Thesis 2.0? Anybody Used this Theme?

Thanks for the reply. So, you have first hand experience?

Saw a couple of YouTube videos on it and have to say that it does look a bit like overkill in terms of usability.

Yeah most developer are not familiar with thesis, it's complicated... and just dead today. Why not just buy theme on themeforest, they has good quality theme and most of them are responsive+retina design.

I too haven't graduated to Thesis 2.0, neither do I plan to anytime soon. I love 1.8.5, and see no reason why I should do the switch given -
(1) DIYthemes will continue to support 1.8.5
(2) Thesis 2.0 is a let down in more ways than one (haven't used it, but that seems to be the general consensus.)

But I feel that 1.8.5 is here to stay and way superior than most other themes.

You might want to look into Catalyst Theme. I am using it and it is incredibly flexible without the need for coding. It uses the Dynamik child theme, which is also available in Genesis. Also, the Catalyst support is top notch.

Very bad news for non-coders: According to many people on the web, Thesis 2.0 is almost useless due to it's complex nature. To give you an idea, I posted some comments from Lisa Irby's blog. The comments are in quotation marks. Please note that each comment in quotation marks is a comment from a separate person. That person might be a cop, a nurse, a Caucasian, an African-American, a senior citizen, a young student, or a truck driver.There might even be a comment from a homeless person who failed to earn a high school diploma. Just bear this in mind: each and every one of them are WordPress users who are very frustrated and disappointed with Thesis 2.0. One thing I find interesting is that Lisa Irby is a very respected and heavily experienced Internet Marketing vet who knows a little coding herself and she is just as frustrated and disappointed with 2.0 as they are:

"Thesis 2.0 was released way too early and, for a product which is so radically different from what the market is used to, the decision to release with no support documention was a major error of judgement. The marketing is at best misleading and builds an expectation that quite evidently can’t be delivered, at least for one section of it’s target audience. I’m sure Matt Horne is correct in his comments but as a developer he comes at this with a different skill set and someone who makes a living understanding this kind of stuff. I don’t have the same skill sets, nor can I be bothered learning them, and after all, even the sales copy says ‘why should I?’ I was willing to bide my time and wait for 2.0 to evolve before having another go but I’m now of the mind that I will never use a DIY product again. The sole reason for this is the appalling attitude and lack of respect Chris Pearson shows to his customers. Looking at his twitter feed he seems to only have time for those who heap praise on him, and to those who make any negative comment he is downright rude and aggressive. Somebody recently tweeted about the difficulty in not having a good grasp of html which made using 2.0 difficult and his response was ‘You have no business using the 2.0 skin editor then’. When asked why the sales page clearly targets an audience with no knowledge of code there was silence. Chris is no doubt an excellent developer but he’s definitely not a people/customer person and likes to play by his own rules, which are ‘I’m right, everyone else is wrong and if you don’t like it get lost’. Irrespective of whether his theme is the best thing since sliced bread I can’t line the pocket of a person like that."

" I’m also on the previous version of Thesis and not planning to upgrade anytime soon. It (2.0) just looks overwhelming! It seems that it was made for developers, NOT for the ordinary user. Developers will be able to make skins and sell them or whatever, but Thesis is NO LONGER an out of the box theme made for the end-user that is easy and intuitive to use."

"What Thesis should have done is continue supporting the previous version, and release Thesis 2 under a different name for developers. Call is Thesis Pro or something. It is really not possible for a new blogger, or even an old one with no programming skills, to use Thesis 2. Yet, they try to say that! It is horribly mis-advertised!"

" I recently tried to use the new Thesis 2.0 with a new site that I am working on, and so far, its been a joke. I really hate it. I agree with a lot of other people here, its great for developers, but I used Thesis 1.85 for ease of use. I was just getting the hang of hooks, and now I got to start all over on learning the new one. For now, I will stick with the other themes I have, which are easier to use for non techies, and wait for Hesham to rock out some new Thesis Awesome skins compatible with the new framework."

"I agree with you regarding the unfriendly changes to Thesis. I loved it for the many customization options it gave me in my website design. But after waiting so long for version 2.o, I was very disappointed with how much it changed. Now it seems like Thesis 2.0 is only for developers and not for people like me. I enjoyed using Thesis, but now I am slowly switching my sites over to Genesis."

"Thesis 2.0 is awful. What I find so disconcerting is Chris, yet again, says it’s as good for non-coders as it is for more experienced developers. Uh, no it’s not – it’s hugely confusing and the lack of documentation is terrible. Imagine buying a new lighting system and not having instructions on how to safely install… yeah, right. I even tried buying a skin to get me up and running quickly, and that doesn’t work either – it’s certainly lacking when compared to Genesis and what the Studiopress guys are doing."

"I understand the excitement of the Thesis developer since it’s his own 'program' but the learning curve is really steep even for technical people. If I had to put up a new full working Thesis site right now, I wouldn’t use version 2.0, it’s as simple as that. I may install it on a dummy site just for testing/learning purposes but that’s it. I am dissapointed to see the upgrade and the new GUI and way of doing things, is way beyond confusing or at least, not what I expected. I did see Kristarella, Hesham (and a few others) articles on understanding the new framework but I still think that if you have to explain something that hard, then the framework is not really user friendly."

"Regarding 2.0, it seems there was way too much focus on innovation and less on making it user friendly — which was such a contrast to 1.0. The reason why 1.0 went over so big was because it was revolutionary and people understood it. 2.0 is also revolutionary if you are a developer. The problem is, that’s a much smaller percentage of the WordPress community."

" I was just about to purchase Thesis 2.0 for one of my blogs, but definitely don’t have the time to spend hours upon hours figuring out how to use it."

"Seems like they forgot (or didn’t understand) who their real customers are. They were building a product that they felt is better because it has more powerful features. Big mistake – they should have built something easy-to-use for us ordinary bloggers out there."

"Although I did enough experiment with Thesis 2.0 and got OK with it, it was just way too much to handle. I just wish they provide pre-designed themes like Genesis so we can at least use it without any customization. It took me about three days to make a basic layouts and fonts for my niche sites. I could’ve exported the design for other sites, but the amount of code for a simple site was just overwhelming."

"I never really used Thesis until a friend of mine gave it to me for free. I am a huge Genesis fan ever since. As a web designer, I always use Genesis for my clients because it is a lot easier to manipulate for new wordpress users. No doubt, Thesis is great. However, when I tried using it on a 'dummy' website, I can say Genesis is a lot easier and is more understandable to use compared to Thesis 2.0"

Me too. For me Thesis 2 is easier to use than the previous version. At first it may take a little time to learn but its easier and time saving in the long run. I am a thesis theme designer and i find thesis 2 easier than other themes.

Just my opinion on this :-)

Sorry to bring up an old thread, but learned a lot from it. I was thinking about trying out Thesis 2.0 or Genesis. I want something that's highly customizable. I'm somewhat familiar with coding, but prefer to have a drag and drop type of customization. Right now I'm using a regular Wordpress theme that I've had to customize by actually editing the code in the files and I hate doing that.

My current site is very video heavy so what would you suggest? At this point Thesis is out, I've heard enough bad reviews on it that I'm staying away from it.