Alternatives


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blue sky

Posted: 9/18/2013
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Given the direction (or lack of it) that 4.2 seems to be heading in and all the problems reported here what are the real alternatives for generating themes for wordpress?

I know there have been lots of complaints understandably regarding 4.2 but I do not see any decent alternatives to Art if you are just wanting to build themes.
 
blue sky

Posted: 9/22/2013
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anyone??
 


Posted: 9/22/2013
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4. There isa free highly configurable theme, Weaver II.
 
MikeC

Posted: 9/23/2013
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Ops...don't take out the dash from the last one.
 
MikeC

Posted: 9/23/2013
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The most impressive part of Genesis is:

1) Unlimited Updates, Support & Sites
2) One-time Purchase Fee

So, no b.s. subscription? Awesome! And at $60, it's cheap!

"Get every theme we make, now and in the future, for ONLY $349.95!"

Again, awesome! I'm sold! I'm definitely going to buy it.
 
Nick

Posted: 9/23/2013
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So, we all agree that Artisteer is the best for what it does... We also agree that this online thing is the worst thing ever. Everything falls apart after that !

My question to you is, are you sure you are making a good calculated business decision, what's best for you, and not an emotional decision? Are you separating your anger, and disgust, while deciding what to do? Step back, and think about it, and if you like, I'll explain my thinking to why I'm sticking with Artisteer - at least for now.

 
KeithAdv

Posted: 9/23/2013
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Quote MikeC:

The most impressive part of Genesis is:

1) Unlimited Updates, Support & Sites
2) One-time Purchase Fee

So, no b.s. subscription? Awesome! And at $60, it's cheap!

"Get every theme we make, now and in the future, for ONLY $349.95!"

Again, awesome! I'm sold! I'm definitely going to buy it.

Huge support, tutorials, code snippets, active well-moderated forum--they do it right.

 
KeithAdv

Posted: 9/23/2013
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Quote Nick:

My question to you is, are you sure you are making a good calculated business decision, what's best for you, and not an emotional decision?

I think it's fine if some people want to stay with the program. Everyone has different needs. I respect that, and them.

The best way for me to respond to your question is to say that I made my decision years before Artisteer was written, if that makes any sense.

If a company makes major changes that show a clear lack of respect for their customers, I start walking for the door. If their changes potentially impact my relationship with my customers, I run.

I've done pretty well with that philosophy so far, knock on wood.
 
MikeC

Posted: 9/23/2013
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Personally, I spend a lot of money each and every year buying themes, theme subscriptions, frameworks, plugins, etc. I've tried just about everything out there with varying levels of success.

A lot of people are saying Artisteer is the best. Let's think about that for a second because I certainly have over the past few days and weeks.

I've seen a lot of the sites people post in the forums and played around with all of the sample templates over the years. None of them are exceptional. Most of them are average at best. A few do stand out but they're heavily modified with tons of plugins, custom code, etc.

So, can anyone honestly, truly say that the designs coming out of Artisteer are the best?

I looked at some of the sample sites done in Genesis, as an example, and I realized that many couldn't be duplicated within Artisteer.

It's usually people pointing to other themes asking if they could be done is Artisteer and the answer is usually "no."

So, how can Artisteer be the best? Or maybe a better question is, what is Artisteer the best at?

Artisteer is a good "all-around" tool that's able to quickly generate themes across multiple platforms but it isn't particularly the best at anything.

In fact, there are a lot of negatives with Artisteer such as online exports, broke SDKs, broken responsiveness, outdated javascript libraries, slow updates/patches, etc.

There are frameworks that are a lot better at both design and layout capabilities. They also tend to have a lot of the extras built in like visual composer-type page creation and layout tools, shortcodes, sliders, tons of widget areas, form builders, page template options, etc. You know, all the stuff Artisteer doesn't have.

The problem with frameworks is that they take more time to build and require you to provide most, if not all, of the graphical assets. If you're a graphic artist or have a vast image asset collection, I think you're better server with a framework.

Also, as a sidenote, anyone doing site design in Photoshop is better served taking that design from Photoshop and dropping it into a framework instead of coding things yourself.
 
Trevor

Posted: 9/23/2013
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@MikeC - Artisteer is extremely simple and easy for quickly creating and styling a theme. That said, it's horrible at suggesting designs that look good, let alone great. But I'm not sure it's fair to blame Artisteer for artistic decisions made by its users.

http://boxofficeace.com is one of the first sites I created with Artisteer, and will be the first I upgrade with my WP Tuxedo exporter, once that's up to par for production use. There's things I will change when that happens, such as adding responsive design and simplifying the design in general, but it's still not a bad looking site at all. And yes there's a lot more backend programming that what came out of Aristeer, but it's all based on Art's layout and styles.

I've gotten many compliments for the site's look, and to my eyes there's much more to do, but as it's mostly for fun I've been lagging on working on the design.
 
Bill_P

Posted: 9/25/2013
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For those looking for an alternative method of developing WordPress sites, the combination of the Genesis Framework and Dynamik Website Builder is very good.
 
MikeC

Posted: 9/25/2013
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@ Bill_P

Thanks! Dynamik Website Builder seems like an great addon to Genesis. Again, they have the right idea with a one time payment and lifetime updates.

There's also the Extender Plugin for Genesis by the same author that works as a plugin vs. Dynamik Website Builder, which is a child theme.
 
fred

Posted: 10/30/2013
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neil, if you've built sites which are far better why not provide a link to one of them? Also you're touting your services as a web designer (yet you use Artisteer!) but don't have portfolio of work.
 
;-)

Posted: 10/30/2013
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Quote :
I built this site in a hour...


You can tell. lol
 
Bill_P

Posted: 10/30/2013
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Before spending any (or any more) money on WordPress frameworks, themes, layout builders, etc., try the free Weaver II theme (http://wordpress.org/themes/weaver-ii). If you don't like it, nothing ventured, nothing gained. If you like it, you might want to consider upgrading to Weaver II Pro (http://pro.weavertheme.com/) which costs $49.95US for the professional version. The Weaver site has 10 reasons why you should switch to Weaver II, but read Gary Matthews' "10 More Reasons to Choose Weaver II" (http://goo.gl/cv9JpU).
 
James

Posted: 10/30/2013
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@Bill_P

Well that's the worst thing I've seen all week. Thanks. :-X
 
blue_sky

Posted: 2/22/2016
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was wondering if anyone had an update to this??
 
KeithAdv

Posted: 3/28/2016
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Here's my update. I was just visiting this old forum and saw this thread that I had posted in in 2013. Interesting that Artisteer hasn't had any substantial updates since then.

When Artisteer required all users to export templates through their servers instead of locally, I abandoned it immediately. In fact, I had recently finished a client site with Artisteer but redesigned it in the framework mentioned above at my own expense. I have thanked myself many times for that as I have continued to work with him and his site but am not hindered by this strange old software.

I did three things in 2013 after dumping Artisteer--get proficient at that framework, get a lifetime membership with another company that has a popular drag and drop theme, and learn more about PHP and CSS. With those three tools in hand, my designer partner and I now create very contemporary, functional WordPress sites. I develop the sites locally and then upload them to the host without having to worry whether a server somewhere in the Ukraine is up and running.

I feel much more connected to the WordPress development world by using widely known and respected tools. Almost every professional developer is familiar with the tools I use, while most are completely unaware of Artisteer. The benefit is that the support for what I use now is so widespread that I almost never encounter a problem that someone else somewhere hasn't already solved. (And in other professional forums I can talk freely about any software tool I use by name without fear of a paranoid administrator deleting the thread!) Virtually anything my partner can visualize, we can create quickly and efficiently.

I chose the right path for me. It was hard to completely abandon a way of doing things but I reap the benefits of doing it nearly every day.
 
MeToo

Posted: 3/29/2016
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@ KeithAdv

Many of the old timers have followed your path and long gone. I agree with you 110%.

The problem is that those who still use Artisteer are incapable of learning a frame work. It's too hard. They can click a mouse. Nothing else. They get stuck if you ask them to do simple css changes. php? forget it. That's the Artisteer audience.
 
blue_sky

Posted: 7/13/2016
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Well, as the originator of the post I came back in hope Artisteer might have done something but it is clear to me that this is a dead product.

I have to say I fall in the easy to use camp and the thought of learning framework, Genesis is just too daunting for me. So I am now looking at themes such as Suffusion and DiVi. Any recommendations along these lines would be welcome but sadly I still really like Artisteer. Well I would if it was responsive and mobile friendly.
 
Sean

Posted: 7/13/2016
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Quote blue_sky:

Well, as the originator of the post I came back in hope Artisteer might have done something but it is clear to me that this is a dead product.

I have to say I fall in the easy to use camp and the thought of learning framework, Genesis is just too daunting for me. So I am now looking at themes such as Suffusion and DiVi. Any recommendations along these lines would be welcome but sadly I still really like Artisteer. Well I would if it was responsive and mobile friendly.

I agree Blue Sky. Totally Agree.
 
Blue Sky

Posted: 7/19/2016
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and now I see Suffusion is no longer available!!

Apart from DiVi are there any recommended alternatives?
 
Move Along

Posted: 7/20/2016
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Quote blue_sky:
Genesis is just too daunting for me.

If Genesis is too daunting for you, I don't say this to be mean but you should consider a different career. There's no shortcuts in being skilled. Artisteer worked for awhile but that ship has sailed.
 
Truther

Posted: 7/24/2016
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Divi by Elegant Themes is a great alternative. I've been using it for a few years now and it's getting better and better each year.

- Prompt and knowledgeable support.
- Friendly and dependable community.
- Good addons like Monarch and Bloom.
- Divi 3 is launching in 2 months.

Get lifetime membership $249.
 
blue_sky

Posted: 9/10/2016
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I have now bought DiVi but am disappointed to see that you need a good knowledge of CSS. Even to get a background image in the header or show the navigation below the header requires CSS. Bit of a shame really.
 
Move Along

Posted: 9/10/2016
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Quote blue_sky:
Even to get a background image in the header or show the navigation below the header requires CSS. Bit of a shame really.

What's really a shame is that even something as easy as css is too hard for you. Time to get out of the biz.