I have had the WPRemix3 Template system for a while now but only recently dove into it to actually use on a client project.  My reluctance was that it’s not your typical template and I knew that there would be a learning curve for me to get up to speed with it and to feel comfortable enough to deploy it on client projects. 

After spending an hour or two reading the PDF that came with the source files I figured I would give it a shot on one of my sandbox WordPress installations.  I was surprised at how fast I was able to wrap my head around it and was kicking myself for not using it sooner.

When it comes to themes for WordPress I typically like to work with Brian Gardner’s StudioPress themes or WooThemes for a starter template and build around that but with WPRemix3 Template system I was able to design the template from the ground up.  There are tons of available layouts that you can chose from to conquer just about layout scenario you can imagine.  Even the rare event where a client has way too many pages with long names for the standard horizontal navigation and you are forced to go with a vertical menu (which I ran into today w/ one of my newest client projects).

In addition to a wide variety of page layouts, you also have the ability to chose from different header variations as well.  This is nice for sites that will have a different header on their home page but on internal pages you can utilize a shorter, minimalistic header.  This is something that I have rarely done in the past but I can see this having value down the road when I design a clients layout from scratch.

Another thing that is an option with WPRemix3 Template system that I haven’t been able to look at very closely is the ability to add a magazine style layout, which is extremely popular today.  I would imagine that my next project that requires a magazine style layout I will give this theme add-on a closer look, but for building somewhat static sites in WordPress this is a gem.  *Link to the WPRemix Style Gallery

Lately I have been leveraging WordPress as an overall CMS for clients due to it’s simplicity and how easy it is to bring them up to speed with managing their content.  With WPRemix you can clip out the blogging aspect of WordPress altogether if you want, which makes it nice when the client is adamant about not wanting to have a blog on their website.

In addition to a wide selection of page layouts (home pages, gallery pages, product pages, inner pages, etc.)and header variations that can be mixed and matched on select pages you can also select from a couple of sidebar options.  For instance, on one of my projects I was working on today I used a totally different sidebar for the corporate blog area than I did for the static content pages that the public is greeted with.  There is simply a link to the blog on the static side of the site that more or less opens up a whole new world of content when the visitor goes there, but yet the site content is managed completely from inside of WordPress.  This makes so much more sense to me than when you see a static site linking out to blogger or free wordpress, this has always left me puzzled why larger corporations would do this. 

Getting Around in WPRemix3: Under the Hood

The WPRemix3 Template system zip file is larger than your average WordPress theme so it takes a little bit longer to upload it, but go ahead and load the entire directory even if you think you aren’t going to need some of the template files.  I found today that I could just copy elements from one sidebar to another sidebar by copying and pasting and it cut down my actual coding time quite a bit.

The CSS files are all documented really well and I really like the way they have their navigation styled, you can literally change the entire color scheme with just a few edits to the stylesheet.  A lot of these templating solutions that I have seen just overwhelm you with CSS documents that take you an entire afternoon to get your head around.  This wasn’t the case with the WPRemix3 Template system, I am dangerous when it comes to tweaking CSS, mostly because I came into the business in a time when we hadn’t ever heard of CSS, it was tables and font tags.  Being able to navigate around and tweak the stylesheets without a lot of digging around is a huge thing for me, that’s part of the reason why i like Brian Gardner’s themes so well, they are very intuitively styled. 

What’s the Downside to WPRemix3?

Probably my biggest thing w/ the Remix theme solution is the fact that you can’t just unzip it and run it out of the box without having ever worked with it before.  It’s imparative that you spend 30 minutes to read their documentation and have a general idea how it operates before you activate the theme and just go to work.  I say this because my first experience ended in frustration and I didn’t look at it again for several months.

Another thing that I would probably have done differently with the theme is that I would have changed the way that the sidebar templates interact with the widgets inside of WordPress.  I still haven’t gotten my head around their reasoning on this just yet but it’s not as simple to run widgets with the WPRemix solution out of the box as it is with some of the other themes on the market such as Brian Gardner’s StudioPress or WooThemes.

Getting Help and Troubleshooting Problems

I haven’t really hit a snag yet that I haven’t been able to figure out on my own but I will say this, the WPRemix3 team has a great reputation for responding to those who have issues, just google WPRemix3 and you will see some blog posts out there praising their efforts.  In addition to the WPRemix support people there is also a pretty good community of developers out there that are more than happy to help out if anyone should need them.  This is pretty much the case with everything related to WordPress I have found.

How About the End User?

One thing that’s a little bit different with the WPRemix3 theme that I haven’t had to encounter yet but I can see it as a slight stumbling block is how the template files and the WordPress editor interact with each other.  For example, if I want to have 2 column layout on the homepage of the site, I simply pick out the 2 column layout template and click the ‘send to editor’ button and voila, there is the code inside the visual editor for the client to work around.  Now, the code that you see in the visual editor does have some tags associated with it that will need to stay in place for the pages to display right.  For example, if I go to select the ‘Home Page 06’ layout for a particular page, I click the ‘send to editor’ button and this is what it sends out to the editor:

<div id="content-wrap">

<p class="remix">[REMIX]</p>

<div id="banner3">

<div class="b3content">

<h2>Your Site's Main Punchline comes here! dolor site amet disate <span class="black"> Praesent aliquam, </span> justo convallis luctus rutrum.</h2>

<p class="remix">The secondary text explaining your site/business purpose like what and how it does etc. Below are the few options that you could use to highlight main features of your site/business.</p>

<a class="button alignright" href="#">getstarted now</a></div>

</div>

<div id="threecoulums">

<div class="threecolumns-in alignleft">

<h2>About Us</h2>

<p class="remix">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Praesent aliquam,  justo convallis luctus rutrum, erat nulla fermentum diam, at nonummy quam  ante ac quam. Maecenas urna purus, fermentum id, molestie in, commodo  porttitor, felis. Nam blandit quam ut lacus. Quisque ornare risus quis.Maecenas urna purus, fermentum id, molestie in, commodo  porttitor, felis. Nam blandit quam ut lacus. Quisque ornare risus quis.</p>

<p class="remix">Donec et ipsum et sapien vehicula nonummy. Suspendisse potenti. Fusce  varius urna id quam. Sed neque mi, varius eget, tincidunt nec, suscipit id,  libero. In eget purus. Vestibulum ut nisl.</p>

</div>

<div class="threecolumns-in alignleft threespcaer">

<h2>Photos</h2>

<div class="flickr">[php] $wpr_flickr_id = get_option('wpr_flickr_id'); [/php]                 <script src="http://www.flickr.com/badge_code_v2.gne?count=10&amp;display=latest&amp;size=s&amp;source=user&amp;user=[php] echo $wpr_flickr_id; [/php]" type="text/javascript"></script></div>

<div class="testimonials">

<h2>Testimonials</h2>

[php] include (TEMPLATEPATH . "/includes/testimonials.php"); [/php]</div>

</div>

<div id="sidebar">

<h2 class="threetitle">Services</h2>

<p class="remix">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Praesent aliquam,  justo convallis luctus rutrum, erat nulla fermentum diam, at nonummy quam  ante.</p>

<h2 class="threetitle">Latest News</h2>

<ul>

    <li class="remix">Do not remove</li>

[php]                 $wpr_exclude_news = get_option('wpr_exclude_news');                  $recent = new WP_Query("cat=$wpr_exclude_news&showposts=5"); while($recent->have_posts()) : $recent->the_post();[/php]

    <li><a href="[php] the_permalink(); [/php]">[php] the_title(); [/php]</a></li>

[php] endwhile; [/php]</ul>

</div>

</div>

<p class="remix">[/REMIX]</p>

</div>

Now, it’s only going to take a second for me to explain to my clients how to interact with this type of code, and honestly they could figure it out themselves probably, but it has a different look to it and can possibly be intimidating to a user who isn’t familiar with tags, etc.  However once they figure out to swap out the Lorem Ipsum text with their own content I think it’s going to be smooth sailing from then on out…

In closing there is one other feature of the theme that kind of makes it unique.  A lot of settings regarding the theme can be edited inside of the WordPress admin area by clicking on the ‘WPRemix Options’ tab that will be located on the left sidebar of the dashboard once you install the templates.  I really like it when theme designers do something like this because it makes it easier for the end user to find as well as cutting down on some of the things we, as developers, would have to consult with the client to talk about before doing any actual coding.  I have seen other theme developers such as Brian Gardner and WooTheme’s both doing this as well and it is a nice convenience.

Click here to visit WordPress Remix website!