[Resolved] Is it possible to install a reference site first and then Avada and integration?

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[gerhardR-2]

Is it working to install a reference site first and then Avada and the theme integration for it?

Is Avada even beneficial if i use Layouts and all the Toolset plugins? Or would the twentyseventeen or the toolset startet theme be enough?

I am just not sure if that works and makes sense. I think i just dont fully understand what the whole mechanism does.

[Beda]

A reference site is intended to give you kind of a "kickstart".

As such, those sites include several pre-made post types, fields, taxonomies, and so on, along with content.

Then, you can either develop your site directly on top of such a reference site, or just check and learn how it's built, and then use the knowledge (and eventually modules, exports, and so on) to do your project.

What you ask for would work, but it's not productive.

I would suggest to use the Reference sites as a local development "sandbox" and use them also to try things out.

The real development of the live site should be in a clean as possible and minimal as possible site, so there is often no need to install a whole reference site unless you plan to build exactly what one of the many Reference Sites offer.

Often it's enough to get this module from here, and that module from there, to achieve your projects.

Now, Avada is quite a Theme 🙂
I personally always prefer the way of "less is more".

This is a personal preference of course, but I like to develop a Theme for each project, starting from a minimal Boilerplate like The Starter Theme, or if you like, here I share my personal Theme, you can do whatever you like with it:
hidden link

It's fully Toolset Compatible but not our Official theme, so we don't provide debug or support for it.

I would pick Toolset Starter or the above theme, not Avada, as that one is simply too much for my projects.

[gerhardR-2]

Thank you so much for your help! That is very well explained and makes it clearer. I will use the reference site as a sandbox and develop from the starter theme.

Would it be possible to integrate Avada later on if i find out that i need more functions or would it be very complicated?

Its a great support that you guys have. Very appreciated!

[Beda]

This is theoretically not an issue, but keep in mind changing a Theme is like changing the "face" of your Website.

If you switch, it can mean that several things that looked and worked well with one theme might not look as well or work as well with another.

Of course implementing this is possible but it would require probably some work, and several tests on a Staging Site prior to deplyment live.

I hope this helps, otherwise we are here to clear doubts 🙂

[gerhardR-2]

Okay, so i got started with the toolset starter theme and i like the way it works. but how would i go in an efficient way, if i really want to customize it? is the best way to use the bootstrap classes? and where do i add them? would i have to add them to the child theme of the starter template?

[Beda]

If you cusomtize a Theme you should always use a Child Theme.
We provide one on the download page of your Toolset Account.

The Starter Theme is built with Bootstrap so those classes will work well.