[Resolved] Wishing for a GP beginner's manual

[Maxwell]

Reviewers find the GeneratePress documentation is very good in comparison with other themes, and I’m sure it’s adequate for experienced WordPress users, but there seems to be a bit of a void for beginners.

Searching the docs for “start”, “begin”, “beginner”, “make”, or “how to” all failed to turn up a guide to making a website, as did examining the articles in “Browse all articles”.

There are 21 importable GeneratePress Sites to give a head start when building new websites, but none of those designs were close to what I wanted.

Searching the Support Forum for [beginner -wpbeginner] gave 122 topics among the 1,262 topics going back to 2014. Those 122 included lots of interesting reading, but unsurprisingly no “How to make a website with GeneratePress”, just a note that there is no beginner’s manual.

There are, of course, many tutorials purporting to teach beginners how to use WordPress, and quite a few are okay for bits and pieces such as how to install software.

It would be good if there were a flowchart (with brief explanations of what rationale to use to choose the options at each decision point) and checklist for WP beginners to create a website with GeneratePress. I realize many options become unavailable once certain other options are chosen, but if a fixed decision-tree is used this would be easy to annotate. I mean a website without custom HTML, CSS or PHP of course.

BTW, the Support Forum’s Search did not work to find a post again by its ID number, e.g. #179724 however a Google search [site:generatepress.com #179724] does work. It’s too bad the GeneratePress documents don’t each have a reference ID number like the forum posts do.

The GeneratePress support is excellent, thank you.

PS Occasionally I find the documentation pages are a little slow to load. For example it took 52 seconds the first time I loaded https://docs.generatepress.com/article/generatepress-sites/ though afterwards it took 1 to 4 seconds to load.

[David]

Hi there,

do you have an example of the site style you wish to create?
We can help with that.

[Maxwell]

Thanks for the generous support offer David.

I’ve searched but haven’t found an example close to the site style I wish to create, even though my needs are very modest and calling for ordinary elements.

Come to think of it, it would be nice if GeneratePress offered a paid service that would be in between the present excellent support, and a full design service.

If a person could submit a layout sketch and receive back a flowchart of how to create such a layout, for a set fee per page, that would be awesome.

So there’s two business ideas some entrepreneurial person might take up in association with GP if GP doesn’t do it: Writing a good beginner’s manual for GeneratePress, and launching a mini consulting service for GeneratePress. There must be a market of some newbies among the thousand new installs per day, and a beginner’s guide would no doubt attract more people to try GeneratePress.

[David]

Thanks for taking the time to share your ideas.
There have been some mutterings amongst the community about possible on-line course relating to GP and building sites, but nothing concrete as yet.

The best place to start is with the Modules Documentation and play around with the Customizer settings to get a feel for it. Example based assistance is always good, if you find anything you may want to try and achieve we’re more than happy to help you achieve that.

[Yvon-Pierre]

I agree so much with Maxwell’s post. Even though it was posted in 2018, it’s still very much relevant even today in June 2022 because there’s no beginner’s tutorial. The idea of a flowchart is spot on! If this is too complex, another possibility would be to show step by step how one of the most popular starter site was created. Having such a guide would be SO helpful. Please consider providing an intro guide for beginners.

[Fernando]

Hi Yvon-Pierre,

If this helps, there are new videos in our YouTube channels showing how to use the different functionalities of our products. Some videos are walkthroughs as to how a Site template was created.

Here are the links:

https://www.youtube.com/c/GeneratePress/videos

https://www.youtube.com/c/GenerateBlocks/videos

Hope this helps!

[Yvon-Pierre]

Hello Fernando,

Thanks for pointing this out. I’ve just watched the “Crypto Template Walkthrough”. It’s useful to reverse engineer this starter site and see which blocks and elements were used to create it. It’s useful but unfortunately it still leaves a lot of questions about the design process in my beginner’s mind!

I think there would still be a lot a value in starting from a fresh WordPress install and show the steps to build a basic starter site, explaining along the way the options available through GP, GP Premium, GB, and GB Pro. Any chance that you will create a beginner’s tutorial like this eventually?

[Fernando]

I see. That’s a good idea. I’ll let the team know.

[Leo]

Hi Yvon-Pierre,

Thought I’d chime in here as I’m responsible for our videos.

I know that a beginner series tutorial could be helpful for some.
However, if the “basic starter site” I choose to demonstrate is not in the style you have in mind then I’m not sure how useful it can be.
It’s just very difficult to create a series of videos that satisfy everyone’s requirements and videos are very time consuming to create.

This is why I’ve done quite a few walkthroughs of our site library templates that covers different areas and designs:
https://youtu.be/QIN0EaPllO4
https://youtu.be/TATKonlT6Sk
https://youtu.be/fVUekTSF1fg
https://youtu.be/-rs0E_rIFtk
https://youtu.be/Pwt26vMFu2Q
https://youtu.be/moyDerusGo4
https://youtu.be/gEuMXGHIa08

And each of the GP Premium modules also comes with an overview video:
https://docs.generatepress.com/article/global-colors-overview/
https://docs.generatepress.com/article/dynamic-typography-overview/

Sometimes I find the best way to learn about GP and GB is to find an example of a site you’d like to achieve and share the link with us so we can point you in the right direction.

Our support team will always be more than happy to explain every GP and GB options in details as well 🙂

[Yvon-Pierre]

Thanks for your reply Leo.

It doesn’t matter to me which starter site would be built from scratch. What I want to see is the design process. I’d like to be able to look over your shoulder to see what you do step by step. If you could mention the options available to you along the way and explain why you choose one over the other, that would be even better but not necessary. One of the best way to learn is by copying someone or a process. We do it through grade school in every subjects. And once you’ve mastered the process, then you’ve got a foundation on which to grow.

I realize that creating videos is very time consuming but having a beginner’s tutorial would fill a big need in your training IMHO. And by the way, it doesn’t have to be a video. Like Maxwell said, it could be a “flowchart (with brief explanations of what rationale to use to choose the options at each decision point)”.

I don’t want to sound ungrateful. I really appreciate all the videos and the quick support you offer here in the forum. But I think some kind of beginner’s tutorial or manual would be a tremendous help to get new client “hooked” on your products. There is a reason many companies provide a “Quick Start Guide” for their product. I wish your company will create one for GP & GB.

Thank you in advance for considering this request.

[Leo]

Noted.

Thank you for the suggestions!

[Yvon-Pierre]

Hey Leo,

Here’s an idea. I’d like to build a simple website from scratch using exclusively GenerateBlocks. From what I understand, it can be done and it will probably be more future proof with WordPress’ push for Full Site Editing.

But this is where I’m stuck. I think I need to install GP Premium to do that but I’m not sure which part to turn on and how to set them up. I think I have to turn off built-in header and footer elements but I don’t even know how to do that. There might be other GP Premium settings to consider as well.

If you could provide a step by step guide of what need to be done in a brand new WordPress install with GP Premium to get me to the point where I can build with GB, that would be a tremendous help.

[Leo]

Can you start a new topic for this?

And please provide a link to an example site you’d like to achieve if you have one.

[Yvon-Pierre]

Oh wow, I was not expecting a reply on a Saturday. I’m impressed!

I’ve started a new topic called “Building a website from scratch using GenerateBlocks”.

[Leo]

Thanks!

[Author]

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