Why is Genesis so good? – .com

In today’s tutorial we see why Genesis is so good. Both for end users and WordPress developers.

First of all… What is Genesis?

The first is the first. Let’s clarify concepts. Technically Genesis is a theme (one theme, one template). It is installed as such, and WordPress considers it as such. There is no two ways there. But it is also true that it is a very special theme. Genesis is a Theme Framework.

What does that mean? Well, basically a framework is a kind of “layer” of new functionalities that are added to a language or software. For example, many people consider WordPress to be a “framework” for PHP, since it adds a bunch of function libraries. (all in PHP) designed to create a CMS.

In the same way, when we install Genesis, we not only change the look of our WordPress website, but we also add various features. The Genesis developers liken it to a car, with the following diagram:

As you can see, WordPress would be the engine. What makes the car work. The base, the fundamental pillar. Later Genesis would be the chassis, the structure, the body that is mounted around the engine. Do you get the idea?

But if you look at the scheme, there is still a third element. The finishes: The color of the car, the upholstery, the wheels, the extras, etc. That would be the child themes (child themes, child templates). Let’s talk about that point.

What are Genesis child themes?

As we have already said, Genesis is a theme. But it is not intended to be installed and activated properly, rather is intended to be a Parent Theme. A father theme. That means that we should never have it active and work on it, but we must install a child theme (child theme).

The Genesis child themes are what give it a distinct visual appearance to each website. Even though they all have the same parent theme (Genesis)they can be very different from each other.

For example, here is a screenshot of the child theme Genesis Sample:

And here we can see a screenshot of the theme blossom:

As you can see, it has nothing to do with each other. But both use Genesis as parent theme. In other words, it is clear that the design of a Genesis child theme has no limits. They are designed in Photoshop, like any other theme, and the limit is your imagination.

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By the way, both themes (among others) They are available to download in the download section of the , for all of the . If you want, you can download them to install and see them live.

And what does Genesis have that makes it so special?

Up to this point, many of you may be wondering what makes Genesis so special. After all, any theme can be a “parent” theme. If you want more information about this, I recommend the .

Well, let’s see the strengths it has for both WordPress users and developers:

For the users

  • Lightness: Genesis is extremely well programmed. The code is lightweight and optimized, and gives the best PageSpeed ​​results.
  • Quality: It uses HTML5, CSS3, and Schema, which greatly helps Google to index better thanks to microformats. Even Matt Cutts, the director of Google’s Search Quality Team, uses it on his personal website.
  • Accessibility: Meets all accessibility criteria for people with vision problems. We cannot say the same for the vast majority of themes out there.
  • Adaptability: It goes without saying that it is responsive, and that it adapts to all devices. This is an essential condition today, in which more people connect to the Internet through mobile devices than through computers.
  • Community: Genesis is the most widely used WordPress framework. This means that there is a large community of developers behind it, and it makes it much easier to find answers in forums, blogs and social networks, to any questions you may have.

In summary: Genesis is a solvent theme, of high quality, light, fast, accessible, and with a great community behind it. That makes it interesting for any project made in WordPress.

But if it’s good for users, you can’t imagine how good it is for developers…

For developers

Whether you’re a programmer, designer, developer, implementer, webmaster, or any other role where you have to deal with multiple WordPress installations… Genesis is a godsend.

Why? Because all Genesis child themes work the same way. Each and every one of them has the same functionalities, action hooks, filter hooks, helpers, methodology, etc.

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What do I mean by that? so what you can catch any snippet (piece) of code from one child theme and copy it to another child theme, and it would work perfectly.

For example, a button: Let’s imagine that instead of having the sidebar on the right, we want it on the left. As easy as placing this line of code in functions.php:

add_filter( ‘genesis_pre_get_option_site_layout’, ‘__genesis_return_sidebar_content’ );

And that’s it. I repeat: This will work…every time. whatever child theme it is. We don’t have to edit any pages, we don’t have to modify code. Just that line and any Genesis child theme will perfectly understand the instruction.

Try to do the same with other themes. You are going to go crazy!

Y No I am saying that there are no issues that allow you to do it. Of course yes. But each theme goes to its ball. Some will have a theme options page under “Appearance”, some will have it in the post editor, some will have it in the WordPress customizer, and some will have a remote tab on you-know-what page hidden in the dashboard.

If every time you install a theme you have to learn how everything works, you’re going to lose hours that you can’t even imagine.

We must consider that I am talking about professionals who are dedicated to this. People who do several web installations throughout the year. Can you imagine how efficient you could be?

That a client wants to remove the footer? No problem, here is the code:

remove_action( ‘genesis_footer’, ‘genesis_do_footer’ );

What do you want to put your own text? Easy, here it goes:

add_action( ‘genesis_footer’, ‘new_footer’ ); function new_footer() { ?>

Text to put in the footer

What do you want to put an author bio in each post? One line of code:

add_filter( ‘get_the_author_genesis_author_box_single’, ‘__return_true’ );

And these are just a few examples, but I could list hundreds of them. If you want to know more, you have many available to download in the courses , , and . There you can see everything.

And I repeat: This code will work forever. Can you imagine having your little “collection of bits of code” in a document, and just “copy and paste”? Or even better, have that collection in ? That way it would only take half a second for each modification. Make the header “fixed”… Wham! Add banners in the sidebar… Wham! Remove date from posts? Wham!

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Note that with that approach you only have to learn things once. Just one time! And then you can reuse and reuse that same code whenever you want. And that brings us to the next point…

Using Genesis… You learn!

There are a couple more advantages that come from using Genesis, over a Divi-style theme, Canvas. By the way, if you are interested in seeing the differences, I recommend you read the tutorial.

For starters, there’s nothing you can’t do. Unlike theme options pages, by code you can modify anything. Instead, no matter how complete (and complex) whatever the options page of a theme, there are always things that No you will be able to modify And Murphy’s Law says that precisely what cannot be done from the control panel… is what the client will want.

And another factor to consider is that if we use code… We end up learning it! Based on seeing those “bits” of code that we are recycling, we end up beginning to understand what it says there. We modify them a bit, we combine them, we add something of our own harvest… And that leads us to improve our skills, and grow professionally. On the other hand, using a control panel, we are going to learn little, and only useful for that theme.

Summary and conclusion

Genesis is a lightweight, responsive, accessible and quality parent theme for WordPress, made with HTML5, CSS3 and schema.

In addition, thanks to its functions as a framework, it allows us to develop websites easily and quickly through standard code, regardless of the child theme we choose.

I personally recommend and use it for all my projects, and I recommend you do the same. If you want to learn, take a look at the , and if you want to try it, you have it on the subscriber page.

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