[Resolved] "Best Practises" for working with Generatepress

[Gareth]

Hi all,

Just curious as to what is generally considered the best approach when needing to make PHP and CSS changes to the GP child theme.

Should I make changes in the functions.php and style.css files within the child theme or is it generally considered the better practise to use a plugin and GPP hooks that allow these things to be added via the WordPress admin area.

To clarify, GP or (GPP) is my first committed move towards using a theme with the customiser to handle the look and feel of a site. I have been building and developing themes for years but am trying to pivot my approach slightly to use Beaver Builder and GPP as a kind of foundation for some of my freelance projects.

Maybe if someone could provide guidance on the following relatively simple query this would help me get into the right frame of mind here.

Instead of the default footer in GPP I want to have 3 columns that stack on mobile with the text centre aligned and then split into the 3 columns side by side at a tablet level breakpoint.

I am considering writing my own footer.php file for this in the child theme along with the relevant CSS.

There are also hooks in GPP that I can use which I also feel are a perfectly relevant solution here.

As someone that doesn’t have a workflow outside of coding things within the theme itself what would generally be considered the best approach here?

Thanks in advance.

[Leo]

Hi there,

If you are already using child theme then Simple CSS and Code Snippets shouldn’t be necessary:
https://docs.generatepress.com/article/adding-css/#using-a-child-theme
https://docs.generatepress.com/article/adding-php/#use-a-child-theme

Depending on what kind of site you are trying to create and how comfortable you are with HTML and CSS, I would highly recommend starting without a page builder first 🙂
These couple articles might be a good starting point:
https://docs.generatepress.com/article/sections-overview/
https://docs.generatepress.com/article/creating-columns/

As for custom footer layout, GP hooks and the columns article linked above is the way to go.

Let me know if this helps 🙂

[Paul]

I would second the advice to try starting without a page builder – between the sections add-on and the underlying Unsemantic grid, I don’t think a page builder is necessary. Just adding a custom class to a section with the corresponding css in a child theme would be my most common route for something a page builder would be used for.

[Gareth]

Hi Leo and Paul,

Thanks for getting the conversation started.

Regarding the page builder, I am already committed to exploring that avenue since I bought a paid version of Beaver Builder to use in conjunction with GPP. Having said that I am as keen to explore what I can do with GPP on it’s own as I am with using it along with BB. So while I had never intended to look at “sections” and have had it turned off since starting with GPP I am going to look at that in more detail.

If I am being honest I bought BB first and grabbed GPP more as an afterthought since it gets mentioned a lot in BB circles but now that I have been using it the last few days I am blown away by all it can do.

With regards to HTML and CSS I am beyond comfortable. My interest is in seeing how much of this work I can do through the theme rather than through coding.

Overall my aim is to try and speed up the development of my websites using GPP and/or BB. It’s hard to know where to start when you have had a particular way of working for years but I do think it’s time for a change for me. lol

Thanks again.

[Leo]

You’re welcome!

[Author]

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