How Much Does Technical Support & Coding Expertise Cost?
Most of us experience times where we just can’t understand a tutorial, or our attempt at tweaking the code just does not 
work!
If you need help for your Thesis Theme or WordPress, don’t pay for it until you have exhausted the following 2 FREE places for help.
1. Thesis Theme Forum
Help at Thesis Forum is free. You simply post your question or questions and wait for an answer. If somebody has a code solution, you are welcome to copy and paste and see how it goes.
To get the most out of the Thesis Forum, follow these guidelines…
Read through the Thesis Theme Forum FAQs section so you understand how to get the most out of this wonderful free resource.
When you do post a query in the Forum, don’t forget to always include a link to your site. It is very difficult to understand some queries without seeing the site.
- Some of the quickest and most effective solutions are best found by looking into the code behind your pages using various FireFox plugins, simply right clicking to see code or trying to “break your site” by visiting and searching for something to see a particular error message.
If you can’t find a solution to your problem at the Thesis Forum and you would like to explore the option of getting somebody who really knows what they’re doing – to fix it for you – maybe the new WordPress HelpCenter can help.
Read Your Dashboard & Keep Up With The News
I read my dashboard today – something I do occasionally – and checked out some of the links. One link made reference to the WordPress HelpCenter. What are they about?
New WordPress HelpCenter
According to their site …
We’re here to help. We answer your questions, install and troubleshoot plugins, change your theme colors and fonts, and generally help with any WordPress related issues. Think of us as your on-call WordPress experts.
They’re pricing is also listed…
The best part is this…
If WordPress HelpCenter can take care of your needs in under 3 minutes, the call is FREE!
While this service is wonderful for US Locals, it doesn’t help me down in Australia, so I rely heavily on the Thesis Forum or the WordPress Codex pages. So far I haven’t had the need to pay anybody a cent for assistance.
Tell Us About Your Experiences
Please share your experiences with the Thesis Theme Forum and the new WordPress HelpCenter in the comments below.
Add a Comment
I read above the Thesis Support Forum being free. No – you have to buy the theme first.
I have a question I want answered before buying because it may mean another theme is more appropriate for me. Now where can I get such questions answered? I’ve tried the Wordpress.org forums but have not had a reply.
I refuse to buy one of the most expensive themes just to ask a question to decide whether I actually want or need it.
Ian @ Feel free to ask any questions here or via the contact form.
I must have missed the contact form before, but for the benefit of anyone else with the question, I’ll ask here. I’ve seen Thesis screencasts and screenshots but none include details of the header options on the current version (v1.5).
I would like to know if I can move everything (menus, sidebar and main content etc.) down so as to give a larger (or smaller) header space? If so, can it be done in the Thesis options or must I go into the stylesheets and header.php?
Thank you.
Ian Mayman’s latest artistic creation..Ian updated his status : I have this morning loaned $200, interest free, to various people across Africa, South America and Asia and I plan to lend more so as to help others.
Ian,
There is a plugin just for Thesis called Thesis OpenHook. I’ve mentioned it a few times already in some other posts. But in essence with the checking of a couple of boxes here and there you can make your navigation bar go above or below your header. You can remove the default header. You have a window into your css style sheet that allows you to insert a header image of whatever height you would like – if you use one.
You can use an image for your header or just text, using a variety of fonts, choosing to include a tag-line or not. There are some great customized sites out there with different headers, backgrounds and mods to the top space. Check out http://thesisgallery.com/ to see what can be done with very little effort. There are only two files to modify to do anything and if you use the Thesis OpenHook plugin you don’t even need to open these files.
The Theme uses ‘hooks’ which are little windows to different parts of the theme, for example – before header, before sidebar, after footer, before html, after header and so many others. Let’s say you want to include something (as a regular feature of your blog, like an image link, badge, social bookmarklets, etc – in a particular place in your theme, you just need to paste the code (basic html or other script you get from whatever site or create yourself) and paste it into the desired location’s window.
Have a look at Thesis Hacker’s tutorial on the multimedia box and see a sample of ‘red boxes’ where he can put an element – using the Thesis OpenHook plugin.
If you would like some screenshots about a particular item or more info, just drop another comment.
Before I buy the Thesis theme, I need to find out how easy it is to do split testing on ALL of the pages (including the landing page, index.php or home.php) and elements (like header, banner ads, etc.).
On the current theme I am using, I discovered that I can only use Google Website Optimizer on all the pages except the normal landing page. For the landing page I would have to hack into the php code..which I don’t want to mess. And of course, the landing page is the most important page to test!
I was also wondering if I had 2 domain names testing the “same website” if I would have to buy the upgraded theme version.
Thanks so much for having a place to answer my question….it took me a while to find this website!
Lena @ From the Thesis Forum – an answer for you…
“Just a comment really – and why I bought this theme…..
If you’re into monetizing leads from your website, i.e. mortgages, car insurance, affiliates, and so on, and don’t want to fart around with useability and split testing, the thesis theme seems like a real easy way to do so.
What I’ve done is installed this theme on my blog (which takes a bunch of long tail search traffic). Then I turned off the code for the rotating pics and inserted my ‘money’ form; the form that converts my visitors into ‘leads’ or sales or whatever. This can all be done through the admin panel with thesis – no code hacking needed.
End result, I’ve got a pro level looking blog – with my money form on every page in the hot spot – above the fold on the right.
Yes, you can do that on a free template by hacking the code. I’ve done so in the past and it’s a pita. The price of admission for this theme was worth it just in the time I’ve saved from hacking code. And since having that conversion form in that spot is so important, I moved up to the developers version so I can use it across all my blog sites. Install, cut and paste code, and boom, a higher converting blog. Next!
If I was buying converting traffic at industry rates, the extra conversions I’ve received have paid for the cost of the template in less than a week.
So if you’re using your blog to convert using a form or an affiliate link or a button or something like that, consider how much it’s worth to have an increase in coversions, and balance that against the price of the theme.”
One more question…does the Featured Content Gallery work with the Thesis theme?
Lena @ Yes, it does. Check out http://www.serradinho.com
Hi,
I too am considering the Thesis theme but have the same question as Lena’s last.
I have a play domain name (a friends old blog he doesn’t use) where I test themes and play around to my hearts content. Then, when I am happy I move it over to my real site.
My question is, if I was to purchase the personal Thesis theme and upload it to my friends blog for tweaking (I have some grand ideas that I don’t know if they are even possible) would I be able to then transfer it to my actual blog without violating the terms?
Thank you so much in advance. I wish the forums were available before purchase.
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I can’t understand why Google would implement a nofollow attribute. They should have thought of other creative ways to pick up on comment spam. The nofollow tag eliminates incentive to share content, and the whole idea of the internet is to benefit from each other, and share ideas and information. It is a shame most blogs these days, and wikis, by default come prepackaged with the nofollow attribute. I wonder how many people actually understand the effects of a nofollow tag, or are aware of its existence.
There should be no issues with Google related to SezWho..SezWho displays the connections between blogs based on comments and commentets on demand…It does not effect the crawling of the site and as such there should be no penalties associated with it.
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About one third of my support issues go unsolved in the Thesis Forum and I have NEVER gotten any replies to any questions I have asked in the Wordprerss.Org support forum. Is there perhaps a third support alternative — as I currently need help on a Thesis header issue? I have been unable to google a resolution to date.
It seems unfair that I have paid the Thesis price financially. but can’t get assistance when needed.
Thanks for reading
I’m sorry to hear that your issues haven’t been resolved. Some parts of the Thesis Forum have been superseded by new sections for each version of Thesis. I hope it is one of these that you put a query. If not, that is disappointing.
There are a lot of great Thesis users who are very clever and willing to help with advice – both in the forum and around the web. If you post your query here I might even be able to help. If not, I will lead you to the best Thesis super user to help you.
I too have had little success with WordPress.org help.
Again, please post your query here or via the contact form and I will do everything to help you as quickly as I can.
Greetings Somone, thanks for all your help. I am most likely buying Thesis, however, just a few questions–
My site will be retail (natural candles and soaps) and I have already some good Google PR on some. Would I be able to keep the same URLs?
What have you learned in your experience about WP Ecommerce Plug In Shopping Cart with Thesis? Whatever I found online seemed to suggest that it works great with Thesis.
And last,
My home page will be a static page. Can I still set up my blog page to another, like I can currently with Wordpress? Some themes won’t let that happen.
Thank you very much,
Don
I see your site is html. A lot of your pages will be automatically generated with WordPress, e.g. site map plugin that the search engines love. You will be crawled daily most of the time if you update your blog every now and again. The urls can be the same or you may want to use a simple tweak to make the urls more SEO friendly and use permanent redirects. There are a few different ways to swap from an htmll site to WP and beyond the scope of a comment.
The WP ecommerce plugin works just fine with Thesis. There are examples found in the introduce yourself thread in the Thesis Theme forum. Thesis just gives you the ability to make the appearance whatever you want it to be. You can easily use a static page for the home page – even an html page.
There are plenty of forum instructions on changing from another theme or even from a pure html site to a wordpress site. Setting up different pages is a breeze. You can even put links to html pages in your navigation menu. All of your queries are easy peasy lemon squeezy so to speak.
My PR jumped to 4 in about 3 months with Thesis, from scratch! Cracking 5 is harder of course.
I have a client using Thesis and here is the current issue. When a post goes into Archive status it loses its formatting. If you look at the actual post you will see these three words are bold (French, revolting, little) http://www.anklebitingterrier.com/daily/your-amazing-brain-at-work/ but when you look at the archived version http://www.anklebitingterrier.com/2009/12/ the formatting has been lost. Can anyone shed some light on why this is happening and a possible solution?
Thank you very much in advance.
Archives as teasers lose their formatting unless you add an excerpt and add formatting. I use the Tiny MCE plugin so that I can copy and paste the first few lines (or something else) into my excerpt (at the bottom of the post/page editor in your post) and retain the formatting such as bold, links, etc.
Thank you very much for your quick advice. I installed the Tiny MCE Advanced plug-in which seems to do the trick like you said.
Glad I could help.
Hi Somone,
I’m trying to do some really simple things like shift the nav bar below my header, and add a Facebook and Tweetmeme… and no matter what I do, the custom_functions.php doesn’t want to know about it, nor does the custom.css
I can’t possibly be a complete idiot, can I? I’m following step-by-by the tutorials, using the Fourblogger customization tutes & codes but nothing happens. I’ve just spent an hour trawling thru other tutes and following their instructions. When I modify my custom_functions.php file in CPanel it makes my entire site go blank! If I modify it thru the wordpress custom_functions.php screen, nothing happens. I have no idea what I’m doing wrong. :(
I think I need an expert to sit down with me so I can:
1. relocate the nav bar
2. Add the social media buttons to the sidebar
3. Add Amazon affiliates
4. Preserve my sanity
If anyone would like to help -bear in mind that I live in Australia- drop me a line at rhuna9 ((-@-))gmail|dot|com
Amanda´s last blog ..Library Loot February 18-25
Hey, I just read your comment. I love the header and background design – very swish indeed. I hope you sorted things out. The file editor in the wordpress dashboard to change css and custom-functions is very temperamental. I often have to go to my cpanel and alter files there. Notepad is your best friend to copy and paste your original code so when it fails you can delete your dodgy code and replace what worked before…and then try again. Let me know if there is something still eluding you. Use the contact form and flick me an email. I’m in Canberra so time zones are alike.
Hi Somone,
I’m considering Thesis to create themes for client sites, but don’t want them messing with the Thesis option panels. Is there any way to hide/remove them from client installations after the site has been built with them, or will they always have access to them?
Thank you!
The new Thesis release (beta is out now) gives you the ability to save your options and upload them easily. If you sell customisations you can have one file for these so if you client does mess things up it is easy for them to restore to your specs.
I’m thinking of a past client that after the site was done, got enough knowledge to be dangerous, told me how he could have gotten a free theme and done it all himself. I saw what you said, but still, is there a way to hide/remove the options panels to circumvent “smart” clients?
Thanks!
No. Not if they own the licence and have access to the wordpress area. If people are going to complain after they hire you they should do more research to start with. They’re the clients you can do without. If your pricing is reasonable for what you are providing (especially in hindsight from the client’s perspective) then they shouldn’t have anything to complain about. With Thesis the beauty is that it can provide what nearly all of the free themes offer over time depending on your design choices without having to learn a new free theme.
I’m thinking of switching to Thesis and have tried to get onto the forum to ask questions, but apparently you have to buy the product before you can ask a question!!! I found your site and am hoping you can help.
I want to minimize downtime. Assuming that I am reasonably proficient with my blog and am able to follow instructions, pretty well, how long might it take to dump my old theme and replace it with Thesis? A day? A week? Can you talk a bit about the process of switching themes.
Also, I thought I heard that many plugins don’t work with Thesis. True? I really love my statpress pluging .
Thank you for your time.
Kate
Kate´s last blog ..Easter Sunrise Service
Kate, Thesis 1.7 has just been released and I plan on changing over in the next week after I do the usual backups. When you change your theme from another wordpress theme to Thesis, it is just a matter of uploading it and then activating it. If you want it to look different to the default then you will need to make the adjustments in the options panel of the dashboard area.
In the case of your current theme it doesn’t look too different to the default. You would just have to add the url of your header image and the code for your Google AdSense in the places you want it to appear. If you want your Google AdSense below your header I would suggest adding the Thesis OpenHook Plugin so you can paste the adsense code into the field ‘thesis hook after headline’.
You can work out exactly what code to add to your custom.css file (one of only two you need to make changes to) for example to add your header url. It is very straightforward and the instructions are in the user manual.
I have a series of posts at the moment “How to Install and Customize a Thesis Site in a Weekend” that takes you through the process of going from the default theme to Thesis and then some customizations. Have a look at it to get some idea. The next part is making customizations to Thesis for a unique look. You can get the code and instructions that you want to use including adding a unique header. If you don’t want to wait, then you won’t have problems. The article series is for people like yourself wondering how easy or hard it is to change from one theme to another or starting a wordpress blog from scratch.
Thank you very much for the good advice
i think ill try it soon
Hi Somone. Like what you have going here. I was hoping someone could lend me a hand to two problems that I can’ seem to resolve anywhere!
1: I have a site background with images that should appear on either side of the content/side bar area. On my 21″ widescreen monitor, it looks perfect, however when it’s viewed on another monitor, such as my friends 17″ standard monitor, the pictures disappear. How can I set this up so that the images (the background in general) appear correctly no matter what the viewing monitor is? Or is it even possible?
2: I need to change the background for the content area with an image. I can’t find css code for it, nor can I figure it out. It seems simple enough, but I just can’t seem to get it.
I have open hook installed.
Thanks!
There are solutions for both of these. Without giving the code here, you could check the Thesis Forum. What you probably need to do is float your images with absolute positioning so they are closer to the edge of your content area. Perhaps place them in your content or container and then position them with absolute positioning left of the content and right of the content. Try searching the forum for “absolute position” and if that doesn’t give you results, ask with a fresh thread in the css section. Often you will get somebody to give you the exact code for your site so ask nicely :)
You can add an image for your content or container that is positioned left top for example. Make sure your background colour blends in nicely with the image or the image overlays nicely. Alternatively you can make your background for your container and/or content “none” and use the background image for your text to go against. If you are just adding an image for decoration and still want a background colour you just have to figure out if it is the content area or container you want to alter.
Is there a site you like that uses this technique? You can peek at their css to see how it is done or mention the site name in the forum thread. I can’t see your site to see what it is you want to do, whether you use a full width framework or page framework, etc. These are important subtleties that make a difference.
Hi Somonne,
I am trying to prevent my adsense ads from showing up on contact and privacy pages? I just want it to show on posts and home page.
Not sure about that one. I have just accepted this as the case. I suggest that you post your query in the Thesis Support Forum.
Sorry to add I am using thesis 1.7 and insert adsense ads via open hook, I am bad in php but could not figure out simple code
Thanks in advance
Just wanted to say the following FYI –
I tried to upgrade to Thesis 1.7 from 1.6 following the instructions provided on their site as best I could and trashed my site. I then reverted back to the default WP.
I would love to get my site(s) upgraded because “Girlie?” who seems to be in charge of the Thesis forum now, says that only the current version is supported.
Doesn’t quite seem fair that I purchase the licences and am not assured support unless I update but the update is not simple at all! I wish I had of know that upfront so I just thought I would share here.
Also is anyone can help me repair the upgrade I made a mess of I would love the help. Once I can get one blog upgraded and understand the process then hopefully I will be able to upgrade my other Thesis site with ease.
“default WP” should be “default WP Theme” and am therefore missing my menus.
PS Sorry for the extra post but could find no way to edit my reply.
I highly recommend Philip Barron’s upgrade guide – also recommended by the Thesis Theme Forum. It seems to have a higher success rate for many Thesis users who took the time to complain of their problems (or lack thereof) when upgrading.
Read Philip’s easy to follow Getting there: Upgrading to Thesis 1.7 post.
I can understand DIY Themes NOT providing support to earlier versions if it is not just an upgrade problem. There are a lot of illegal download links out there for Thesis and if you don’t purchase it rightfully you can’t get access to upgrade and therefore no access to support for something you didn’t pay for. It’s also best practice not to fix bugs for earlier versions when you are busy fixing bugs and improving the latest version.
If you have trouble with the upgrade after following Phil’s instructions above – post a comment on that post. He is very smart with all things Thesis and his instructions were a lot better than those provided by (dare I say) DIY Themes.
Oh, BTW, since I am here .. Does anyone know how to add an Amazon Associates ad to their thesis header stage left (I have a logo at stage right) ? I tried it but the add would not remain static.
I posted on the Thesis forum to find out what the problem was with my coding and I got no one at all to help. After waiting over a month I removed the ad because it looked terrible moving around. Now I just have a big blank space next to my logo begging for and ad to help me recoup some of my costs. ;-)
Has anyone done this successfully and if so could you point me to some specific instructions.
Thanks for reading.
SonDan´s last blog ..“Wishin’ and Hopin” Performed By Dusty Springfield 1964
You can check out the tutorial here that explains absolute positioning of an ad in a header area. Add the XHTML code (with your Amazon code for example) to your header area using the Thesis Openhook plugin and add the css code to your custom.css file (custom style sheet). You will want to float: right by the sounds of it.
If you are unsure about what pixels you need, use the Measure it add on for Firefox to measure distances on your screen and the Firebug add on for Firefox to experiment with different pixels until you get your ad box where you want it. Then write down the top and left pixels (to move it down and move it right) to get it where you want. It shouldn’t move then at all. If you are still having issues, come back here and let me know what they are and I will be happy to assist.
Hello – just an update
I got frustrated and deleted the code soon after this post since the positioning would NOT remain static no matter what I tried.
I am not using nor do I plan to use the Thesis Openhook Plugin.
I had the size correct: it was never an issue so a measurement site wasn’t needed.
It was just that the ad would not remain STATIC.
If anyone can help me I am still in need of advice. I would like to put the ad back some day in my header. RIF.
Thanks for reading.
PLEASE HELP !!! I’ve been trying to purchase the thesis developer package, and can’t get PayPal to accept my payment. But there is no “Real” contact info for DIY Themes. Anybody got any ideas?
Try sending an email to diythemes@gmail.com
Only thing I can suggest is to contact support and ask for an alternative payment method, I wonder why paypal is rejecting your payment
Hi Somone,
I came across this article through Google. I just purchased Thesis and I’m having a hard time figuring out alot of things. I took your advice and contacted Wordpress Help and I’ve got 0 response. I’ve also used the Forum and I’m definitely having hard time getting responses and its very frustrating. Is there anyone you would recommend me speak to for help?
Thanks :o)
Your best resource is the Thesis support forum. Put all of your queries in separate threads after first checking they’re not already answered. Thesis has been around for quite a time now and many common queries are answered with in depth tutorials where needed. If there’s anything in particular, leave it here and I can even assist finding the forum links for you.
Hello – just an update
I got frustrated and deleted the code soon after this post since the positioning would NOT remain static no matter what I tried and the Thesis blog had no answers whatsoever per usual.
I am not using nor do I plan to use the Thesis Openhook Plugin. I don’t want to add anymore plug-ins to bog sown my blog.
I had the ad size correct: it was never an issue so a measurement site wasn’t needed:
It was just that the ad would not remain STATIC.
If anyone can help me I am still in need of advice. I would like to put the ad back some day in my header. RIF.
Thanks for reading.
I have tried over a half of dozen different plugins for the blog to show the video on the main page. The blog is setup magazine style. The video will play on a categories page, however it will not play on the main layout page unless you put it into blog style.
The magazine layout page by default shows excerpts whereas you have to click the title to get to the posts so I am not sure if the size of the excerpt is just too small to display it or if the display is turned off in this layout. Thank you
To add a video in your magazine layout / teasers – you need to add the video in the excerpt box that is below your post editor.
Simply install the Tiny MCE for the excerpt plugin – for editing the excerpt box that is below your post in the post editor screen.
Click on the video icon and add the YouTube url. Change the dimensions by first clicking the constrain proportions check box and then changing the width to about 220px to fit the width of your teaser.
Here is a link to an image that shows where/how: http://thesisthemehq.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/adding-a-video-in-the-excerpt-box.jpg
I left a letter out of my email in my first post, so I posted again right underneath it, please respond to that one, it has the correct email address as does this one.
I have a Word-press Blog and can’t figure how how to get my video to show on the main Page. I have tried over a half of dozen different plugins for the blog to show the video on the main page. The blog is setup magazine style. The video will play on a categories page, however it will not play on the main layout page unless you put it into blog style.
The magazine layout page by default shows excerpts whereas you have to click the title to get to the posts so I am not sure if the size of the excerpt is just too small to display it or if the display is turned off in this layout. Thank you
Please see the solution below your first comment. This should work with other WordPress themes – not just Thesis – that use magazine type layouts on the home page. It definitely work on Thesis.
I am working with Garrett Lambert and you
were able to help us the other night regarding a video
issue we are having with the front page
of the blog. The TinyMCE Excerpt worked
great however the only problem I am having now
is that the video will not play.
I have installed several .flv players, the latest
being FLOWPLAYER and although
the video will play within the post itself, it will
not play on the main excerpt page. I would like
to know if you have a workaround for this or know
what I could do to get it to play. Thanks for all of
your help.
Tanya Schupp
TRH Designs & Media
Strange. It might have something to do with the format. You could try a free avi converter (just search CNet for a free download) and see if it is the format of your video. Alternatively, you might need to convert it to a YouTube or Vimeo video and embed it – drawing from somebody else’s server instead of your own.
Without knowing more about the video (length, format, what it was recorded with, etc) it is a bit hard to advise on. The person viewing the video will need to have the right player without the bother of downloading a not-so-common player. The YouTube, Vimeo sites are so common now that website visitors are usually equipped to watch them straight away. Camstasia for example lets you convert to an MP4 format but then you have to upload lots of separate files to your server and you can’t really control its layout in your browser/site.
I use Screenr quite a bit now – for videos less than 5 minutes. You could play your movie and record it using Screenr free screencasting program and see if that works for you.
If you are looking at highly professional videos you might need to consult the producers/manufacturers of your recording software and troubleshoot with them directly.
Good luck. Let me know how you go.