Why I switched my blog’s premium WordPress theme from Thesis to Headway

Posted August 3, 2009
85 Comments

Many of you have asked me why I changed my WordPress theme from Thesis to Headway, given the fact that I was a rabid Thesis fan for over a year.

I hope this post answers this question.

Disclosure: I am an affiliate for Headway Themes and have included affiliate links within this post. If you’re wondering whether making commissions was part of my decision to switch, it wasn’t. I was also an affiliate for Thesis.

First of all, let me be clear: This post is not about bashing Thesis, but rather a comparison of the two. I’ve used Thesis for about a year and considered myself an advanced user (111 posts in the user forum since July of 2008). It’s a solid theme, for sure. But now, it’s not the only game in town.

When Grant Griffiths told me his son was developing a theme that would “kick the pants off Thesis” I think I responded with something like, “Yeah, whatever. Guthrie (my 5-year old) just got his orange belt in karate. I think he’ll be the next Bruce Lee.” I wrote off his enthusiasm as a fatherly response. Plus, I was sold on Thesis and nothing would get me to change.

It was not until Clay (Grant’s son) gave me a beta copy of Headway that my love for Thesis started to wane.

The videos below cover five features I’ve found mind-blowing about the Headway theme that I wished Thesis had.

You’ll see how I’ve been able to make changes to my blog without the need to code anything. You’ll see how the visual layout editor works, how to easily change colors, drag and drop editing of my navigation bar, and how to place various different widgets on each page of your blog.

Video1: Why I switched my WordPress theme from Thesis to Headway (Reason number 1 of 5)

Video 2: Why I switched my WordPress theme from Thesis to Headway (Reasons number 2 and 3 of 5)


Video 3: Why I switched my WordPress theme from Thesis to Headway (Reason number 4 and 5)

If you’d like to learn more about the Headway theme, please visit the Headway Themes website. You’ll find many more videos, a feature list and a list of bloggers who have already implemented Headway, including Jay Fleischman, Danny Brown and Chris Cree.

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  • mikehcg
    Good Information, but I would change the music. You are blasting people out of their seats and turning people off with that rubbish.

    Michael
  • Thanks, Mike. Rubbish is in the eyes of the beholder. ;-)
  • adrapper
    Rubbish or not, it is not easy listening in an office when you are doing research into web site improvements!
  • Point well taken.
  • I SO agree on the music comment. Listening late at night and it's shocking
  • Sorry! :-(
  • mikehcg
    Sorry, the statement was a little crass, I realise.

    But I was almost blown off my seat :-)
  • Mike - point well taken though. I'll turn the volume down of the next ones.
  • John, I watched all your videos and thought they were great!

    Just working on my first Headway site right now and I am pleased to report that it rocks!

    Keep up the great work sir!

    Doc
  • polinate
    Anything with AC DC I will take a look at. Good videos (yes a little loud, but the software rocks!)
  • My real hope is that Angus Young makes a WordPress theme.
  • adrapper
    Does anybody have an idea of how I would move www.bible-matters.com over to Headway and maintain it general look and feel, but gain the flexability of Headway?
  • The look and feel would be close, but honestly, you may need to use some CSS. Do you want me to ask Clay to take a look?
  • adrapper
    I do not what people to spend too much time on it, I am off to the USA in
    two weeks and then to France so it is going to be about six weeks before I
    am really beck at my desk.
    However it is a very impressive product.

    Andrew Drapper
  • Thanks for these videos. They were very useful and a big reason I switched to Headway.
  • Pam - you're welcome. Glad I could help you make the switch to Headway!
  • John, anyway you could do a screencast on creating the drop down menus?
  • LaurentR2D2
    I'm sorry I didn't know Headway before I bought Thesis. It seems much simpler to use. But I can't afford the price another time. Perhaps next year :)
  • :-(
  • Having used both themes, I can honestly say I couldn't have afforded *not* to buy Headway. Time is money, and Headway has saved me hours and hours ...
  • How much is my time worth? That was essentially how I looked at the switch to Headway. That, and the theme's flexibility.
  • Dennis Hathaway
    Are you using Headway on a local server? I bought it and installed on my local xampp server, but the Layout Editor won't work. I had an exchange with support, and they basically said they didn't know what the problem was but they'd try to fix it in the next Headway release. Which doesn't do me any good, if I can'[t design and test locally. If anyone has experienced this, or heard of it, I'd love to hear about it.

    Dennis
  • Dennis,

    I think most people are using a hosted service, like Knownhost (I use Knownhost) or Hostgator. If WordPress and other themes are working, I don't understand why Headway wouldn't work.

    I wish I could offer more help,

    John
  • Dennis Hathaway
    It does work on my hosted service, which is Media Temple. But not on my local server. I've also been told it works locally on a MAMP server on a Mac. So I'm thinking it's a Windows conflict.
  • Probably a Windows issue... :-(
  • 12for12k: hope - change - belief
    --------------------

    Great groups of folks here. All working for good causes.

    Click the link below to Join:
    http://12for12k.ning.com/?xgi=1T721GGfl3qwNy&xg...

    If your email program doesn't recognize the web address above as an active link,
    please copy and paste it into your web browser

    --------------------

    Members already on 12for12k
    Richard Allan Marti Jr, Jon Aston, Suzanne Franco, Suzanne Tucker aka ZenMommy, Danny Brown

    --------------------

    About 12for12k
    12for12k is a social media-led charity initiative that aims to change the lives of millions worldwide.

    72 members
    730 photos

    --------------------

    To control which emails you receive on the corner, or to opt-out, go to:
    http://12for12k.ning.com/?xgo=9oRq8EKFqhawLHQZK...
  • AVI
    holy crap, I only watched the first video so far and I'm amazed... I partly watched it because I wanted to be blown away by your controversial music choices but I'm really interested now :D
  • Ohhh mannnnn. I just got Thesis 4 days ago... Then I see this blog... ahhhhhhh
    I wish I had of got headway.
    I have been pulling my hair out with trying to learn CSS customisation for my blog but it's been a nightmare. I have asked for a refund from thesis.
    Then I will get headway.
    Just a word of advice for newbies.
    If you do not know CSS or html.. go with headway or some other theme like woo themes or wpremix.
    Thesis is for people who at least can code a little html and understand what they are doing. I know a little html but I found thesis to still be a pain for me.
    Don't say I didn't warn ya..lol
  • Amen!
  • John, How do I uninstall thesis? I know I ftp'd it to my server with filezilla.
    Do I just upload headway and then change the theme? then just leave the thesis files sitting there..lol
    Any help would be appreciated...
  • Troy - Thesis is automatically uninstalled when you activate the Headway Theme. You may have to clear your cache to remove any Thesis-related links from your WP backend.
  • Name
    If you have thesis for less then 30 days, the refund is simple. I was able to so so on day 30.
    I agree, thesis is great if you are a master with code. I'm glad my 30 days of grief are at an end.
  • Personally, I loved the flexibility of Thesis. But it did require a
    huge learning curve to get the basics. And then if I wanted to
    customize anything, I had to spend hours in the forum. But that's just
    me (I know very little CSS).

    Then along came Headway, which has HUGE flexibility in it's design
    capabilities - without any need for coding. For me, the decision to
    switch was about the value of my time.
  • 12for12k: hope - change - belief
    --------------------

    Great groups of folks here. All working for good causes.

    Click the link below to Join:
    http://12for12k.ning.com/?xgi=5ZSHP5E3n4FQt6&xg...

    If your email program doesn't recognize the web address above as an active link,
    please copy and paste it into your web browser

    --------------------

    Members already on 12for12k
    Richard Allan Marti Jr, Jon Aston, Suzanne Franco, Suzanne Tucker aka ZenMommy, Danny Brown

    --------------------

    About 12for12k
    12for12k is a social media-led charity initiative that aims to change the lives of millions worldwide.

    72 members
    730 photos

    --------------------

    To control which emails you receive on the corner, or to opt-out, go to:
    http://12for12k.ning.com/?xgo=hOMQBFh0OSawLHQZK...
  • buzztok
    Are you able to use all of the different plug-ins with Headway?
  • Yup!
  • Daito
    "Sharing creates good karma! You'll finally be the cool kid in your next life..."

    How do I setup all the mini-icons below the above text please?
  • That's a WordPress Plugin called Sociable. I've configured the icons in the settings admin section, as well as the text.
  • Great videos, man! Just bought this theme. Loved the music, by the way - 12:35 AM ET and it's just what the doctor ordered !

    The headway guys should pay you extra for these vids... they are really good.
  • Tell @GrantGriffiths he should pay me! :-D
  • ksandridge
    Hey John! Here's an SOS for you re: Multi Result search page options!

    For the life of me I cannot figure out how to make the content leaf on my search results page show multiple results! I'd love multilple 'snippets,' ... but I either get one result per page or - if I switch to the "posts" options in content options a try to select multiple feature posts or posts, I get blog content on my search result page that's unrelated to the search.

    Any advice you can give to clear up the whole Multi results issue (both on the blog index page and search results) would be most greatly appreciated!

    Thanks,

    Kevin
  • Kevin - the best place to go is the forum. That way others who have the same question can get it quickly answered.
  • Well, Clay gave me a solid yet simple piece of advice. Check the Reading settings. I did, and for sure - I had it set to 1 post! Dolp! Increased that number and now all is well. :)
  • Yay!!! Have a good night, Kevin!
  • phil
    Is it easy to create a different side bar for every post? i.e. have Twitter affiliate ads on Twitter posts and FB affiliate ads for FB posts? From your vids it seems easy to change main page and posts as two templates, but how easy is it to have a different sidebar template each post?

    The music rocks!
  • Phil - You can create a different sidebar for category pages, but not posts.
  • phil
    Thanks John. So basically a Category page will list all the posts marked under that Category, but each individual post will not have the same sidebar as the category page?

    Or is that all the posts in that Category will have the same sidebar as that category? That would be ideal.

    Right now on my information sites I use StudioPress's Magazine Theme which is great, but updating affiliate products in the sidebar via CSS is a pain.
  • Just the category, but double check with @claygriffiths.
  • LB
    thanks for doing this John, I don't blog (insert look of shock here) but my clients do and I included this page in my 'things to check out' mailing this week. Too much good information , so little time!
    LindaB
  • Thanks, Linda!
  • Hey John,
    Have had thesis for about two months, & have had some problems with it, like when I set up my blog in firefox, it looks good & everything lines up, BUT when I open it up in Internet Explorer, the whole theme goes out of wack. For example, the header in IE goes past where it should be & sometimes the widgets drop below the site. But in firefox, all is good.

    Now I watched your vid's on Headway & I'm sold, but also hoping I don't have the same problem as with thesis. Or maybe I just did something wrong on thesis. Ether way I'm fallen for headway.

    Egon
  • kkielty
    Hi John,

    Very cool videos. I am definitely ordering headway from your website. Can I ask what software you used to make the videos?

    Kevin
  • Kevin. Sure! I use ScreenFlow: http://bit.ly/screen_flow
  • kkielty
    Thanks. I am going to buy that too!

    Kevin


    Kevin Kielty
  • Anytime, Kevin!
  • chris73
    Lol. Your music is absolutely fine. I dont know what these people are on. And if a person has a problem looking at work, then they should get back to work and watch at home. Anyway, nice overview.

    Would you say that it is possible to make a website look exactly how the user wishes? Or are there design limitations? The actual Headway website seems to be a bit limited in describing the extent of the themes features and what is possible. For instance, I was interested as to whether the look of the sidebar widgets could be customized, as well as whether or not a "Popular Posts" feature, "Categories" widget, or their related variants, were available in headway.
  • "Popular Posts" features are typically added with plug-ins, not Themes. You can however, add a category widget with Headway. It's a very flexible Theme. Check out some of the examples in the Headway site.
  • Hi John, How did you get the social icons to line up under the connect.
    custom CSS?
    Thx
    T
  • No, that's a WordPress plug-in by Sociable.
  • mattbelcher
    Hi John,

    Good videos thanks.

    I can see it's easy to make it look good...but what about SEO? Do you think it has any benefits over say using All in one SEO? I know headway say you can just uninstall AIOSEO but what are your experiences?

    Thanks
    Matt
  • Matt - I don't use All In One SEO (only Headway) and get great results:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnhaydon/3814589...

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnhaydon/3810686...
  • creationdream
    Headway looks like a great time saving option, really enjoyed the vids thanks! I know how to hand code a site from scratch, new to WP with only one site live using a theme I highly customized. Headway looks like a sure thing for those who know no coding, but since I know css, will it give me the freedom to customize the css directly, IF the option i want isn't available in the user interface?
  • Yup. A CSS editor comes with
    Headway and works pretty much the same as the stylesheets in most
    themes.
  • Robert
    Hey John,

    I found your site from the Headway site, good stuff! Like the videos, but I wonder, can I create a portal site, like fourteenernet.com or fourteenernet.com? I'd like to be able to sell ads/links/etc from the site.

    thanks

    Robert
  • Yes - you can.
  • Robert
    Does it require extra plug-ins to make it happen. . . on a scale of 0 (no coding skills) to 10 (able to code in one or more languages and can make static pages or more), I am a solid 0/zero in coding. . . .

    How much "skill" is needed to create sites like those listed? Thank you for your time!!!! I feel like I'm making "Headway" (awwww, I couldn't help it. .. my corniness factor was up to a 10 level).

    Robert
  • You will need plugins, but that depends upon what you want in terms of advertizing. There's a great plugin called "ad-minister" which essentially is an ad server for blogs.

    In terms of the design of the sites you mentioned, you can create those designs with almost no CSS. The only issue would be creating those additional links about the header at http://fourteenernet.com/
  • Robert
    when you say "only issue" are you referring to programming ability/code?

    As for plug-ins, would they be listed on the top 101 plug-ins and other places on site?

    Also, I searched your site for a traditional e-mail to ask a non-board question. . . am I that old school? Ah well. . .

    I'm very close, so I will also need your affiliate link to buy the headway theme.

    thanks,

    Robert
  • I mean some CSS that you might need for the links in the header. You can email me from my about page. :-)
  • After reading this review and checking around, I am looking for someone to redesign my site using Headway; I am currently on thesis. If anyone knows of someone reputable and well versed in Headway, please email me. Thanks, Mike
  • Mike - I do that as part of my consulting business. Email me at hireme@johnhaydon.com with the details. Thanks.
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