Hi there!
I would like to create a complete WP-site with Layouts from scratch. Meaning: not based on an existing theme but with a blank screen.
As much as I´ve seen there are lot´s of examples/tutorials of how to implement it into an existing theme but not really about how to build your very own.
Any idea where to start?
Or is there maybe a super-basic starter-theme which would be best as a starting point?
Cheers,
Manuel
Hello Manuel,
If you want to get familiar with Layouts you can start with a blank theme and use the tutorials from the Toolset Documentation as help.
What you see when you install the Toolset Starter Theme and its Child Theme will be an almost blank page. As Layouts uses Bootstrap 3, you will not start completely empty, because Bootstrap already has styles and sizes predefined. They are the basic components for Layout based designs.
You can download it from the themes tab in your account: https://toolset.com/account/downloads/#toolset-themes.
You will find documentation about this theme here: https://toolset.com/documentation/user-guides/toolset-starter-theme/
If you use this theme to start, you will need to define a layout for the whole site, so you will be in the end using your own Layouts theme, though it will be based on the Bootstrap framework.
You can also play with the Toolset Bootstrap Starter site, which is a blank site to discover the things you can achieve with Toolset. This will be a test site installed on wp-types.com where you can test and create anything with the Toolset tools: http://discover-wp.com/site-types/toolset-bootstrap-starter/
If you are an advanced user you may also find helpful instructions and details in the support documentation for theme authors:
https://toolset.com/documentation/user-guides/layouts-theme-integration/
https://toolset.com/documentation/user-guides/how-to-build-toolset-based-themes/
https://toolset.com/documentation/programmer-reference/layouts-framework-api/
Kind regards,
Cristina
Hi Cristina,
great – thanks very much for this detailed information. I will follow what you suggested! 🙂
Have a great weekend!
Manuel
Hi Cristina,
tried lot´s of things yesterday – I think I got the concept – thanks!!! 🙂
One last thing:
I´ve seen that there a many tuts etc. out there which describe how to use Layouts together with other Frameworks (like Genesis, Divi, Beaver) ...
I´m not really getting why that would make sense. Seems to me like using a framework/builder within another framework/builder. Is that a workflow you would recommend?
What I would do now is:
- start building everything in Layouts, based on a toolset starter child theme
- writing all the css in the childthemes style.css file
So my last questions:
- Is there any reason why I should use another builder in addition?
- Should I put the CSS in the "Layouts-CSS an -JS" section instead of in the child themes css-file?
THANKS again!
Manuel
Hi Manuel,
happy to hear good news 🙂
As every framework has a certain learning curve, many web designers use builders and theming frameworks they are familiar with and where they feel comfortable to speed up the process of building sites.
When they need special features for a site that these frameworks do not contain, like the ones provided with the Toolset plugins, an existing design has to meet the Toolset environment and for these cases we have the integration plugins that allow preserve the basic look and feel of an already designed site.
My personal opinion is that every additional framework or complex plugin is a potential source of problems. So from my humble opinion, if you build everything in Layouts as you like it and are in control of your own stylesheets and functions, you will avoid future problems with updates or changes from third party frameworks.
Regarding the CSS, most of the CSS for your overall site customization will be placed best in the Child Theme stylesheet.
The Layouts-CSS an -JS section will also serve in the same way to store style information.
It is a good place to put additional classes that are used just for specific views, forms or pages. Sometimes it will be faster to too look it up there if you need to make a quick change on a single View.
You may know it already, but here is a reference about how to add custom theme options to your theme: https://toolset.com/2017/04/how-to-add-custom-theme-options-to-a-toolset-based-theme/
Good luck with your sites and kind regards,
Cristina
Ok, might be offtopic but I have to say this:
"I LOVE TOOLSET!!!" 🙂
It´s really fun to work with your tools!!!
