Introduction Generatepress Sub Theme

Over the past ten decades, I have used a lot of different WordPress topics and have been really disappointed. Up till recently, I was utilizing MyThemeShop, which was pretty good. But I had to perform a lot of customization to make it perform and work how I needed it to. A couple weeks ago I decided to give GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it is undoubtedly the finest WordPress theme I have found in a decade . I had been dismissed and am moving all of my sites to GeneratePress. I will enter exactly why in my comprehensive 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 thicker multi-purpose themes. Generatepress Sub Theme

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.

GeneratePress Review

GeneratePress is a free WordPress theme created by Tom Usborne, a developer from Canada. I have actually seen it for many years in the WordPress repository. Most of you realize that I’m pretty picky when it comes to web performance, and so I tend to ignore everything in the repository. Typically because a great deal of things on there is not that great, or not supported for long. Nonetheless, in this case, that was a mistake. The motif currently has more than half a million downloads, 80,000+ busy installs, with over 500 5-star evaluations. So clearly Tom is doing some thing right here.

I Actually installed 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 exactly how I was imagining a theme should work. And I will go into that more below, but let’s first look at a number of the features. I will be covering the superior version of the theme, since it’s worth . Actually, Tom, in the event that you ever read this and are seeing Scottsdale, Arizona, coffees on me.

Features

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

Responsive, looks great across all devices.

Schema built-in, for better results in SERPs.

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

Compatible with popular plugins, Yoast SEO, WooCommerce, EDD, BuddyPress, bbPress, and WPML. Fantastic browser service 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 are a terrific combo. I’ve also read that people using Beaver Builder have experienced success.

Translation ready.

Font wonderful built-in.

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

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

The Documentation is also incredible. Besides have great documentation on their site, the theme has existed long enough that everything I Googled throughout the setup procedure was found within a few seconds in their forum.

Going Deep Into GeneratePress

Now it is Time for the fun part! I test a brand new theme right out of the box without any customizations to just see how quickly the foundation is. This tells me a great deal of what I can expect by the time I add everything to it. 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 design was going to produce a lot of big files, but that isn’t the situation. You can tell that Tom literally worked hard on making sure every file packed in GeneratePress is as little as possible. Together with HTTP/2, the amount of documents isn’t as significant. However, the dimensions is! Take a look at a few 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

This is a programmer that cares about performance! And I have Seen the same throughout each the premium add-ons. They are as small as possible get them. In fact, Font Awesome is most likely the largest file contained. And that is not even his. With Font Awesome 5 arriving around the cornerwe could expect this to get smaller also.

The premium add-ons Are setup in what I would call a modular layout. You can activate/deactivate whatever you are not using to guarantee they do not load on your site. As the co-developer of this perfmatters plugin which has a script manager built-in, I felt right at home with this. Everything should be made this way.

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

Website

Shades

Copyright

Hooks

Page Header

Spacing

Typography

No Child Theme Needed

One of The best features of GeneratePress is I no longer have to use a young child motif . This makes my life so much simpler. No more editing my functions.php or header.php files. I will literally upgrade my GeneratePress theme this exact minute and not lose one customization. The hooks add-on definitely can help make this possible. It permits you to add custom code/PHP anywhere throughout your WordPress site. Generatepress Sub Theme

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

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

You Can quickly swap a page involving the default to a full width page, as well as 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’t show you everything, otherwise, we’d be here daily. However, let me show you couple which actually come in handy.

Responsive Columns

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

Desktop grid thickness

Tablet grid width

Mobile grid thickness

Add custom classes

Add custom inline designs

Equal height columns

This is An example below:

You May Want to Also grab his incredible WP Display Posts plugin too. View my featured posts on the sidebar of this site? That is using the WP Show Posts plugin. I have it set to show posts from a specific”featured” category. You might also have it show last modified/updated posts, recent articles, etc.. I am using the free version and it works terrific.

To Begin, 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 concerning design. Think of it like a page builder without the bloat. GeneratePress is definitely not just for blogs! I am in reality using GeneratePress to our ecommerce website (perfmatters.io) which is operating Easy Digital Downloads. Don’t hesitate to check it out. But as you can see below, it looks like a blog.

Speed Tests

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

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

My old MyThemeShop motif was already pretty fast, but I spent a great deal of time scrutinizing it. In reality, I’ve gotten a lot of emails from you guys asking me to print all my customizations. My advice today is, simply get GeneratePress!

woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme

With the New GeneratePress motif I was able 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 wonderful GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).

Like the WordPress theme I have running on woorkup? You are in luck. Tom asked if he could create a replica of woorkup for the new GeneratePress site library. I’m pleased to allow you to know that you can now install my woorkup motif in your own GeneratePress site with only a single click! It’s called the Marketer theme. Get started with a fantastic blog layout immediately.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

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

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I was Able to duplicate the entire look 100 percent in GeneratePress in under an hour. And as you can view it loads 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

Additionally, I Moved over our business website, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a theme from Array Themes. It is a pretty basic minimum site, as we simply use it for our LLC. Since you can see it loaded pretty quickly. Generatepress Sub Theme

forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme

I had been Able to again move everything over and get it looking exactly how I needed it in under one hour. And as you can view it loads even faster! Amazing. I was able to get rid of a total of four plugins and it dropped my whole page burden 2x!

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

And The best thing is, I now have a billion more options to choose from than I did earlier.

What GeneratePress Is Good For…

GeneratePress Is the perfect alternative for performance-focused users who want to have the ability to customize and control precisely how their site looks.

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

Since Of that, people who build WordPress sites for a living love GeneratePress. They’ll normally pair it with a WordPress page builder and use it for literally any type of site.

But GeneratePress Might Not Be A Good Fit If…

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

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

Even though GeneratePress is becoming a great deal simpler to use, thanks to its pre-built Website Library, GeneratePress still looks very barebones if you initially install it.

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

GeneratePress Features That Make It Unique

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

Plenty Of Customization Options In The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

Past Performance, another place where GeneratePress does nicely is its customization choices.

GeneratePress Utilizes the WordPress Customizer for customization, which can be convenient because you will be able to see all the changes that you make in real time.

The Free variant of GeneratePress gives you adequate options, but should you own GeneratePress Premium, you will have the ability to customize pretty much everything about your website.

For Example, if you go into the Layout region, you may configure comprehensive settings for your:

• Header — you can move your header around 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 layout — like featured picture dimensions, metadata, etc..
• Footer layout — like how many widgets to add

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

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

All Whatsoever, GeneratePress will give you a lot more customization options from the WordPress Customizer compared to most other themes. This amount of detail might be a little overwhelming if you’re a newcomer. But as soon as you understand the way the settings come together, you’ll have full control over how your site looks.

Optimized Performance And Quick Page Load Times

Around All its features, GeneratePress consistently includes a focus on exceptional performance and clean code. The whole theme is less than 30 kB, and it is 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 poorly coded topics can even surpass 1 MB!

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

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

First, I put up a vacant website utilizing a random popular WordPress.org motif (Envo Magazine). After analyzing its performance with Pingdom, it:

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

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

Next, I triggered GeneratePress on the same test website without changing anything else. Here’s how GeneratePress did:

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

If You perform that same test with other topics, you are going to continue to find that GeneratePress is among the fastest-loading WordPress themes in life. Generatepress Sub Theme

Other Helpful Premium Extensions, Plus A Modular Approach

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

• Elements — a exceptional feature which allows you create custom hooks, page headers, or layout templates.
• Page Header — lets you create a unique page header onto a per-page basis.
• Sections — that is sort of like lightweight page construction. It lets you create different”sections” on a webpage, each with their own design and column preferences.

To Stay lightweight, GeneratePress also provides you a modular interface where you could select and choose exactly which characteristics you would like to activate.

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

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

In The last, you had to construct GeneratePress websites 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 new Website Library feature for GeneratePress Premium users which allows you easily import any one of the 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 demo 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 might have some custom templates or formats — but you do not have very much control beyond that.

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

You Can utilize 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 how many footer widgets to use
• Disable certain elements, such as your header, navigation menu, article featured picture, article title, or footer
• Create a special”container” to your page builder

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

By Disabling certain components, you are in a position to produce the correct baseline for your own page builder design, making it easy to create custom content as needed. Generatepress Sub Theme

GeneratePress Replies: Cheap And Works On Unlimited Sites

The Core 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 is what produces the theme so flexible. The free version doesn’t give you nearly as numerous settings in the WordPress Customizer. And you will also miss out on the premade Site Library.

GeneratePress Premium can be still quite reasonably priced. It costs only $39.95, which 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 following the initial year (you can, of course, keep using GeneratePress following the initial year without beating — you won’t get any more updates).

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

Wrap-up

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

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

But If you’re ready to spend some time changing settings, GeneratePress’ style controls give you the flexibility to flip it into any type of WordPress site. Or, you may even be able to locate a starter website that fulfills your needs to save some time.

Additionally, It’s among the fastest-loading WordPress themes that you will locate. Therefore, if you’re looking for the best performance possible, using GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s foundation is a great decision.

If You blend it with fast-loading hosting, so you shouldn’t have any difficulty making your website load in under one second. Generatepress Sub Theme

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.