Using The­sis for WordPress

Well, it’s been 2 months since the “launch” of The­sis for Word­Press, ver­sion 2.0. And it’s been a LONG 2 months for us The­sis users.

Over that time, I’ve spent count­less hours of my short life try­ing to become pro­fi­cient with the new The­sis theme. I write about The­sis a lot on this blog, because I used to be a big fan. In fact, I become a spon­sor for the The­sis Theme and was/am pon­der­ing cre­at­ing themes and skins for The­sis 2.0. I have a site wait­ing: T2 Skins, in fact, that has been sort of a sand­box (a live one) for learn­ing the newest iter­a­tion of The­sis. It has been see­ing less and less action from me, however.

As I’ve plugged away so many late nights now, try­ing to mas­ter The­sis 2.0, I’ve real­ized an irony: I have spent so much time learn­ing all the code that The­sis 2 promises we don’t have to touch, I’ve real­ized I don’t need The­sis 2 as a frame­work any­more. In fact, I oper­ate much more quickly hand-coding my web­sites now. The goal of learn­ing The­sis 2 was that I could pos­si­bly see that even­tu­ally there are effi­cien­cies, once every­thing is in place. That would require the user being a The­sis ninja, using the vari­ables a lot, and many boxes, skins and pack­ages being avail­able. To date, none have hap­pened. That leaves a huge void.

I’ve lost a lot of respect for the cre­ators of the The­sis theme, which I hate to say because I know that devel­op­ing it wasn’t easy. How­ever, that’s why it com­mands a nearly $200 price tag these days. The inex­pe­ri­ence run­ning a busi­ness is plagu­ing DIY Themes and is evi­dent in the cre­ation of their/his new busi­ness model. What used to seem like grandiose mar­ket­ing has now turned into what feels like actual deceit. “Don’t need to touch code!” “Full sup­port!” Well…maybe, if you ignore the facts, such as NEEDing to know code to use it, and the sup­port being in the form of other peo­ple help­ing you on the forum. Pretty weak and unre­li­able, and Chris Pear­son et al still make such claims with­out set­ting real­is­tic expec­ta­tions. That’s play­ing with fire in busi­ness. And those aren’t the only flaws the cus­tomer learns about after pur­chase, but cer­tainly the most glaring.

So, after sev­eral years of using the The­sis theme ver­sion 1.XX, and now using 2.0 on sev­eral sites for 2 months, the dust is set­tling, and here’s where things seem to be from where I stand:

  • I’m find­ing myself still using The­sis 1.85 on sev­eral sites. It’s solid, but becom­ing tire­some in the shadow of 2.0, a hulk­ing chunk of awk­ward­ness and time-consumption.
  • I find myself using The­sis 2.0 less and less and sim­ply mod­i­fy­ing the free theme ‘2012’ (or another free frame­work) much more fre­quently, with more sat­is­fy­ing results.
  • I am get­ting to know web design and devel­op­ment really well. As in, I’m now freelanc­ing. All thanks to learn­ing The­sis 2.0, the theme frame­work you don’t need to use any code with.
  • I’m pulling affil­i­ate ad spots for the The­sis theme on sites for prod­ucts and ser­vices I believe in more. Sadly, The­sis 2 and DIY Themes have been a dis­ap­point­ment from begin­ning to end ever since released, no mat­ter what any­one says.
  • I’ve noticed DIY Themes “mar­ket­ing expert” Derek Halpern has been MIA dur­ing the past sev­eral months, when he used to write blog posts nearly weekly. Not say­ing any­thing, but just some­thing I’ve noticed.
  • I’m find­ing myself look­ing more closely at other pre­mium frame­works, much more fre­quently. I haven’t been overly impressed with Ele­gant Themes, although I have a dev option. Just tools for the tool­box, you know.
  • I’m com­ing closer and closer to releas­ing my own themes to the pub­lic. And plugins.

The guys at DIY Themes seemed to have over­looked their core com­pe­tency in the name of greed or hubris or both, and I have to believe it will become a fatal error even­tu­ally. There are still die-hard fans of The­sis and Chris Pear­son, but those num­bers are dwin­dling daily. Peo­ple have been run­ning on faith and promises for the past 2 months. That’ll only carry you so far.

So, if you need a site built from the ground-up or a ren­o­va­tion of your cur­rent site, or even cus­tomiz­ing your The­sis theme just like you want it, I’ll be happy to do it. Just con­tact me.

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