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WordPress Genesis Theme Development Start a Genesis Theme Defaults

Leigh Maher
Leigh Maher
21,830 Points
Posted by Leigh Maher
Leigh Maher
21,830 Points

Anyone else struggling to follow this course?!

Really struggling to follow this course. He seems to be glossing over a lot of important stuff, and copying and pasting things into templates without giving any real explanation of what it does. Way too much theory and not enough step by step demonstration. Very disappointing, as I really wanted something to kick start my Genesis learning. Will probably need to look elsewhere.

Mateo Marquez
Mateo Marquez
6,339 Points
Mateo Marquez
Mateo Marquez
6,339 Points

I feel the same way about this course. I really like the Genesis Framework and I recently invested in the whole package to work on a few clients after watching the entry/setup tutorial, with the expectation to learn more watching this Development tutorial. There is no doubt the teacher knows the material, but I couldn't keep up with the course after the first chapter. I think it touches important subjects, but lacks explanation behind them! I hope Treehouse provides a more in depth course of the Genesis Framework. Please let me know if you find any nice courses :) as I really would like to expand my skills.

Leigh Maher
Leigh Maher
21,830 Points
Leigh Maher
Leigh Maher
21,830 Points

Thanks Mateo. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this. I agree he really does know his stuff. I think sometimes teachers assume you must know stuff because maybe it seems so simple and obvious to them.

I've been plowing ahead on my own for the moment. I've taken the sample theme and tried to apply a bespoke design. It's not going too badly. The main challenge so far is getting my head around how to use hooks. It's weird not editing the templates directly, but the hooks actually make it quicker to develop. I've found this visual representation of all the hooks very useful: http://genesistutorials.com/visual-hook-guide/

Regarding other stuff that he seems to gloss over: for example: SASS. I've decided to go learn the CSS to SASS course: https://teamtreehouse.com/library/css-to-sass. I always find Guil's courses easy to follow.

The best of luck.

Abby Fichtner
Abby Fichtner
2,366 Points

I've been trying to stick with it hoping I would still manage to glean some knowledge from it but all it's doing is causing me to keep banging my head against the wall. Giving up now :(

David Csere
David Csere
28,874 Points
David Csere
David Csere
28,874 Points

I agree with you guys. I have a solid understanding of WordPress and I like Zac Gordon's WP courses, he is a really good teacher, but Jesse's Genesis courses are vague. I'll try to finish it and I'm sure I'll learn new stuff, but it could be much better.

Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
13,405 Points

I agree. This is the second time I have tried this course, and I'm about to give up again. I keep re-watching videos, then going and doing research and coming back to it.

Adam Rasheed
Adam Rasheed
476 Points
Adam Rasheed
Adam Rasheed
476 Points

Totally agree. He seems to just be making his own specific product, where he should be teaching the unbiased fundamentals of the backbones of the genesis framework.

3 Answers

Bryn Humphreys
Bryn Humphreys
26,472 Points
Bryn Humphreys
Bryn Humphreys
26,472 Points

Struggling to follow this also. I think just pause the video when you are thinking ?what?! and google to try and understand and then move on?

Bryn Humphreys
Bryn Humphreys
26,472 Points
Bryn Humphreys
Bryn Humphreys
26,472 Points

Carrie Dils does a great course on lynda.com called: WordPress and Genesis: Building Child Themes from Scratch. If found her course really easy to follow and understand.

Melyssa Parker
Melyssa Parker
6,887 Points
Melyssa Parker
Melyssa Parker
6,887 Points

I feel the same about this course, too. Even the part about git, using SourceTree and BitBucket I had to replay and re-do 4 times. Now finally understand how it works by trying things out on my own. I might give up on this course, too and look at your recommended lynda.com course. I want to customise a studiopress theme for a client project, not build from scratch.

Melissa Klotz
Melissa Klotz
3,233 Points
Melissa Klotz
Melissa Klotz
3,233 Points

I feel like this course should be named "How to convert CSS to SASS" but even then it's not detailed enough. The "Defaults" lesson was pretty much "here's the CSS from the Hueman theme, I'm going to condense it into SASS off camera". Then the next section is called "Media Queries and Mobile-First" and it explains what those are. I'm fairly certain if you're expected to understand SASS, you probably know the definitions of media query and mobile-first.