What Would Woo Do

www.sans-serif.com | 831.338.4687

What would woo do?

A brief overview of what happens when your client doesn’t have or doesn’t want the theme you know

best, and you miss it terribly.

Presented by Laura RinaldiPrincipal Catalyst Creations West

http://www.sans-serif.com/

www.sans-serif.com | 831.338.4687

There are many types of themes


3 www.sans-serif.com | 831.338.4687

This is what comes up if you search within Wordpress



This is what you get when you search for premium themes in Google



This is what you get if you go to Elegant Themes



This is what you get in Studio Press



Ink themes selection



And Woothemes



A little bit about WooThemes and Canvas



And yet, I have created sites that look different with it.



Back end of Canvas



And documentation of Canvas



So, when you can’t use what you want?

• The client has already bought a theme• You are working on en existing site, and the client just wants you

to modify their theme, and oh, make a bunch of changes that will be fine, because they have a theme, but it wans’t designed for what they want to do.

• Or some other lame reason, such as the client doesn’t like woo, and there is nothing you can do about that.



So, what do you do when you can’t woo?

• You can install Canvas anyway, and build the site out, and be a hero, and the client is none the wiser

• You can work with what you have, and learn one more skill, the skill of working with different themes even though you don’t like them.

• You can choose not to work with the client, although that is a bit on the extreme side.



So, familiarize yourself with other themes

• Some of the themes I have had to work with include Genisis, InkThemes, some free themes, and the bane of my existence, Elegant themes.

• And install JetPack.



Why should you install JetPack?

• It comes with a bucketload of extensions

• SiteStats, for when you can’t or they don’t know about Google Antalytics.

• Custom CSS



CSS Stylesheet Editor



Back end for Elegant theme



Genisis Theme settings



Thematic settings



Ink Themes



And this theme, Atahualpa



My story of when I built in Canvas anyway



The theme she was using.



Boldly’s backend



So, the site was live, what to do?

• I could have used theme Test Drive, if I had known about it• Instead I installed backup buddy, and rebuilt the site in a sub-

directory I called “dev”, so that I could get approval for the design.

• Once it was approved, I made the site live by overwriting the index.php folder, and updating the .htaccess file.



And here is what the revised site looked like



But, what happens when you can’t use Canvas

• A client came to me recently with a five page deck (which used to be know as powerpoint slides). She wanted a site build with it.

• To say that the deck was sparse is calling Death Valley a little bit hot.

• There were no graphics, other than the logo, no concepts, nothing, and the site had to go up in two weeks.

• She wanted it all on one page, a one page theme, and that was something I didn’t think I could do in Canvas, so I went searching for a theme.

• I didn’t know where to start, so started with themeforest



Looking in Forest Themes



Theme Forest One Pager



This is what the back end looks like



But, without documentation, this is what I ended up with



So, I went looking for another one pager



Tried a free one-page from InkThemes



Because it was free, light on documentation



And I still wasn’t any closer



So, went to WooThemes, and bought their one pager



With the usual features



And familiar backend



As well as unfamiliar



And this is what I ended up with



But the best part was the documentation


So, that is what I woo do

• If I can’t use canvas, use at least a wootheme• If I can’t use woo, make sure I have jetpack• And if the site is easy enough to just change to Canvas because

all the changes wont’ work with the current site, dont’ tell the client and just do it.

Software

What Would Woo Do