Theme Buyer's Guide


This article will attempt to debunk some common myths about RapidWeaver themes and advice on choosing the best theme for a website. Many themes are extensively customisable, so it is sensible not to look at a single theme purely at its face value; but more-so at its hidden capabilities. Anybody with a modest web designer eye can make a $20 theme look like a $20,000 website!

Customisability

There's a danger when talking about themes, with comparing RapidWeaver themes to Wordpress themes. The latter is typically an instant stamp of eye-candy you give a website. Many Wordpress themes are inherently very 'locked' and hard to change much. For example, some Wordpress themes don't let you change fonts, colours or even banner images. Try not to consider RapidWeaver themes to be the same thing. RapidWeaver themes are more of a 'starting point' for creating something great.

RapidWeaver themes typically start-off with a default banner image, font formatting and colours. However you then have options in the page inspector to quickly change away from the defaults and introduce your own design. Within a short space of time, you can finish with a webpage appearance that is actually a significant departure from what you started with. Many RapidWeaver themes make tasks like swiping a banner image incredibly simple.

Therefore conventional RapidWeaver themes are still a very appropriate method for a large majority of people to be using. Themes provide that basic 'boilerplate', but often with enormous potential to change and extend further. RapidWeaver themes also suit all skill levels.

Blank framework or theme?

The fact cannot be ignored that the choice of blank frameworks has grown significantly in the past 15 years. Starting with Jonas Themes 'BlocksBox' for the Yourhead Blocks plugin; then Charlie Lockhart Blueball FreeStacks system came along for the Yourhead Stacks plugin. Both were ground-breaking solutions and worthy of everyone owning. Now there are a dozen or more other blank frameworks fiercely competing with one another, each proclaiming to be better than the rest. It's easy to become disillusioned and unsure which one is best.

So do you actually need to start with a blank theme? This is a careful consideration to make. A $20 theme might give you everything you need to get started and save you several hours of painstakingly building and testing the initial page structure. In the web design world, time is money! Pre-built themes are extensively tested and often do much of the hard work for you already. They may also take account of factors you had not considered yet.

Therefore in the broadest sense, it is worth considering blank frameworks only for the websites you might struggle to build with normal themes. Obviously blank themes have to have the significant codebase to support a huge number of variations; and therefore some blank themes can be awfully 'bloated' with layers and layers of hugely complex code you may never need. Also remember most blank themes only work with the Stacks plugin. Print / PDF output can also be pretty horrific with certain blank frameworks.

Is there a hybrid solution between a conventional theme and something that allows more freeform design? This was certainly our ambition with the RWSkinz framework. It starts off working much like a normal RapidWeaver theme. But you have different build options available to suit your requirements. For example, you can toggle off page elements and opt to rebuild them yourself with Stacks. Or import an existing Bootstrap template and edit the HTML code to include your own content. RWSkinz is also heavily focused on page loading speed and website accessibility.

Banners

Typically these are the big areas towards the top of a webpage that contain images and perhaps other content like the website title (depending on the theme used). Some argue that banners are nothing more than a waste of space! However in many websites, banners are the first thing people see and they really do help to set the tone of the page. Banners are often the most distinctive feature of a webpage.

Some themes have banners which resize to the shape / size of the images you supply. Other themes may apply images as a CSS background, and therefore have height settings to use.

Changing the banner image in a theme for your own is often a simple task. However it can radically change the appearance of your website. It is hugely satisfying to add your own banner images to a page and instantly see your web design evolve. Big banners are very-much in fashion currently, so don't be afraid to go big and go bold!

Some themes allow you to place a logo, title, slogan, social icons or extra content area within your banner. So if you are concerned about how much space a banner consumes, consider that the same area can be shared with other things.

Location, location, location!

This term has been coined by realtors / estate agents for a while. And the same is partly true for RapidWeaver themes too. Navigation (the method of getting from one location to another location) is probably by-far the most important criteria when choosing a theme. Simply because navigation is typically the hardest thing to change. It is vitally important end users can find the webpages they want to read. Different themes have different navigation systems. Likewise it's important to recognise the different types of navigation and when one may be more suitable than another.

Traditionally many themes had block or split navigation layouts. These are really good for website accessibility and instances where you anticipate users to drill-down through the sitemap, to find what they are looking for. Quite a number of expert web designers actually prefer these basic navigation types over others. But on larger websites (with more webpages), they can become more cumbersome. Stalker is an example of a split-navigation theme and is ideally suited towards smaller and more simplified websites.

On the other hand, drop-down menus allow the user to use their mouse and drill-down through multiple levels of a website to find the page they are looking for. They emulate the menu you see in many desktop applications. This enables the user to pre-select and jump straight to the page they want. Drop-downs are great for larger or more complex websites with lots more pages. Media is any example of a theme with a drop-down menu, and would be good to use for a more complex website.

But let's not forget people on smartphones and tablets. These devices are without mouse support; which effecting rules-out drop-down menu support. Also the touch input requires far more spacing around links (usability research has typically suggested 45px as a minimum). In most situations, a toggle menu is more appropriate to use on smaller touch screens. Quite a few themes hide the normal desktop menu and display a dedicated mobile menu on screens less-than 768px wide (or 48 em).

Concluding notes

Don't be tempted into thinking the more you spend on a theme or framework, the more it can do. Conventional themes can certainly be mighty-powerful, fun and easy to work with. There are some experienced RapidWeaver owners who use RapidWeaver commercially to build client websites; and some of these people never stray from more than 2 or 3 theme designs. Because they are satisfied with what those themes offer, they trust the themes to perform, and those themes conserve time for focusing on other aspects of the website build (like copywriting and SEO).

19/05/2023
Web design by Will Woodgate