Intro WordPress Template Free Download 2016
Over the previous 10 decades, I have used a great deal of different WordPress themes and have been really disappointed. Up until recently, I was utilizing MyThemeShop, which was pretty excellent. However, I had to do a great deal of customization to allow it to perform and operate how I needed it to. A few of weeks ago I decided to provide GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it’s by far the best WordPress theme I have discovered in a decade . I was dismissed and am now moving all my sites to GeneratePress. I will enter precisely why in my in-depth GeneratePress review under. And if you’re wondering, yes I have attempted Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X motif, Divi as well as several other lightweight and heavier multi-purpose themes. WordPress Template Free Download 2016
To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.
GeneratePress Evaluation
GeneratePress is a totally free WordPress theme made by Tom Usborne, a developer from Canada. I’ve really seen it for years from the WordPress repository. Most of you know that I’m pretty picky when it comes to web performance, and so I have a tendency to dismiss everything in the repository. Typically because a lot of things on there is not that good, or not supported for long. However, in this circumstance, this was a mistake. The theme currently has more than half a million downloads, 80,000+ busy matches, with over 500 5-star ratings. So obviously Tom is doing some thing right here.
I Actually installed the free version of the theme and in a matter of 15 minutes purchased the superior version. I could tell right off the bat, the developer was thinking precisely how I was imagining 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 will be covering the superior edition of the subject, since it’s worth . Actually, Tom, if you ever read this and so are visiting Scottsdale, Arizona, java on me.
Features
Super lightweight and fast. Modular design allowing you to enable/disable things you don’t want running. This is one of the biggest reasons I love GeneratePress.
Responsive, looks great across all of the devices.
Schema built-in, for greater results in SERPs.
Impressive integration with the WordPress Customizer. I haven’t been a lover of this customizer in the past, but Tom does it correctly.
Compatible with popular plugins, Yoast SEO, WooCommerce, EDD, BuddyPress, bbPress, and WPML. Fantastic browser service back to IE8.
It also 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 have also read that individuals using Beaver Builder have experienced success.
Resumes prepared.
Font awesome built in.
Tons of hooks and filters which make it great for developers.
Excellent active service from the developer. On average, 3 updates per month.
The Documentation is also incredible. Besides have great documentation on their website, the subject has existed long enough that what I Googled during the setup procedure was found within a couple of seconds in their own forum.
Going Deep Into GeneratePress
Now it is Time to the fun part! I test a new theme right out of the box with no customizations to see how quickly the foundation is. This tells me a great deal of what I could expect by the time I add everything to it. Running the inventory GeneratePress WordPress theme on Kinsta hosting clocked in at a whopping 265 ms loading time. I was quite 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 isn’t the case. You may tell that Tom literally worked hard on ensuring every file loaded in GeneratePress is as little as possible. Together with HTTP/2, the amount of files is not as important. However, the dimensions is! Have 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
This is a programmer that cares about functionality! And I’ve Seen exactly the same during each of 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 coming round the corner, we can expect this to secure smaller too.
The premium add-ons Are installation in what I’d call a modular design. You can activate/deactivate anything you are not using to ensure they do not load on your website. Since 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 interested, I am using the next add-ons on this site:
Website
Shades
Copyright
Hooks
Page Header
Spacing
Typography
No Child Theme Needed
One of The best features of GeneratePress is I no more have to use a Child theme. This makes my life so much simpler. No longer editing my functions.php or header.php files. I can literally upgrade my GeneratePress motif this exact moment rather than shed a single customization. The hooks add-on definitely helps make this possible. It allows you to incorporate custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress site. WordPress Template Free Download 2016
Other Things I Love About GeneratePress
On each Page/post you have a lot of alternatives. You are able to change the sidebar design and the footer widgets.
You Can quickly swap a page between the default option to a full width page, in addition to disable elements.
The WordPress customizer options is really where GeneratePress really shines! Remember, a lot of these options are enabled from the superior 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 your free Lightweight Grid Columns. Not to my surprise, this can be created by precisely the exact same programmer as GeneratePress. It enables you a super simple way to add responsive columns into any page or post. Characteristics include:
Desktop grid width
Tablet grid thickness
Mobile grid width
Add Customized classes
Insert custom inline styles
Equal height columns
This is An example under:
You might want to Also grab his amazing WP Show Posts plugin also. See my featured articles on the sidebar of this site? That is using the WP Display Posts plugin. I have it set to show posts from a particular”featured” category. You can also have it show last modified/updated articles, recent articles, 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 version of GeneratePress allows you to perform all kinds of things in terms of design. Consider it like a page builder without the bloat. GeneratePress is definitely not only for blogs! I’m in fact using GeneratePress for our ecommerce website (perfmatters.io) that is running 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 those that are regular readers, you probably didn’t even notice I changed the whole theme that forces woorkup.com. It just 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 quickly, but I spent a great deal of time customizing it. In reality, I have gotten a great deal 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 motif I managed to achieve faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And keep in mind, I do not have a child motif. All the customizations were created 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 could make a replica of woorkup to your new GeneratePress site library. I’m pleased to let you know that now you can install my woorkup motif on your GeneratePress site with just a single click! It is called the Marketer theme. Get started using a great blog design instantly.
brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme
I also Moved over my private site, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a theme from Array Themes. It’s a pretty basic minimum site, since I do not use it for much. Since you can see it already loaded pretty fast.
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 see it loads faster! Amazing. I was even able to eliminate 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 motif from Array Themes. It’s a fairly basic minimal website, as we just use it to our LLC. As you can see it loaded pretty fast. WordPress Template Free Download 2016
forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme
I had been Able to move everything over and get it looking just how I needed it in under an hour. And since you can view it loads even faster! Amazing. I was able to eliminate a total of four plugins and it dropped my whole page burden 2x!
I can’t express my Excitement about finding GeneratePress and I’m moving over all of my sites to it (which includes some EDD e-commerce sites). Once I have my 9 websites all running in GP with no child topics, my life is going to be a breeze! The developer has restored my faith in multi-purpose subjects , which when done the correct way, can actually perform quicker.
And The best news isI finally have a billion more choices to pick from than I did earlier.
What GeneratePress Is Good For…
GeneratePress Is the perfect option for performance-focused users who wish to have the ability to personalize and control exactly how their site looks.
You Can make GeneratePress perform pretty much anything. And because GeneratePress has a focus on performance, 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 site builder and use it for literally any kind of website.
However GeneratePress Might Not Be A Fantastic Combination If…
…you Need something which will immediately appear perfect from the box.
For Example, if you realize you want to create a fashion blog, you may be happier choosing a market theme that’s developed exclusively for fashion bloggers.
Even though GeneratePress has gotten a lot simpler to use, thanks to 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 need to go in and customize things. And while the significant benefit of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, some users, particularly casual users, don’t like having to make those changes .
GeneratePress Features Which Make It Unique
Here Are some of the specific characteristics that explain why GeneratePress is indeed common.
Plenty Of Customization Options From The Real-Time WordPress Customizer
Beyond Functionality, another area where GeneratePress does nicely is its customization choices.
GeneratePress Uses the WordPress Customizer for customization, which is convenient as you will have the ability to see all of the changes that you create in real time.
The Free version of GeneratePress provides you decent options, but if you own GeneratePress Premium, you’ll have the ability to customize nearly all about your site.
For Example, if you go in the Layout area, you can configure detailed settings to yourown:
- Header — you can move your header round and change its styling
- Navigation — GeneratePress gives you two different navigation options, such as sticky menus
- Sidebar design — you can utilize one or two sidebars
- Blog post design — like featured picture dimensions, metadata, etc..
- Footer layout — like the number of widgets to add
Similarly, That the Typography place enables you to control the font for each and every element on your website, including buttons:
And You also get a detailed region to control the colour of every single element on your site.
All In all, GeneratePress will provide you much more customization choices from the WordPress Customizer than most other topics. This level of detail might be a bit overwhelming if you are a beginner. But as soon as you realize how the settings come together, you will have full control on how your website appears.
Optimized Performance And Fast Page Load Times
Around All its attributes, GeneratePress always includes a focus on exceptional performance and tidy code. The whole motif is less than 30 kB, and it is about as little as you are ever going to find for a WordPress theme. Even most other optimized WordPress topics are still 200+ kB. And a few badly coded topics can even surpass 1 MB!
GeneratePress Also has no code dependencies, which will help you avoid the render obstructing error that Google Pagespeed Insights often mentions.
Place That together, and you obtain a superfast-loading motif. How fast? To give you a sense, I conducted a little test.
First, I put up an empty site utilizing a random popular WordPress.org motif (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 do better.
Next, I activated GeneratePress on the same test website without altering 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 asks, ~40% less
If You perform that same test with different themes, you’ll continue to see that GeneratePress is among those fastest-loading WordPress topics in existence. WordPress Template Free Download 2016
Other Helpful Premium Extensions, Plus Much Modular Approach
Past Giving you more style controls from the WordPress Customizer, GeneratePress Premium also comes with a lot of other useful features such as:
- Elements — a exceptional feature that lets you create custom hooks, page headers, or layout templates.
- Page Header — allows you create a unique page header onto a per-page basis.
- Sections — this is sort of like lightweight page construction. It permits you to create separate”sections” onto a page, each with their own design and column preferences.
To Remain lightweight, GeneratePress also gives you a modular port where you can select and choose exactly which features you want 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 Website
In The past, you had to build GeneratePress websites from a blank canvas regardless of what, which left the motif difficult for casual users to set up.
Earlier In 2018, though, the developer added a new Site Library attribute for GeneratePress Premium users which allows you easily import any among the 25+ pre-built demo sites.
You Can import them directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Yes — this Website still uses GeneratePress! All I did was click a couple buttons to import a demo site.
Page-Level Settings Provide You Comprehensive Control Over Each Bit Of Content
With Most topics, every page and post will use the very same settings for the most part. You might have some custom templates or formats — however you don’t have very much control beyond that.
GeneratePress Changes that by giving you a new Layout meta name 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 (such as altering the sidebar from right to left)
- Choose the number of footer widgets to utilize
- Disable certain elements, such as your header, navigation menu, post featured picture, article 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 site builder.
By Disabling certain elements, you are in a position to produce the correct baseline for your page builder design, making it easy to create custom articles as needed. WordPress Template Free Download 2016
GeneratePress Pricing: Cheap And Works On Unlimited Sites
The Heart GeneratePress motif can be obtained at no cost at WordPress.org.
Nevertheless, If you’re serious about utilizing GeneratePress, I feel you should purchase the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that’s what makes the theme so elastic. The free version doesn’t give you nearly as many settings from the WordPress Customizer. And you’ll 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 sites. You will also get a 40% discount if you would like to renew to continue receiving support and upgrades following the first year (you can, of course, continue using GeneratePress after the first year without beating — you just won’t get any more upgrades ).
When You consider the typical premium WordPress theme will often cost around $60, GeneratePress offers a great price.
Conclusion
As I said, I don’t believe GeneratePress is for everybody.
If You want a niche-specific theme, you can probably save time by purchasing a theme that fits your needs for your market out of day one.
But If you’re ready to spend some time altering preferences, then GeneratePress’ style controls give you the flexibility to turn it into any type of WordPress website. Or, you might even be able to find a starter site that fits your needs to save some time.
Additionally, It’s one of the fastest-loading WordPress topics that you will find. Therefore, if you’re looking for the best performance possible, using GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s base is a great choice.
If You combine it with fast-loading hosting, you should have no problem making your site load in under one minute. WordPress Template Free Download 2016
To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.