Background Template Tags Generatepress

Within the previous 10 decades, I have used a lot of different WordPress topics and have been very disappointed. Up until recently, I had been utilizing MyThemeShop, that was pretty excellent. However, I had to perform a great deal of customization to allow it to perform and operate the way I needed it to. A few weeks ago I decided to give GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it’s undoubtedly the finest WordPress theme I have discovered in a decade . I was blown away and am moving all of my websites to GeneratePress. I will enter precisely why in my comprehensive GeneratePress review under. And if you’re wondering, yes I have tried Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X motif, Divi as well as several other lightweight and heavier multi-purpose themes. Template Tags Generatepress

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.

GeneratePress Evaluation

GeneratePress is a free WordPress theme created by Tom Usborne, a programmer from Canada. I’ve actually seen it for many years from the WordPress repository. Most of you realize that I am pretty picky when it comes to web performance, and so I have a tendency to ignore everything in the repository. Typically because a great deal of stuff on there isn’t that great, or not supported for long. However, in this case, that was a mistake. The theme currently has over half a million downloads, 80,000+ active matches, with over 500 5-star ratings. 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 envisioning a theme should get the job done. And I will go into that more below, but let’s first look at a number of the qualities. I’m going to be covering the superior edition of the subject, because it’s worth . Actually, Tom, in the event that you ever read this and so are visiting 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 one of the greatest reasons I love GeneratePress.

Responsive, looks fantastic across all of the devices.

Schema built-in, for better results 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 correctly.

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 want to dive into even more customizations, these are a terrific combo. I have also read that people using Beaver Builder have experienced success.

Translation ready.

Font awesome built-in.

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

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

The Documentation is also unbelievable. Besides have great documentation on their website, the theme has been around long enough that what I wholeheartedly during the setup process was found within a few seconds in their forum.

Diving Into GeneratePress

Now it is Time to the fun part! I always test a new theme right from the box with no customizations to just see how fast the foundation is. This tells me a great deal of what I can expect by the time I add everything for this. Running the inventory GeneratePress WordPress theme 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 generate a whole lot of big files, but that is not the situation. You can tell that Tom literally worked hard on making sure that every file packed in GeneratePress is as small as possible. Together with HTTP/2, the amount of files is not as significant. But the size is! Take a peek at a few 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 programmer that cares about functionality! And I’ve Seen the same during all the premium add-ons. They are literally as small as possible get them. In reality, Font Awesome is most likely the largest file included. And that isn’t even his. With Font Awesome 5 coming around the corner, we could anticipate this to secure smaller too.

The premium add-ons Are installation in what I’d call a modular layout. You can activate/deactivate whatever you aren’t using to ensure they don’t load on your website. As the co-developer of this perfmatters plugin that has a script supervisor built, I felt at home with this. Everything should be made this way.

If You’re interested, I’m using the following 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 more have to use a Child motif . This makes my life so much simpler. No more editing my functions.php or header.php documents. I will literally update my GeneratePress theme this exact minute rather than shed a single customization. The hooks add-on definitely helps make it possible. It permits you to add custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress site. Template Tags Generatepress

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

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

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

The WordPress customizer options is where GeneratePress really shines! Bear in mind, a lot of these choices are enabled by the premium add-ons. I can’t show you everything, otherwise, we would be here daily. But allow me to show you few which really come in handy.

Responsive Columns

Another Plugin I highly recommend grabbing is the free Lightweight Grid Columns. Not to my surprise, this can be made by precisely the exact same programmer as GeneratePress. It allows you a super easy way to add responsive columns to any page or post. Characteristics include:

Desktop grid width

Tablet grid width

Mobile grid thickness

Insert Customized courses

Add custom inline designs

Equal height columns

Here is An example below:

You May Want to Also grab his incredible WP Display Posts plugin also. 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 past modified/updated posts, recent posts, etc.. I am using the free version and it works terrific.

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.

Sections Add-on

The Sections add-on in the premium version of GeneratePress lets you perform all kinds of things concerning design. Consider it like a page builder without the bloat. GeneratePress is definitely not only for blogs! I’m in reality utilizing GeneratePress to our ecommerce site (perfmatters.io) that is operating Easy Digital Downloads. Don’t hesitate to check it out. But as you can see below, it looks like a site.

Speed Tests

For those Of those that are regular readers, you likely 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 which I had spent a year customizing. Here’s a comparison under.

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

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

woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme

With the New GeneratePress theme I was able to attain faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And keep in mind, I do not have a child motif. All the customizations were created using 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 copy of woorkup for the new GeneratePress site library. I am happy to let you know that you can now put in my woorkup motif in your GeneratePress website with only a single click! It is called the Marketer theme. Get started with a fantastic blog layout immediately.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

I also Moved within my personal website, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a motif from Array Themes. It’s a fairly basic minimum website, as I do not use it to get much. As you can see it loaded pretty fast.

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I was Able to replicate the whole appearance 100 percent in GeneratePress in under one hour. And since you can see it loads even faster! Amazing. I was even able to get rid of a few plugins which 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 had been using a motif from Array Themes. It is a fairly basic minimal website, as we just use it for our LLC. As you can see it loaded pretty quickly. Template Tags Generatepress

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 as you can see it loads even faster! Amazing. I was able to eliminate a total of four plugins and it dropped my total page burden 2x!

I can’t express my Excitement about locating GeneratePress and I am moving over all my sites for this (which includes some EDD e-commerce websites ). After I have my 9 sites all running in GP without any child themes, my entire life is going to be a breeze! The developer has revived my faith in multi-purpose subjects , which when done the right way, can actually perform faster.

And The best news is, I finally have a billion more options to choose from than I did before.

What GeneratePress Is Good For…

GeneratePress Is the perfect alternative for performance-focused users who want to have the ability to personalize and control exactly how their site appears.

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

Because Of that, those who assemble WordPress sites for a living love GeneratePress. They will typically pair it with a WordPress site builder and use it for literally any kind of website.

But GeneratePress Might Not Be A Fantastic Fit If…

…you Want something which will immediately appear perfect from the box.

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

Even though GeneratePress is becoming a great deal easier to use, thanks to 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 personalize matters. And though the significant advantage of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, many users, particularly casual users, don’t like having to make those changes .

GeneratePress Features Which Make It Unique

Here Are some of the particular features that clarify why GeneratePress is so popular.

Lots Of Customization Options In The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

Beyond Functionality, another area where GeneratePress does well is its customization options.

GeneratePress Uses the WordPress Customizer for customization, and this is convenient as you will be able to see all the changes that you create in real time.

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

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

• Header — you can move your header around and change its own styling
• Navigation — GeneratePress gives you two different navigation options, such as sticky menus
• Sidebar layout — you can utilize one or two sidebars
• Blog post layout — such as featured picture dimensions, metadata, etc..
• Footer layout — like the number of widgets to add

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

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

All Whatsoever, GeneratePress will provide you a lot more customization choices from the WordPress Customizer than most other themes. This level of detail might be a little overwhelming if you’re a newcomer. But as soon as you understand how the settings come together, you will have complete control on how your site looks.

Optimized Performance And Quick Page Load Times

Around All of its features, GeneratePress consistently includes a focus on excellent performance and clean code. The entire theme is less than 30 kB, which will be 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 has no code dependencies, which will help you avoid the leave blocking error that Google Pagespeed Insights often cites.

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

First, I set up an empty site using a haphazard popular WordPress.org theme (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 asks

That is Not bad at all! However, GeneratePress can perform.

Next, I triggered GeneratePress on the exact same test website without altering anything else. Here’s how GeneratePress failed:

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

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

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 helpful features such as:

• Elements — a unique 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 — this is sort of like lightweight page building. It lets you create separate”sections” onto a page, each with their own layout and column preferences.

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

That Way, you do not have to slow your site down for a quality that you’re never going to use.

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

In The last, you had to build GeneratePress sites from a blank canvas no matter what, which left 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 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 a few buttons to import a demo site.

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

With Most themes, 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 providing you a brand new Layout meta name box for each and every page and post:

You Can use this meta box to:

• Change the number of sidebars your website uses, or the sidebar orientation (such as changing the sidebar from right to left)
• Choose how many footer widgets to utilize
• Disable certain elements, such as your header, navigation menu, article featured image, post title, or footer
• Create a special”container” to your own page builder

Where These controls are the most helpful is if you are using a WordPress page builder.

By Disabling certain elements, you are able to create the correct baseline for your own page builder layout, making it effortless to create custom content as needed. Template Tags Generatepress

GeneratePress Pricing: Affordable And Works On Unlimited Sites

The Heart GeneratePress theme is available at no cost at WordPress.org.

That said, If you are seriously interested in using GeneratePress, I feel you need to buy the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that is what makes the theme so elastic. The free version does not give you almost as many configurations in the WordPress Customizer. And you’ll also lose out on the premade Site Library.

GeneratePress Premium is also still quite affordable. It costs only $39.95, which gives you use on unlimited sites. You will also get a 40% discount if you would like to renew to keep on receiving support and updates following the first year (you can, obviously, continue using GeneratePress following the first year without beating — you won’t receive any more upgrades ).

When You believe the normal premium WordPress theme will usually cost around $60, GeneratePress provides a fantastic price.

Conclusion

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

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

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

Additionally, It’s one of those fastest-loading WordPress topics that you will find. 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, you shouldn’t have any difficulty making your website load in under one minute. Template Tags Generatepress

To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.