Archived topic
GP a framework?
3 replies · Started by Engelbrecht on November 7, 2018
Hi GP theme,
To be honest, I know this may not be in your interest, but I would appreciate any help to answer my questions, I may stick around with GP premium for years depending on the answers below for my website.
I have hired a developer to integrate a dashboard theme with bootstrap. It’s not currently a Wordpress theme but i want to use it as a design guideline for elements, buttons, popovers, slide-in menu, modals etc. and whatever bootstrap has to offer by integrating it into a child theme that inherits from GP.
I’m planning on extending the Wordpress with several custom build services, like a checklist, budget tracker and more that is built from scratch. Actually, I have already gotten a checklist built upon GP as a child theme. Besides, it needs to support other plugins, like page builder and listing plugins.
The developer however suggests me to create a new parent theme, toughs removing GP.
I am worried with this suggesting for several reasons (security, updates, support etc.), since he would build it from scratch.
So, my question is, are GP suited as a theme framework or would you, to be honest, suggest me to get a theme framework like genesis or similar to support my custom-build website by acting as a “base” for developing a new theme? The reasons why I would want a theme framework is to get ongoing updates and create that "base" for a new theme, if necessary.
Hi there,
If you use GeneratePress, you absolutely get the added benefit of future updates (security, performance) and support.
There's nothing wrong with creating a theme from scratch, but in most cases, it's re-inventing the wheel. GP itself only adds about 12kb to your page size (with a fresh GP install), so you're not adding a bunch of unnecessary bulk.
GeneratePress is very similar to Genesis, it just takes advantage of the Customizer and adds more options.
Hope this helps :)
Thank you Tom! Always fast support!
However, i was more looking for an answer if there are some fundamental differences between GP and Genesis for example, that makes the one better than the other for building themes from scratch, like a base foundation? What i can read is that genesis is more of a "blank" theme base but that really doesnt tell me anything. While i know GP is well suited as a theme, some stylling and functions has been applied, but is that an issue? Some articles express the need for a framework rather than a theme, so i just want to know how far away they are from eachother, if that makes sense. :)
My biggest issue is probably that i need the developer to integrate a whole new design "guideline" into either GP or another theme framework, since i dont want the developer to, yes, re-invent the wheel and integrate some other child theme later for a specific purpose with listings.
The word "framework" is just a buzzword that people use. By definition, I wouldn't call Genesis or GP a "framework". They're just WordPress themes with some basic styling etc.. There's very little difference between Genesis and GP, except GP adds more options in the Customizer.
From a code level, they're very similar. Anything you can do in Genesis, you can do in GP.
While GP does add some base styling, it only accounts for about 12kb (gzipped) on a fresh install, which is tiny.
