orientation (like altering the sidebar from right to left)
Choose the number of footer widgets to use
Disable certain elements, such as your header, navigation menu, article featured picture, post title, or footer
Create a special”container” for your own page builder

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

By Disabling certain elements, you’re able to create the proper baseline for your page builder design, making it easy to create custom content as needed. Generatepress Slide Out Navigation

GeneratePress Pricing: Cheap And Works On Unlimited Sites

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

Nevertheless, If you are seriously interested in using GeneratePress, I feel you need to purchase the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that’s what makes the theme so elastic. The free version does not give you almost as many settings from the WordPress Customizer. And you will also miss out on the premade Site Library.

GeneratePress Premium is also still quite reasonably priced. It costs only $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 after the first year (you can, obviously, keep using GeneratePress after the initial year without renewing — you won’t receive any more updates).

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

Wrap-up

As I mentioned, I don’t think GeneratePress is for everyone.

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

But If you’re willing to spend time changing preferences, then GeneratePress’ style controls give you the flexibility to turn it into any sort of WordPress site. Or, you might even have the ability to find a starter site that fulfills your needs to save a little time.

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

If You blend it with fast-loading hosting, so you shouldn’t have any problem making your website load in under one second. Generatepress Slide Out Navigation