I’ve been hanging around the periphery of WordPress world since the beginning, but it hasn’t been until recently that I’ve started to look at actively using WP for work projects. Some of the terminology confuses me a bit, so I’m hoping to get some help clarifying things, and confirm if I have a correct understanding.
First – Themes vs page builders. If I understand correctly, a theme is essentially a package of pre-built and designed pages and components that you can slightly customize by swapping out colors, photography and text. You many have a couple of variations of the navigation header, footer, and a pool of choices for sections or specific components like buttons or cards.
I’ve seen Astra theme a lot, and also StudioPress. If I understand things, Astra is just a theme, but StudioPress has the Genesis framework? This really confuses me at this point.
I’ve been trying out a couple of page builders, and I’ve been happy using Oxygen. I build a lot of static sites (jamstack stuff with 11ty primarily) and use Bootstrap a lot, so Oxygen paired with Automatic CSS is pretty comfortable to me. I’ve heard good things about Bricks, too. Since I’ve not really used any themes or frameworks, I’m assuming a page builder gives me more granular control.
With a page builder like Oxygen, I can create a fully custom design, but I also pretty much have to build everything. With a theme, everything comes pre-built, and all I have to do (and all I really can do) is customize the content and colors, and pick and choose what goes on page. The theme with framework confuses me a bit, though.
​
I’m getting to the point where I have some clients who need the most basic of websites (3-5 pages, few updates, all handled by me), and some clients who might need a fully custom website. My thought is that Oxygen/ACSS is great for the fully custom, but If I want to use WP for the more basic sites, would a theme/framework make it easier to bang out these simple sites?
Finally, how do you make a site “client proof” and limited the editing but still provide enough access for clients who want to manage things going forward? Is the page builder vs theme even relevant in this discussion?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also, if there are any solid online resources you trust to explain these, that would help too. Unfortunately, most of my Google searches turn on the firehose of “pseudo content” that seem to provide just enough info to hook you into buying something. Almost too much info.
​
thanks!
[ad_2]