Divi

I still consider myself to be very much a newbie when it comes to WordPress, even after completing the Udemy course which I blogged about here.

During the course, we used many different themes, from some of the default installed ones to various premium plugins using the StudioPress Genesis Framework.  As soon as you start to use some of the premium plugin features, you quickly see the limitations of the standard ones.  While I’m sure with a better understanding of HTML and CSS you can make them do equally clever things, the premium plugins remove the need for that knowledge, and even for someone with it, probably make things much faster and easier to achieve.

As much as I liked using the StudioPress themes, buying into their approach doesn’t come cheap, and for someone still just playing with this stuff I found it hard to justify the cost.  I started searching around for other themes, and one kept on appearing over and over again – the Divi theme from Elegant Themes.  An annual subscription, which provides access to all their themes and plugins, is only a little more than the Genesis framework, which then needs additional themes which bump things up.  After much research and watching some of their Youtube training videos, I eventually bit the bullet and handed over my $89 for a Developer license.

My first task playing with Divi was to replicate this blog and my company website (which I’d previously built using the default Twentyseventeen and Affinity themes) which proved remarkably straightforward, although to be honest neither site is getting WordPress to break a sweat!  I also used Divi to create some of the test sites I’d developed during the Udemy course using StudioPress themes, which again proved pretty straightforward.  While it does things in a slightly different way, the Divi theme does provide lots of additional functionality that just can’t be found for a non-technical user in the free themes.

There are a few different ways to use Divi, and the big one they promote on the website is the Visual Page Builder.  This gives you a Customise type view that allows you to add sections, rows and modules to build up a page in a very graphical style, although to be honest I’m still getting to grips with it.  For me, I find it better for fine tuning things once the basic layout had been created using the Divi Builder in the standard WordPress interface.  Both are very different from any of the default ‘twenty….’ themes and give you much more control about where objects are positioned in a post or page.  It’s ideal for creating different types of columns and layouts within the same page, something I’ve found quite difficult in the default themes.  Once you have a design scribbled down, it’s very easy to recreate that in Divi, and the build up the content around the layout.  I’ve found the default themes easier to use the other way, with some content first, and then playing with the design, although it’s not always that easy to get it to look like you might have imagined.

Still, lots to learn, both regarding Divi and WordPress, but the more I play, the more I’m amazed at just how easy it is to build pretty good looking websites with little knowledge of the code that sits behind it.  I remember playing with Dreamweaver years and years ago and never have the time to get anything other than a very simple static page developed.  With WordPress and Divi that would be simple, and with a full Content Management System sat behind it for interacting with customers or even creating a relatively complex e-commerce site. 

Depending on how the contract market develops over the next few months, specifically with changes to working in the UK Public Sector, I might be spending more time developing these skills to, hopefully, make some money out of it.  Watch this space…