Thesis Review

As I mentioned yesterday, the brand spankin’ new look around here at The Curbside Marketer is all thanks to a great WordPress theme called Thesis. Initially, I was torn between going with Thesis or Headway, another great WordPress theme. I had Matt Cheuvront talking in one ear about Thesis and Danny Brown in the other telling me how great Headway was. In the end, after watching some videos and learning about each, I decided to go with Thesis. So, here is your in depth review of Thesis 1.6.

MY WEB DESIGN BACKGROUND

It’s important to first tell you my experience in web design and such, just so you can determine whether you’ll have a head start on me or maybe are even more clueless than I was. Basically, I took a class back in high school (5 years ago) and learned the very basics of html, sort of learning how the language works, and made a few basic web pages. From that, I probably remember less than 50% of it. So, I probably know the first three or four chapters of an HTML for dummies book.

THESIS OVERVIEW

Right off the bat I’ll summarize what the rest of this will go into so that those of you who aren’t interested can tune out. Basically, if you’re okay with taking the time to learn some of the more complex aspects of Thesis, it’s a very powerful theme. However, If you want something that’s just quick and easy, you may want to seriously consider some other themes.

With that out of the way, let’s move on to the specifics.

INSTALLATION

I’ll keep this short and sweet and say that installation was a piece of cake, just follow the directions Thesis provides to the tee. I would also suggest installing the “Theme Tester” plugin for WordPress, as it will allow you to make changes to your blog while keeping your old skin visible to your visitors. This is ideal for those who already have a blog and are looking for a design upgrade.

BASIC EDITING

As mentioned above, editing things like the font, font color, background color, sidebars, et cetera are all as simple as choosing options from drop down menus and checking boxes. Something as simple as adding a sidebar would take a long time to do, especially for a beginner like me, so these options are life savers that help you save a ton of time.

THESIS HOOKS

This is where Thesis can get a little tricky. The best explanation of hooks that I came across was from Sugarrae, who somehow got the concept of hooks to click in my head. Basically, instead of you going in and editing the actual Thesis files, you edit only two files, the custom.css file and the custom_functions.php file (this is where hooks come into play).

In the custom_functions.php file, you pretty much create a “function,” which is the html element you want to insert in your blog and then, using a “hook” you tell Thesis where you want to put it (for example, in the footer or before the sidebar). That’s how I’ve created the custom footer you see below and the custom subscribe widget at the top of the sidebar.

The custom.css file basically allows you to change the styling of elements that already exist (so you’re not actually creating anything here, technically). This is how I did things like adding the custom header image and changing the titles of the sidebar items to custom images.

As I mentioned, this is where the bulk of the learning curve is, and once you get the hang of it, it all becomes a heckuva lot easier.

FINDING HELP

One of the cool things about Thesis is the vast forums it has available to its members. 99% of the time I had a question, I was able to find an answer on the message boards and I was amazed at the helpfulness of some of the members on there. Unfortunately, Thesis has created only a few basic “how-to” resources, making the forums insanely valuable. Basically, think of it as if you have a question, someone has almost definitely had the same question before.

FIREBUG

Weather you end up using Thesis, Headway, or a free theme, Firebug is a really, really cool tool that will both save you time and help you learn about HTML. All it is is a Firefox plug-in that allows you to not only see the HTML and CSS of any web page, but to actually make changes to it to play around with different looks. Believe me when I say I learned many things about some of the blogs I read by using Firebug to check out their inner workings.

SO SHOULD I BUY THESIS?

Well, I’d actually argue that Thesis is NOT for everyone. It takes someone with patience and the willingness to learn to be able to master Thesis, so if that’s not you, I suggest you run the other way. I will note, however, that the word on the street is that Thesis 2.0 is in the near future (next 6 months or so), and it is sure to have some exciting new features. I’ve also heard that when 2.0 is released there may be an increase in price for first time buyers (Thesis is a ONE time fee, so once you buy it,  you have it forever). So, if you think you do want Thesis, now may be the time to make the move.

SUMMARY

So that’s the quick rundown. You can put together a pretty basic blog quickly with Thesis, but if you want something real fancy-like, you’re going to have to take the time to do a little learning.

If you have any questions about Thesis, please leave me a comment below or even shoot me an email, I’d be more than happy to answer them!

If you think this whole blog design thing is a little complex, but still want a great looking design, I’d suggest checking out my blog consulting page. I’d love to be able to help you put together your perfect blog design!

Also, if you do decide to go with Thesis, and want to throw me a bone, I’d appreciate it if you’d consider using my affiliate link when purchasing. However, if you’d rather not, here is the non-affiliate link to their site.

Finally, if you have any questions about the Headway theme, I’m sure that Danny Brown would be more than happy to answer them for you.

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