"Thesis" Wordpress theme?

Hi, David!

I used it and it's great considering page-load time.

- Clean Code
- Easy to edit
- Content first than (sider bars / footer) < also good for seo.

I would recommend it to any one!

Thesis is $87! I would rather outsource $87 of SEO and grab a free theme instead - they are all good for SEO - on page SEO is 95% about the words you write.

I like the thesis as they are clean and easy to code but it just depends on your budget .

If you are on low budget it is good that you use free themes or else you can go for the thesis .

Wordpress 3.0 has a choice for you to pick a theme. Try that first before spending

Thesis is so awesome I bought the dev. license so I can use it on every site I build. I have used hundreds of WP themes, both free and commercial. Finding one that is so well coded, well commented, well thought out, and well supported is extremely rare.

It really does get my highest possible recommendation.

Thematic is a similar theme style and is free, but Thesis is better. If you have the money, get Thesis, do the tutorials, learn to use it. Probably won't ever need to get a different theme.

You can always hire people to customize ON TOP of Thesis, too. Which means you get that lean mean page loading machine.

IMPORTANT NOTE: People talked about how any theme can be made into SEO if you use plugins. EVERY plugin that does this on top of a non-integrated theme does it with code injection, which slows down your server, and doesn't always work from the spider's point of view.

Thesis has the SEO features (even per-post) built directly into the theme itself, which is really a LOT better and a lot more reliable, at least in my experience.

I bought the dev license also. It is totally worth the price. Worth every penny!

I'm still new to thesis but I think it differs from person to person on what they like as a theme.

I'm going to have to ask you to provide a little more info there, guy. To counter:

1. It has an affiliate program, and almost everyone I see who promotes it also uses it. I wouldn't say it's "overhyped" - it does what it says on the box, no? But you're right that it's a premium theme.

2. Agree that it has both SEO benefits and clean code - those are 2 separate benefits.

3. You can get the same effect, though not necessarily the same ease of implementation and delivery method. See above re the way ALL SEO PLUGINS work, re: code injection. The WAY Thesis handles this is technically superior.

4. This is not true. I'm not a developer. I know basic HTML, CSS, PHP, and Javascript - enough to read and edit, not write from scratch. I've never had any more trouble working with Thesis vs. editing any other free or premium theme I've bought. PLUS, with Thesis, I get support and can talk to developers for help (and you get help, because you PAID).

I've never had to do that though, because as you say, the code is so clean and well commented, I was able to do anything I would want to do on my own.

Its not bad, but I don't think its work $87

OK.

What does that have to do with anything about whether the theme is good or not?

Well, that's a beef that YOU brought to the thread, that you haven't explained until now. Also, ALL the poster wanted to know was whether it was worth the money to buy it. These "people" who project normal SEO as worthless? I haven't seen em here. Have you?

OK.

What does that have to do with anything about whether the theme is good or not?

That's a useful suggestion. I will check that one out.

Being "stuck" with the same theme isn't a problem - how is that unlike any other theme out there? I don't buy a premium theme for a unique look - I buy it for the way it looks out of the box, and for quality code and support and all that.

Customized looks are easy to have a web designer do. But just because you're a good designer doesn't mean you are good with Wordpress at all.

You promote stuff you don't like just to make money? That kind of sucks. Remind me not to buy from you, or those other guys. Seriously, that's lame and shame on you. I can't believe you would sell this to your customers and then come here and tell us the way you feel is the total opposite.

I don't understand why you are equating a "custom look" with purchasing a premium theme. They're not the same thing - if you want a custom look, pay someone to customize a theme or make you one from scratch. If a custom theme is what you want, go buy that.

Saying you don't like apples because it's not an orange is kind of silly. The OP didn't ask that, he asked if Thesis was any good.

You'll notice I haven't updated that site in a while. In fact, Thesis is installed, but not activated, because I did some mods for the theme that's there now that make it not portable until I do some extra changes.

I initially went looking for a theme to replace that one because people said it was hard to read. I found Thesis, and then got involved in other projects.

I do intend to switch eventually - and I use thesis on my client sites (part of the reason my personal site is outdated). And I'm currently using Thesis on several other personal project sites I'm developing, but haven't put them in my sig line yet, because there isn't any content.

But yeah, I'm not trying to fight with you - if in your FIRST POST, you had said "I own the theme, I used it, I didn't like these features, etc." I never even would have had started this back and forth with you.

It's all good. Except for promoting stuff you don't like to your list just to make money. Don't don that.

I actually use thesis on EVERY review site I launch now. I love it. Also I like that word press developer / freelance people know the theme well. So if you want customization and plan to hire someone then this is the theme to use.

It's like the Microsoft windows if themes.

If you have no experience with designing websites or HTML coding, then I would definitely say the thesis theme is worth it.

It's an easy way to get your blog looking exactly the way you want it, and a lot of my friends with blogs are using it to much success.

I don't use it, but that's only because my blog isn't powered by wordpress and because I'm a computer science major in college, so I prefer doing all the coding, etc. myself.

But the bottom line is that for the average internet surfer, Thesis rocks!!!

I recommend it. I also recommend you using Openhook with it, as it makes everything much easier if you're unfamiliar with the coding style.

Customization is extremely easy, the code is darn near perfect, and the forums are a very good resource.

Hell, there's a reason even Matt Cutts uses Thesis

I love thesis and it's the only theme I use now. I tried headway and had a hard time with it since I'm use to thesis. The thing with thesis is you do need to have some technical skill and be willing to mess with it to get it looking how you want it. Or you're going to have to pay someone to do it for you.

I'll be honest I've spent alot of hours and gotten pissed off at thesis atleast a dozen times trying to figure certain things out. But I'm now much more comfortable with it and can get sites looking pretty close to how I want.

There are things I'm still learning about the theme but I don't mind. In the end it really comes down to how much tweaking and learning you want to do to get thesis to look just right.

If you are willing learn things and go under the hood there are a TON of free tutorials that will show you how to do pretty much everything you could think of. I've learned a lot about PHP and wordpress due to thesis and I'm happy about that.

I have used thesis a lot and have been a fan of it in the past but the more and more I needed a specific task from the theme the harder it became to manage. The hook system is great for simple changes but when you get into more advanced and customised themes/modifications it is best to just start from scratch and learn how to use the Wordpress functions yourself. Access to the loop is just a pain through the custom_functions.php and results are often inconsistent.

You do need technical know-how to use Thesis but if your technical know-how is high then you will find Thesis to be a pain and a limiting factor on what you can do with Wordpress and most other themes, for free.

I am working on a site at the moment that has a front page broken up into about 8 different boxes. Some of theses boxes show an excerpt of the latest post from that category (example latest news, latest media release); another shows the headlines for a particular category; another shows the latest video from a youtube plugin; a photo slideshow; custom ad box etc.

For Thesis to do this, as far as I know, you still need to use the standard WordPress functions BUT you must deal with calling the various functions outside the loop and then muck around trying to place them with the different hook options - or you turn each box into a sidebar (bypassing Thesis). This isn't difficult but is a lot more fiddly than just calling the loop from your own custom template therefore bypassing Thesis altogether. If I have to bypass it for the homepage, why even bother with the other pages? They are a lot simpler and my style sheet is ready to go.

I also like to create custom category pages (per category - custom intro text, formatting of items etc) and when using wordpress I simple go to the archive.php file and add in my own functions to the theme. I create custom sidebar menus too so like to have full control over order and names.

I am sure Thesis can do all of this (and I have used Thesis to do this) but it is just a whole lot harder, messier, and slower. Wordpress is already broken up into logical files for easy theme creation and modification and it just makes sense.

The benefit of Thesis is that you can take your custom_functions.php with you to the next site. If you customise any other theme properly you can do this too though.

I bought Thesis a few months ago and even got two hours of excellent training from the marketer who sold it to me. Bought the full Developer's license, thinking I'd use it on all my sites. But what I didn't give enough thought to was my lack of graphic design skills.

After hours, make that days, of wrestling with it, I just gave up. It wasn't the program. In fact, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of great tutorials on it. But I would need to be willing to dedicate time to learning and not just go off and think I can do it. I learned a lot in those few days. But each obstacle that came up meant that I had to research to find the solution and then spend time learning what to do.

As an example, it's not hard to upload your own header, turn off the text heading, and move the menu under it, especially if you have Openhook plugin. But still, I had to research to find out what to do. For me, it wasn't fully intuitive.

Knowing PHP or having familiarity is crucial. I know enough to mess with it, but cannot write code from scratch.

If I had a skin, then I could probably tweak it. Change the colors, move the sidebars. But creating a design from scratch and learning all the intricacies was more than I could do. I want to be self-sufficient, love the idea of it, but I realized that it's not my skill set to be a web designer.

And then, just as an FYI, I wanted to do a database site for a specialized field and discovered that Drupal was much better than WP for that (Even the guy who sold me Thesis told me that!). So after all that, I'm actually now using Drupal for my new site under construction!

So, if you are willing to invest a couple of weeks into tutorials and you have a great eye for design, then it is certainly worth it for a WordPress site. The admin panel gives you a huge amount of control. But for me, it will take significant time and patience (and just messing with it) to learn how to use Thesis.

Susan

There's always going be a design and function limit, no matter what theme you use. The question is, which theme will get *you* the furthest?

I happen to like the default Thesis design for some sites I create. For others, I enjoy sculpting them. As a framework to build upon, it's a solid choice. But if you have grand design ideas, and you don't know CSS, then you'll need to look elsewhere. Trouble is, you might well find there is no theme out there which will let you create what you want without needing code.

I use thesis, I like it. There is a learning curve because its kind of its own animal. I still need to figure out how to drop in a top bar for Google Friendfeed.

Not to say there are not some perfectly great free themes to be had with a little searching.