Buso Lightning - Full Width Package & Grid/Masonry

[Bono]

Buso Lightning got me here. I need super light themes for some of my more popular sites because I can only afford to host them on shared hosting. For the same reasoning, photos are typically hotlinked from Google. Else, I'd have buy private servers, which is not possible at the moment because these site are hobby sites.

Another thing is my posts are typically photo-centric, and as such, full width single column is usually more desirable. I went through the forum, you suggested using a static landing page,
Q1. Using static page as frontpage - what is the url for the posts? (There is no pagination in this case. How do people suppose to navigate to the posts?)
Q2. As for photo blogs, I think grid/masonry layout works the best. I have been using this one for couple of reasons - [wordpress themes portfolio-gallery (can't post link)]
1. It offers grid frontpage (but it chops off most people's head/face)
2. It will pull any first image as thumbnail (external url - this is sweet)
And of course it's not that light/fast. It also has no pagination (frontpage). I am forceed to use a plugin just so people can have access the archive to see blog listings).
Q3. How to make grid/masonry frontpage layout?
Q4. Is there a way to pull the first embed image as "featured image' or 'thumbnail on the frontpage (without plugin)?
I am a coding moron ...I understand some already make a single column full width frontpage,
A. Appreciate if you can share by send me the existing full width package.
B. Is there anyone out there want to try grid/masonry layout?

Thanks

 

[Nat]

Quick question, the default search bar displays results of full posts instead of snippets, is there a way to change this to Post Title test snippet [link: full post]?

 

[Ryuzaki]

Bono, unfortunately BuSo Lightning was designed to be minimalistic. It's meant to be used as a foundation upon which you add features you need and tweak the design to fit your desires. Which means you need a solid handle on HTML, CSS, PHP, Wordpress functions, etc.

Q1. Using static page as frontpage - what is the url for the posts? (There is no pagination in this case. How do people suppose to navigate to the posts?)

The static page as the frontpage is literally a page. It doesn't feature a blog post loop and therefore doesn't require pagination. It wasn't meant to include that. But you can edit the index.php to add static content above the blog roll.

Q3. How to make grid/masonry frontpage layout?

This question is akin to asking "how do I make a car?" It's an easy question to ask but a complicated endeavor. It will require a custom loop to display posts and a whole boatload of CSS to make the grid layout work and work well responsively.

I honestly wouldn't recommend you trying to add that to Lightning without the help of a developer.

MyThemeShop makes fairly fast themes: https://mythemeshop.com/themes/

I'd click the "Blog" filter at the top and look at their's that have grids before I started paying someone or trying it myself an a non-developer.

Here are a couple of free Grid / Masonry options of theirs:

• https://mythemeshop.com/themes/sociallyviral-free/
• https://mythemeshop.com/themes/gridblog/

Q4. Is there a way to pull the first embed image as "featured image' or 'thumbnail on the frontpage (without plugin)?

Maybe, but you should just use the Featured Image option. It's why it exists. You can make the first image the featured one and set it to scale or crop, etc. Wordpress has prebuilt functionality for this. I used it in Lightning for the blog roll as it is on the homepage and category pages.

Quick question, the default search bar displays results of full posts instead of snippets, is there a way to change this to Post Title test snippet [link: full post]?

Check out search.php and look inside the <div class="post-wrap">

You can hack out the tags, content, category, time, etc. You can change the_content to the_excerpt or remove it.

The title should already link to the full post, so you can leave that as it is. I think this is what you're asking.

 

[Bono]

Thanks Nat.

Quick question, the default search bar displays results of full posts instead of snippets, is there a way to change this to Post Title test snippet [link: full post]?​

See I don't even understand your expert hint ... What is "[link: full post]?"
I think I will play around with the theme when I got the time ...

Played a bit with Buso he other day ... was impressed how it scores so superbly with pindom and GMetrix. Maybe I was wrong (perhaps my server was jammed up), page loads very fast but I noticed it was struggling to to load the content.
Actually, I used to use a theme called Frank - this is a real super light "no frills" animal - but it died and the worst part is it's totally not responsive even though it is coded in html 5 (and I did see the some mobile coding'.

Thanks Ryuzaki.

Guess I just gotta start learning seriously how to mess with Wordpress coding.

Honestly, those theme you recommended like SociallyViral is a crap. It just wouldn't even install and the free download wouldn't even install. In any case, the design wouldn't suit my blog. I need something really minimalist as you mentioned. There are like tonnes of photo, I basically only need a piece of white canvass to display them, nothing else. Maybe I should just get Genesis, they are one of the best performance theme I know. My only problem with them is they do not have one that is good for my purpose ... I am looking at Parallax Pro now.

Put the theme aside, do you have anyone that you may recommend to me to develop something more serious? I am thinking of putting up listing directory site that need to scarp something from other sites to start off ... Let me know if you do have someone on mind. I don't mind paying something.

Thank you all again. I am going to scan all your wisdom here ASAP.

Thank you for sharing.

 

[built]

You should have a look at thrive content builder. You can use it with Buso theme and create pretty much all that you're talking about

 

[Bono]

Took a quick look - looks like another page builder like Beaver or the J-something - If so, these plugin is only good for those who want to design/edit pages, not the site per se. Any change using plugin like this is dependent on the plugin. Meaning the plugin must be activated or you will loose all changes. This is no good for me. I don't need another plugin. In fact, I'd like to use no plugin.
I tested a listing plugin called Geo-something before - This nonsense needs dozens of other plugins just so you can have most the features. In the end, the site takes a good one minute to load up (with only sample listings). In fact, there is a very popular theme called "Listable" (so is "Listify"). Beautiful theme if you just want to store small number of listings and do not need geolocation. Else, it will turn into another Geo-something - took me a long time to find out. I eventually found a pretty well coded plugin that should be able to handle the job, but I am a little skeptical to use it with thing like Genesis - I got a feeling they may clash someday. The plugin author actually Twenty Twelve for demo. I figured it's best to run site operated by plugin on totally no frills "plain' WP theme. I am hoping Buso can work with this plugin. But I need a full width frontpage and the rest with one sidebar ...

Does any one know if there is tool that will allow me to actually create a new theme like Buso? Or at least allow me to modify theme like Buso without hard coding knowledge?

 

[Shack]

^ I think you're best bet is to learn some HTML/CSS and a little bit of PHP. When it comes to building a Wordpress theme, if you are looking for something simple, most of the job is done by HTML/CSS and then the PHP codes are inserted. Maybe try finding a well coded HTML/CSS and then insert the PHP as you want? This could work. Authors on Themeforest also offer their Wordpress themes as a HTML/CSS version and they are way much cheaper.

 

[Michael]

^ I think you're best bet is to learn some HTML/CSS and a little bit of PHP. When it comes to building a Wordpress theme, if you are looking for something simple, most of the job is done by HTML/CSS and then the PHP codes are inserted. Maybe try finding a well coded HTML/CSS and then insert the PHP as you want? This could work. Authors on Themeforest also offer their Wordpress themes as a HTML/CSS version and they are way much cheaper.

I second that.

If you want an easy way to customise a WP theme, you're going to have to suck up the bloat that comes with it. I mean that's how they're making things so easy, by literally having a solution for every design element that let's noobs easily change things.

If you're willing to learn html/css/PHP (probs get away without learning JS) then my suggestion is to pick a framework like genesis.

Out of the box you'll get a lean theme which you'll just have to style to your liking. Then add in snippets of code that for the most part is covered within their documentation to add in additional functionality.