Preference pro / lite

Greetings…. the difference between the lite and the pro has the Pro offering more typography styles, more page elements such as Pricing Tables, Info boxes, more widget positions, a portfolio setup for a 1, 2, 3, or 4 column layout, and custom styling for Widgetkit (slider, gallery, and more), and a few other options. There is also a child theme for it from the theme’s setup tutorials that is ready for you.

Pro demo is here: https://demo.styledthemes.com/preference/

Thanks. Sounds great!
One more question – are there some pre-made color styles? Sure, you can choose from unlimited colors… but I’m not very talented at designing and would prefer a couple of recommended combinations. Just for very descreet changes e.g. seasonaly (besides thw very nice original scheme).

Pre-made colours…nope. I actually made my themes to offer unlimited colour combinations ??

These are done simply with clicking on a colour selector which lets you choose a colour. This is done for almost everything that has colour in the theme. The flexibility of this allows unlimited colour combinations and helps to prevent everyone’s website looking the same as someone elses….very easy to do actually.

I really appreciate your help!
I have started playing with the lite version (Kvaskovani) and consider going Pro before making any big changes. I would like to avoid making it twice ??
But what surprised me when I went through your tutorial (great idea and well explained) was that you discourage from themes with many plugins inserted. Your arguments are logic. However even your Pro version must contain more “plugins” than the lite version. Do I really loose all elements when, in the future, I would have to change the theme for whatever reason?

Also in your typography section there are dropcaps (look beautiful and not many theme have these), styled tables definition lists … but I cannot see a button for them in the post editing panel. How do I insert these? Is it necessary to use a code? I apologize I am a beginner and just starting to understand how this works.

Please how can I get rid of the front page title (“Domu”) in the middle of the home page?

My (hopefully last) question would be about recommeded plugins, especially for beginners. Something that goes very well with your themes. You mention some here but are there others such as for SEO optimization, security, RSS, link manager… (any experience with recipe plugins such as Easy recipe or recipe card)?

I’ve kept plugins (coded directly into the theme) out for a more stable theme and compatibility as well…especially for future versions of WordPress. But it also allows for people who use plugins to use them across other themes should they choose to change to a different one. This is the benefit with plugins that are separately installed. So if you change to a different theme, your plugin settings won’t be lost. Likewise, I try to avoid using shortcodes because what a lot of people don’t realize is that these are lost if you change the theme and you are using shortcode elements in your page or post content. Another reason why I prefer to keep these things more to html…although not perfect.

Regarding typography elements, such as the dropcaps etc., I include html snippets (for a copy & paste method) that lets you insert these items into your page or post. I also have tutorials to help which for the PRo version is accessible my logging in the site and offers a lot more tutorials as well. If anything is missed, the beauty of support is that I am there to help with guidance ??

For the “Domu” (Home), you can replace with a different title if you wish by renaming your home page to something else, but the label on the “Home” menu link can be done as “Home” for the main menu…this is how I did it for the Pro version demo site. The other method would to simply not do a title, or you can do a minor css adjustment to make it disappear.

For my list of plugins, these are recommended, at least for this theme, but you can try others if you have preferences. For the ones you mentioned such as Easy Recipe, I’ve never heard of that one but the benefit of plugins is that you can install, try out, keep or delete, and try others.

Thanks for help. The issue with Home / Domu is understood.

The detailed tutorials are certainly a plus for the Pro version.

I never realized that all styling (typography) would be lost if changing the theme in the future. But the typography elements, such as the dropcaps etc. look so nice!… And yourself, even if you discourage from integrating shortcodes in the theme, offer more of them in Preference Pro. It applies for various widgets, too. That is why I am confused.

Maybe do you mean that if all these embellishing elements are written manualy in the form od snippets (instead of some automatic buttons) and other things (that cannot be easily written as html, such as sliders, SEO, … ) are inserted through external plugins – then they will be maintained even after eventual theme switch? Do I understand that well?
Widgets will probably always be a problem ??

Just for information purposes – is it worth to wait for your upcoming themes?

The unfortunate thing with “any” theme from anyone will be the same when you create a website and have pages and posts, and if using typography elements such as dropcaps, highlights, etc., these get lost from theme to theme because the css used is not going to be found in every theme. The only way of getting around this is if a theme comes with an html snippet (simply a small template of code you copy and paste into your content) which contains in-line styling.

Shortcodes are also a nasty thing because these are directly related to a theme being used and are coded into that theme. So if you change themes (regardless of who’s theme you use), you will end up with broken code in your website pages. So for example, if a shortcode for a dropcap (which I don’t use) is this: [dropcap blue]A[/dropcap] In a theme that coded that, you will get a nice shortcode, but if you change themes to someone else’s, you will end up with the code above showing instead of a nice dropcap because the other theme doesn’t contain the code and styling for it.

Long story short, and to answer your question, when using external plugins that are not physically part of a theme, the features, functionality, and settings will stay intact across all themes. Anything that is physically part of a theme, will not show if you switch to a different theme.

This is why I am getting away from adding things to my themes that will cause problems when someone decides to switch to a different theme when they use elements inside their content like a post or page. IT’s another reason why I stick to pure WordPress coding standards as well.

But things like dropcaps, highlight text, info boxes, etc., will never be perfect if one plans to change themes on a regular basis. But if one does, the option to copy and paste the css for these elements into a new theme they use if they want to maintain those stylish elements such as dropcaps; otherwise they will have to lose them.

What I am planning to do is to make my new themes typography elements and in-page things like dropcaps and info boxes, etc., with what is called inline styling; styles that are part of your content and not the theme. So for example, what it is now as:

<p><span class="dropcap">A</span>pples and oranges are great to eat.</p>

Then inline styling would look like this:

<p><span style="font-size:30px; color:#555; width:40px; height:40px; margin-right:6px; padding-top:3px;">A</span>pples and oranges are great to eat.</p>

The first sample above means the styling for the dropcap is done from the theme style.css, which you would lose the styling if you changed themes. However, the second sample uses inline styling which means you will not lose the styling if you change themes because this styling is part of your content and not the theme.

Confusing probably but these are the challenges when making themes and websites, but also knowing people switch themes time-to-time. The trick is to not load themes up with a ton of built in plugins and shortcodes.

One could make a separate plugin that does all these shortcodes or styles such as dropcaps etc., but it’s not a perfect solution either because then it means a plugin will have to be kept up to date and in a sense, they really only provide one type of styling. A person may switch to a different theme that has a completely total different look and style but then the plugin that provides all these pretty elements may no longer fit in the new theme style environment.

lol…did all this give you a headache yet? ??

Word of Advice….keep your site simple and if you want to use a lot of custom styled elements within your pages, use inline styles if you can. But make sure the styling you use fits for the content and not so much for the theme itself (or any theme).

Remember that support is also there for you ??

You are great! I start to understand. I will certainly join the StyledThemes (payed) support in a day or two. Can you only explain the difference between buying one theme or the one-year membership?
OK, for membership you have access to all themes, and I suppose you can keep the downloaded themes afterwards. But if you don’t pay another year, you loose the support?
And when buying one theme, then the support is forever?
Are there other differences?

I hope that all you have explained to me above will be helpful to others as well ??

definitely…aside from the free themes I have here at www.ads-software.com, the choice is up to the person with the pro version(s) as well. If you just want one Pro theme only, then purchasing the individual one is all you need. However, if you want to try all my themes that are current, but also any new themes I release throughout the year, you have full access to them all. The theme membership I have is by far the better deal but again, if you just need one theme only, then the membership option is not needed. After your year is up (expires), you can still use the theme, no restrictions, but support does expire unless you renew the membership (your option) which would then give you another year of themes and support. Support for doing the individual theme only, has no expiry date.

The theme seems to work very well, its design is awesome, there are very well explained tutorials and I want to thank the author for all his help. I’ve just purchased Preference PRO and mark this conversation as resolved.