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WordPress

Posted by Holly Logan
Holly Logan
7,142 Points

Boostrap or themes?

Hi,

I build websites using themes like Bridge for my clients. I want to work faster, get more efficient and have more freedom in design without as many restrictions that some themes seem to provide.

Is Bootstrap the way to go? Is using Bootstrap better than using a theme? Or is there another way I can build these sites. I want to stick with Wordpress as my clients find it easy to use and manage.

Thanks

Eric Butler
Eric Butler
33,512 Points

Hi Holly, I also build WordPress sites for a living, but I develop themes from scratch (just to give you a sense of who's giving you advice). I'd say if your main goal is to work faster and be efficient, the best way to do that is to keep using pre-made themes but to get really sharp at CSS. That way, you can take advantage of all the ready-to-go functionality that themes (and plugins) provide, but then you can add your own CSS on top of that to customize and tweak the site's appearance to fit each clients' needs. Things like fonts, colors, imagery, sizing, spacing, hover effects, etc. are all just CSS. Try taking some CSS courses here on Treehouse (ignore any about frameworks, Sass, or Bootstrap; focus on plain CSS).

On the other hand, if your main goal is to have more freedom in terms of how the site is structured and what features are available, etc., then you might consider learning how to build your own themes. The "WordPress Development" track here on Treehouse is a great way to do that. Although if you aren't very comfortable with HTML and CSS already, those should be prerequisites. You may find that it's more training than you're interested in, if you don't really love the coding part of the job (you'll be learning PHP).

Also let me point out, Bootstrap is not going to help you if you aren't developing themes from scratch. It's just a CSS stylesheet and a JavaScript file that give you some classes to add to your HTML elements to achieve common layout tasks. You still have to do most of the site's coding on top of the foundation it gives you, so it's not really comparable to a WordPress theme, which doesn't require you coding at all. Also if you are already using a pre-built theme, trying to add Bootstrap to it will likely only create conflicts and styling problems.

Hope this information helps you decide what's right for you! Good luck and let me know if you have any questions.

2 Answers

Holly Logan
Holly Logan
7,142 Points
Holly Logan
Holly Logan
7,142 Points

Hi Eric,

Thank you very much for your informative reply! I appreciate you taking the time.

To give you more of an idea of where I am at: I know HTML and CSS but, because I am using themes all day long, I don't get much of a chance to exercise my skills. I use the Bridge theme at work and then I customise them a little bit with CSS - adding colours, using display:none alot (!), adding custom fonts and that sort of thing. However all of our sites are beginning to look all the same and very "theme-like" - lots of straight lines/sections, logo and nav always the same, footer at the bottom... it all begins to look a bit boring!

I want to have more freedom in design I guess, so you're saying that theme development is the way to go? I am originally trained as a graphic designer so really want to express some more interesting ideas and functionality in what I build.

My concern is that my speed at which I build a site will slow down but I guess that's part of learning anything new.

I am very interesting in coding and training and want to develop my skills further but I just didn't know which direction to go. I understand what you are saying about Bootstrap - that makes sense. I did start the Treehouse Front End Dev degree last year and then paused it, but from what you're saying I should continue that path (as well as the Wordpress Theme Dev path)?

One more question - I have a big site build coming up for a large company who need something very robust, unique and able to withstand a decent amount of traffic so my concern is that a generic theme like Bridge won't cut it. Do you think those sorts of themes are fine to use in this scenario?

Thanks again! Holly

Jacob Mishkin
Jacob Mishkin
23,118 Points

for your big site coming up, its not about the theme as much as its about hosting. Here is a solid article on high traffic optimization. wp traffic

If you're looking for more freedom in design I would start with this theme underscores _s

Eric Butler
Eric Butler
33,512 Points
Eric Butler
Eric Butler
33,512 Points

Holly, I understand what you mean about sites feeling same-same with the same theme, and about feeling rusty in your coding. A quick way to break away from the same would be to simply go shopping for a new theme. Or you could try using a theme builder plugin, like Visual Composer, Divi or others. I personally find those to be more confusing than helpful, but many people seem to like them; if you get the hang of using those, they might be a nice way to get more design freedom but avoid having to code a theme from scratch.

I personally prefer the absolute freedom I get from building a theme from scratch, so if that idea excites you, go for it. Just know that it means you have to do everything: the PHP, the HTML, the CSS, the JavaScript for any interaction effects, etc., so this is not going to be a fast solution for you - in terms of learning it and even in terms of building out each site once you've learned it. The reason is that you simply have to do more, but! you get to do it your own way. (You can add plugins on top of your theme to add certain functionality pretty quickly, or you can also learn how to build your own plugins!) If you want to go this route, I personally would recommend first getting really strong and up to date in HTML5, CSS, and jQuery (plain JavaScript would be great too, but jQuery is a lot easier to use and super common). These 3 languages are the building blocks of any website online and can take you far whether you stick with WordPress, or use anything else. If you're going to build themes from scratch, you can try the WordPress Developer courses here and see how it feels.

As for your upcoming very robust and unique project, depending on what they want you might even question whether WordPress is worth using for it: while WordPress is very flexible, it's not a panacea and it's simply wrong when you get into complex website projects.

As for traffic, nothing is better for handling traffic than a caching plugin. WP Super Cache is made by the folks who run WordPress and I've found it easy and effective. Don't turn it on when you're still developing the site; just activate it when the site is ready to go live and it should shave seconds off load times across the board.

Above all, if you have an important project, stick with what you are experienced at. You don't want to have to learn a brand new toolkit when you have a major deadline looming; you'll kick yourself for complicating things.

Hope all this is helpful!