Today we’re launching a new feature into all our next generation WordPress themes that will potentially see the end of theme documentation for good – we present to you our 1-click theme installer for both new AND existing WordPress sites.
We’ve already integrated this new functionality into all our WordPress themes and it’s available right now to download.
Do we need a theme installer?
Traditionally WordPress themes were simple and utilised all the options WordPress offered. When theme developers made these themes they simply utilised this existing technology and built the theme around it. This made it very easy for WordPress users of all skill levels to just pick up a WordPress theme, upload it and activate it. No additional work was required to make them work; they could start to blog immediately.
These days WordPress is a different beast altogether and users expect so much more from a theme than they used to. WordPress is now considered to be a content management system (CMS) that empowers full business websites, creative portfolios and of course the standard blog.
With this in mind theme developers like ourselves have built custom features and functionality into these next generation WordPress themes to allow users to update their sites with as much ease and flexibility as possible. Custom post types can allow for easy uploading of job listings, portfolio items, new team member pages, document management sections and so on. The downside however to all this extra functionality is that the users of the themes have to setup all these extra features and options and pages themselves. Depending on their level of expertise, their experience of WordPress and the way the theme has been built and documented this could mean they take a long time doing it! Some may even give up and not use the theme at all.
We’re guilty of this ourselves as some of our theme documentation has stretched across 8 or 9 pages, this being the price of setting up a next generation theme.
How does it work?
This is the great part, it’s so so easy. What you do is buy a next generation WordPress theme from us and upload the theme files in the traditional method into the WP-CONTENT/THEMES folder, activating it as before. What we then do is redirect you to the installer page where you get to choose what kind of website you have. If it’s a brand new installation of WordPress with no real content then click the tab called ‘I’m installing this theme on a brand new website’ and voila! One big green button crying out to be clicked. With one click and a wait of say 10 seconds we will install your chosen theme for you – simples.
It’s important to choose the right tab as each installer does something different depending on what type of site you have.
The “new site” tab installs dummy content first so that we can present a site our users can see and change hands-on. It sets up the theme options, widgets, banners, page templates and so on and it’s been proven through testing to save novice WordPress users over an hour in the setup process. You can then add, edit and remove this dummy content safe in the knowledge that you haven’t missed anything in the setup.
The other exciting part about the installer is that we cater for existing WordPress sites and use the current content to setup the theme correctly. We even add in extra control and break the installer out into separate stages so that advanced users can choose what to install and what to setup.
Screenshots of the 1-click installer
Upon theme activation you get redirected to the theme installer.
New WordPress site installer
Existing WordPress site installer
Thoughts?
We’d love to get your thoughts on this new feature. See any improvements you’d like making, are you amazed at this feature and simply want to try it out for yourself? Well do so, just download a next generation WordPress theme today! Give us feedback too in the comments below, it really does help and we appreciate all the feedback we get.
