Thesis 2
Thesis 2.0 is on fire!
I mean it is selling like hot cakes – and why not? Chris has developed an entire new WordPress environment for both the newbies and the developers. Designing a stunning theme is now perfectly easy and simple with the new Thesis 2.0. The design part aside, Chris has made the ultimate choice for all bloggers and internet marketers because it is the only highly optimized theme for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
SEO is the main factor behind the success of the Thesis theme and those who are already on Thesis 1.xxx version know how powerful and valuable this theme is. However, the recent version has made the theme more dynamic and flexible by introducing a new set of design methodology.
Now let me explain every section of the theme so that you can get the full idea about the Thesis 2.0 main features. This will help you in deciding whether the theme is suitable for your blog or not.
Packages
Packages are CSS styles that you can add to your blog for a particular box. For example, if you don’t know how to design your blog footer, just download a CSS code for your footer and upload it to your blog. The CSS coding will be applied to your blog’s design in the footer for you.
Boxes
Thesis 2.0 has introduced “Boxes” which is a very new concept similar to WordPress plugins. Packages are small scripts that you can add to the Thesis theme to add new features to your blog. For example: if you want to add a Post Slider, Related Posts, or feature Popular Posts on your blog or nearly any other feature, you don’t need to use a WordPress plugin. Instead you can upload a Box to your blog and the feature will be added.
Boxes seem similar to the WordPress plugins, but it is very different because the Thesis coding structure is much more advanced and organized than the typical plugin. A Box will help you to add any feature to your blog without messing up back-end coding and most importantly it will not slow down your blog’s loading time.
Note:- Boxes and Packages will be available on the Thesis website soon.
Thesis Skins and Editor
If you don’t want to design your blog by yourself, don’t worry, you can just download a Thesis skin and upload it to your blog. This is a really amazing feature; you can use any skin on Thesis that you like for your blog.
You can use the Skin Editor to edit a skin according to your own preferences. Let me remind you that you don’t need to do any coding; just play with the boxes already built and you will be able to design your theme in whatever manner you want.
Thesis Site Panel
In this panel you have lots of options that you can use to optimize your blog. For example, the HTML head section allows you to optimize your blog title, tagline, meta description, meta keywords, meta robots, stylesheets, favicon and canonical url. Every section then has a sub section from which you can further customize the settings of your blog. (See the below screen shot.)
Apart from these features you can also add Site Verification and Google Rel author codes in this section without editing your theme files.
Note:- The whole theme is based on Drag and Drop feature meaning you can drag any element and drop it any place you need it. This makes things much easier and saves time.
Tracking Scripts
This section allows you to add Google Analytics Tracking ID in the field. No need to add the whole code, just enter your tracking ID and start tracking your blog.
You can also add other tracking codes like Statcounter.com in this section.
404 Page
Design your own 404 page or use the default display to your users for when they attempt to navigate to a non-existent page. Thesis is built to satisfy both Google and Users; this feature proves that Thesis really cares about both.
Home Page SEO
In this section you can add a Title, Description and Keywords for your home page. You also have the option to control other meta tags like index, noindex or follow, nofollow.
Although I have skipped some of the areas of the theme, especially the Theme Editor, I can assure you that Thesis will not let you down. It is a masterpiece and any professional blogger will appreciate its many features. If you are still thinking of whether or not to buy this theme for your blog, you should strongly consider doing so; it is one of the greatest WordPress developments yet.
Everyone is using Thesis so why not YOU.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
thanx for the exploration of thesis 2.0. i jus bought it i don’t know really if i can recommend the purchase for this moment, because it’s just released and a lot essential thinks are “on the way” – actually not available… the themes, fitting for the 1.85-Version don’t work with thesis 2.0 , by the way… sometimes it bugs with such essential things like “number of clumns” today, there are 3 themes available, one blank one, the “default” one and one you can purchase by a member… how ever, i think, if i do a programming of such a powerful tool and i’m already selling it, there should be a documantation for “newbies” (thesis-nebies of course) available… i won’t stop learning how to handle it, if you are interested i can leave another comment in a few days, about how it works for me…
Marc@ Chris and his team is working on the documentation and i hope it will be available in a few weeks. Meanwhile you can try 1.85 version because it is very easy to operate.
Hi, Thanks for all the help. Can you please tell me how can I get two column page in Thesis 2? I mean with a sidebar?
Thanks in advance.
Habib
Habib@ Login to your Diythemes account and download the “6 Basic Mods for the Classic Skin” which comes with refined versions of the 1, 2, and 3-column layouts.
I have to say that although I have read dozens and dozens of supposed tutorials on Thesis2, the product is a piece of crap. There is literally NO documentation, no real users manual except one that tells you nothing about how to use the product. To say it is in any way user friendly is an outright lie. To say you don’t have to know any CSS of HTML to make it work is another lie. In the absence of any real documentation, one has to rely on people like you who sporadically put out documents on how to use bits and pieces of the theme. Let’s face it; for those of us who like a systematic approach to learning a new programming language, having no reference manual makes it absolutely impossible. This product was release way to soon evidenced by the total lack of any documentation on how to use it. That in itself is a testament to the fact that the product was released way before it should have. Now it has taken me weeks to read articles and “tutorial” on the internet to have come to the conclusion that without a real reference manual I would never be able to do justice to a web site and because of the weeks spent on trying to do same, I am told I am beyond my 30-day refund period. So much for the product and so much for customer care.
Why is this site not running on Thesis 2.0?
Peter@ I have tried thesis 2.0 and planing to use it once the Social Triggers and Pearsonified Skin are released.
Currently i am stick with 1.8.5 version. I have mention in my previous comment that there is no documentation for thesis 2.0 and that is why it is complicated to work in 2.0 environment.
Chris and his team is very slow.
I love Thesis ..
i have been same thing for other CMS systems , specially opencart and Drupal, i tried few of them, but the biggest reason why i hated them is you upgrade your system and YOu mess up everything.. seriously
they should learn few things from wordpress….
Specially theme compatiblity and theme regions