Looks pretty-Contructed Poorly

  • UPDATE: Before you use this theme, you should simply consider clicking the Unsolved Support Tickets link and you will find 49 PAGES of support issues unresolved. The reason for this is probably the 18 pages of ACTIVE support issues. That’s hundreds and hundreds of issues with this theme. And some of the issues are really basic common sense that it is shocking that developers released this and made this available as a default theme.

    At first, this site looks really pretty and dynamic. But then you realize that they hardcoded a fake “sections” option into the theme. You can tell the Theme Options which pages are “sections” and they will load on the home page. It’s a terribly implemented solution to the common problem of wanting your content sectioned and also displayed sequentially in a scrolling page.

    But let’s say you can get past the problem of having a new content type (section) that is really just a page…You are only allowed 4 pages. Period. You have to make a child theme and edit the code to allow more than 4 pages. Once again, this is not good programming.

    Another thing is that they give you header images for your sections, but like the home page, if you have any content higher than 200px (like say a profile picture), it gets cut off when you go to the individual page (which on the home page can masquerade as a section). So for my friend, you get to see her breasts and shoulder, but her head is cut off if you look at that page on its own. It looks okay on the home page, but terrible on its own.

    But my absolute favorite mistake in this theme is the navigation bar. It stands to reason that if you have links to each of your “sections”, clicking on one of the links should scroll to your section…nope. It loads the page from scratch and now you can’t get to the other sections by scrolling–but because the header is the same, you spend some time trying to figure out why it’s not scrolling for you. After all, just a minute ago, you saw the same section and you scrolled it?

    Overall, I feel like this theme has violated several basic concepts of a theme, they have introduced ways of faking new content types and they have hardcoded limitations that make little sense.

    Sure you can modify it to your heart’s content, but a good theme, you really should have to do this much cleanup.

    To make this theme work, they should introduce a new “section” post type that lets you pick pages to go in it. So when you view the section alone, it strings all of your pages and posts selected into one page with a menu (on the right) of each item. Then the home page just really becomes a “sections archive” allowing you to show all of your sections (not just 4) as one page. Also, the headers for the home page layout for each section should be different than the direct-access sections and this theme should know it. Finally, the theme should have a common sense navigation bar that is automatically generated when you view the Sections Archive (as the homepage). Right across the top of the page should be links to the sections. And if they really cared, there would be drop-down menus automatically generated for the content that was linked in each section. Clicking on the menu should scroll you to your content. That would be a good theme.

    • This topic was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by WhirledPress. Reason: Terrible Support
Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Thread Starter WhirledPress

    (@whirledpress)

    And here are a couple of other issues: There are a number of things that should be on every page displayed at all times. You should almost never be looking at a web page and wonder, “Who’s webpage am I looking at”. That is to say that every single second you are on a webpage, it is advisable to have some method for site-identity. Once you scroll up on 2017, it’s a crap-shoot. THere’s no telling whose site you are on other than the URL.

    This theme needs the site identity to be displayed in the top navigation bar when it is stuck to the top of the page. When it’s not, the site identity information is already displayed at the bottom of the page so it’s not necessary.

    I also think that every site should display on every page the contact information, location, copyright, search and social media links. They can all fit nicely in a tiny footer bar. Each item should link to its content page. Right now, there is no static footer and you get proudly powered by WordPress on at the bottom of the content.

    Also, if you are going to have section headers (really page headers) that look different when you load the sections as pages individually as opposed to when you load the home page and scroll to the section, why not make the header sticky as well? That way, when I scroll to the second section if it has it’s own header image, it displays across the top of the screen above the menu and it sticks there until the next section scrolls in. It seems like common sense. If you want a seamless user experience, make the individual sections render as close to the home page sections as possible (and/or vice versa).

    Also, don’t think you can change the css using the “Additional CSS” theme options. It don’t work. I tried to edit the h2.entry-title class to make the section headers visible..no luck. I can type the exact same thing into Chrome devtools and it looks perfect. Why even have the additional css option if it doesn’t work?

    Also, you can’t just have your content sections for your home page, you have to have a homepage. So if you think you can make a blank home page, nope. They still carve out space for a home page and give you the fancy title home (of course it’s tiny and looks terrible, but it’s there). And under Home Page Options, that’s where you would presume to set up the homepage with its sections…nope. That’s under theme options. You still have to set your home page under homepage settings, but you set up your homepage sections under theme options. I know TLDR. Just wanted to point out some other really strangely implemented issues with this theme.

    Andrew Nevins

    (@anevins)

    WCLDN 2018 Contributor | Volunteer support

    Also, don’t think you can change the css using the “Additional CSS” theme options. It don’t work. I tried to edit the h2.entry-title class to make the section headers visible..no luck. I can type the exact same thing into Chrome devtools and it looks perfect. Why even have the additional css option if it doesn’t work?

    Can you open a support topic about that? That’s probably not an issue with the “Additional CSS”, but an issue with CSS specificity.

    Nick Halsey

    (@celloexpressions)

    The Dynamic Seventeen child theme addresses the odd way of managing the homepage sections, and extends this functionality to work on any page. It allows an unlimited number of sections, with different object types that can be featured on the homepage.

    https://www.ads-software.com/themes/dynamic-seventeen/

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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