It took me a while to choose which theme to use for SteitBlog, I was confused whether to use Thesis or Headway (a theme that is competing Thesis) after a long research and a bit of messing around with Headway, I decided to go with Thesis.
There are many reasons that made go for Thesis though it is considered to be a skeleton theme (that comes with no design). I believe that, what should be considered when choosing a theme is its functionality and usability not its design since “design” is a matter of taste and at the end of the day the content is always the king!
Returning to the core of this article, which is why I have chosen Thesis as theme for SteitBlog. Thesis is known for its very user-friendly control panel, which enables those users with no technical background to start her/his blog and have it customized it to a high extent. With its color picker in the control panel, in addition to its drag and drop feature Thesis makes arranging the navigation menu and the structure of its posts that more interesting. It also allows the users to control the font and size of every part of the blog along with the freedom to decide how many columns are wanted, their width and order.
Thesis is said to be the most SEO friendly theme on the Internet, so far and based on my knowledge I believe so. With Thesis, no more “All in one SEO Pack” plugin, no more worry about your meta tags and titles and optimizing your blog to be a search engine friendly. Through Thesis’ control panel, you can easily set your blog’s title, meta tags, meta description, add <noindex> tags to various pages, add canonical URLs and much more. It also has fields for Footer and Header scripts, where you can add the codes of Analytical systems such as Google Analytics, Mint or any other scripts. One important feature that Thesis provides to its users is, that it has an amazing “New Post” page, that gives the user the option to choose the CSS class of the post, the meta tag and description and even the <title> tag. All these options help in optimizing each page of your blog as a whole and separately.
Thesis knows no limits when it comes to customization, I will not be featuring every and each feature so I won’t take much of your time, but I have to mention briefly the advanced side of Thesis where CSS customization is very easy. Thesis has a folder called “Custom” where it includes the custom CSS file and the custom functions file. Through the control panel, you can easily edit the classes you want to change and it will immediately over ride the original ones. I think this feature was done because of regular version releases of Thesis, so when you want to upgrade to a new version, all you have to do is to copy your “Custom” folder and thats it! Settings are saved, looks are the same, the only difference is that you are benefiting from all the new features!
I will be sharing a video review of how easy it is to use Thesis very soon, meanwhile you can check some screen shots below.
Rock the blogging sphere with Thesis!
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@jadecraven
October 3, 2009 at 2:00 pmInteresting post :-) I found that half of it was extremely user friendly – one of the best interfaces I came across. But, in the version i bought, there was some hacking that needed doing that was too complex for me.
I really appreciate this review – and thank you for sharing it with me. But, in terms of making it super easy to use, I still love woothemes :P
- Jade
@steitiyeh
October 3, 2009 at 2:08 pmI really wonder which version have you bought earlier mate? The thing is that, Diythemes are releasing new versions of Thesis frequently and the whole users and developers are awaiting the Thesis 2.0 which is said to be WAY less coding and hacking, it’s gonna all be through the user interface.
Again, WooThemes are all about the looks and once you get it, you are locked into its current structure and there no much room for customization, exactly the opposite of Thesis, not mentioning how Search Engine friendly Thesis is.
Best,
Firas
@SimplicitySqd
October 13, 2009 at 12:12 amI am currently using Thesis, and it has added years to my life because it just takes the headaches out of the repetitive (and important) tasks (post specific seo).
The support on the forums seems prompt. The theme is updated almost to frequently.
One thing to mention:
“I think this feature was done because of regular version releases of Thesis, so when you want to upgrade to a new version, all you have to do is to copy your “Custom” folder and thats it!”
- Actually you don’t even have to copy the custom folder… The thesis theme .zip contains a folder called Custom-Sample. So you can just upload/overwrite all of the old files without it affecting you customizations.
Brilliant :)
@beginnerblogger
October 18, 2009 at 1:03 pmCheers for sending me this review Steit!
Think I will be heading over to Thesis way soon. Being a web designer I think this will be perfect for me. As many are saying Thesis seems to take the headache out of day to day blogging which I’m currently suffering a bit with my current free wordpress theme. It’s nice but it has it’s limitations and I’m not too impressed with the way it’s handling a few things.
I just want to be able to make a nice design around my site without worrying too much about the technical components. I deal enough with that at my 9-5 job now :P
The support forum sounds like it will be very helpful too. For now though it’s onto more pressing issues like meeting my monthly target goals I’ve set.
Thanks again!
Sarge´s last blog ..Why Being PERFECT Is Hurting You And Your Blog