I just got myself a license for the Headway WordPress theme after watching a few demo videos on their site and reading a few reviews. To be honest with you I’m completely amazed and I just had to try it out. I really want that kind of drag and drop control on tripwire magazine – it’s basically what I have been looking after for quite some time. I’m actually doing OK with PHP, CSS, HTML etc. but it is too time consuming if I get an idea and quickly want to try it out -like having a featured post in a new location, move around some elements a bit. I would much rather spend time effectively on creating content and value for my readers rather than looking deeply into code details. The Headway theme for WordPress will change this and I’m quite sure this may also be just what you are looking for!
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links below are affiliate links and I will earn a commission if you purchase through those links (at no extra cost to you). I recommend that you do your own independent research before purchasing any product or service. This article is not a guideline, a recommendation or endorsement of specific products.
Advertisement
I’m going to give a lot mere details below on what Headway does and how it can help you but I think you should also consider watching a few videos on their site as I’m sure they will catch your attention as it certainly happened to me.
Lets take a closer look
Headway is a theme for WordPress and then it is a lot more. As with other premium themes of high quality (fx. woothemes that I currently use here on tripwire magazine) a new menu section will be inserted into your WordPress back end to give you easy access to manage the theme options.
For Headway you will see that it provides four new tools to manage WordPress look and feel. What is unique to Headway and what blew me away is the Visual Editor but I will come back to that in a minute.
In the Headway Configuration area there are more options than you will see in most themes – even best of premium. I’m sure that when migrating to Headway there will be quite a few plugins I will not need to use anymore because the functionality is already there in the theme. On example is the SEO capabilities that will also be configured here.
Headway also provide something they call Headway Easy Hooks. Using Hooks is for the more advanced user (and is really what makes the popular and still very great Thesis themes amazing too) but Headway takes it further and makes it available for people that are not theme developers.
The Visual Editor….
The Visual Editor is unbelievable and very useful I think. The team creating this tool really hit spot on most of the needs we bloggers have. The flexibility provided and instant preview will be a real time saver. This is how it look when fired up with a simple and clean theme.
You will notice that on the left side there is a menu area where all the features can be accessed.
It is very simple to find elements, update them, and Headway even highlight and element for you if you are unsure where it is on the page.
It will give you complete control over fonts as well and you will see the effect instantly on the live preview of your blog on the right.
The best part I think is how you can add content areas from a list of containers/leafs and then simply place them on the blog, change their size…
and drag them around as you like. This is control in my opinion and will save us massive amounts of time!
Headway also have nice tools for setting up the navigation and I simply think the package is impressive!
OK this is it for my initial review of Headway. I hope you liked it and that you will go to their site and watch a few videos to see it in action. You can also get inspiration from this article about Top WordPress Themes or from this mega list showcasing 60 best WordPress themes. If you are looking for restaurant menu templates we also have a great list presenting a nice selection. Photography website templates are also very popular – maybe this what you are looking for?
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Nice review!
Am a huge fan of Headway too. It is a great time saver and its unique leaf system does away with the need to think in columns (and the restrictions they bring).
An example of how it saves time is its option to change a sidebar leaf to be horizontal rather than vertical, as it then automatically handles the layout of your widgets horizontally. How much coding would that take on any other theme??! Click of a button on Headway.
With Headway you can also say goodbye to having to code page template designs by hand. Instead you select the template in the Visual Editor, and design its layout there. All the major ones – index, single, categories, archive etc – are there. Likewise this is where you design layout for static pages too.
Traditionally, WordPress themes have been based on content flow (kind of like a word processor). Thus the column-centric design.
Headway’s approach to WP theme design is similar to desktop publishing. You create blocks of content and position them where ever you like.
It’s a brilliant idea and really takes WordPress theme design into the future.
@Chris, thanks a lot for your view on this subject. I’m currently working on migrating the magazine to Headway and I think it is great to work with. It takes some time of cause to get used to the new approach but once I understand how a particular element works things work really fast.
hello! Nice post. There is some lag with RSS- it seems there is some problems with encodings.
Nice wordpress theme, is it free?
I think you write this blog from a different point of view on the topic, which is rather unique from most other blogs. I welcome your hard work on it.
“Headway Wordpress theme after watching a few demo videos on their site and reading a few reviews. To be honest with you I’m completely amazed and I just had to try it out. I really want that kind of drag and drop control on tripwire magazine ..”
this is really good layout,much more control it seems to have.
Great blog post.Really looking forward to read more.
{ 7 trackbacks }