I normally write product reviews about themes and web technologies that can help you run your business or optimize a business process.  Today I wanted to highlight the Genesis Framework, a Framework that allows developers and designers ways to develop their own sites quickly, effectively and at a low cost using WordPress.  The framework technology was created by StudioPress in order to support and run the many ready to go themes they’ve created as well as custom themes developed by other web developers looking for a solid framework to use in their web development projects.

Now I could highlight the standard features that the Genesis Framework boasts from the fact that it is optimized for search engines, the fact that it offers great turn-key designs or that they have great designers creating themes but I would rather talk about the extras that they provide you when you use the Genesis Framework.  StudioPress developed a number of plugins to work with the Genesis Framework including Genesis Simple Edits, Genesis Connect, Genesis Simple Hooks and Genesis Simple Sidebars.  The key is that the developers at StudioPress want to keep it simple for people producing websites.

Genesis Simple Edits

This plugin requires Genesis 1.3.1 and higher

This plug-in helps you to edit three common areas of your StudioPress website running the Genesis  Framework including the post-info or “by-line” area, the post-meta and the footer area of the website.  Having this plugin allows you to make edits quickly without the need to touch the code and that is definitely a plus to using this plugin.

Genesis Simple Hooks

This plugin requires Genesis 1.2.1 and higher

The Genesis Framework uses the concept introduced by WordPress to add simple HTML, PHP and shortcode hooks into your website that won’t be affected when you update your website.  A “Hook” basically hooks into the existing functionality of WordPress.

Genesis Simple Sidebars

This plugin requires Genesis 1.2.1 and higher

This plugin for the Genesis Framework allows you to create additional sidebars that are placed into primary and secondary locations on your WordPress Theme quickly and without needing to touch code.

Genesis Framework Development Resources

StudioPress gives you proven tutorials to do your own development using the Genesis Framework from developing custom widgets and admin management to understanding WordPress Hooks in the Genesis Framework.  This is a huge benefit to working with the Genesis Framework and the documentation including tutorials is up-to-date and readily available to access and use.  Most theme developers out there simply cannot compete with this which really sets StudioPress and more importantly the Genesis Framework making it highly adaptable to your individual needs.

There are also a number of reference guides created by StudioPress including filters, hooks and shortcodes.  The benefit here is that there is a ton of pre-built functionality available to those web developers and people out there that are comfortable developing for WordPress that choose to work with this Framework.

Hook Reference Guide

Hooks are a valuable tool in WordPress development and Genesis Framework has leveraged this core functionality to work in a number of ways.  Here are a few hooks developed by StudioPress for the Genesis Framework.

genesis_title
This hook executes between tags and outputs the doctitle. You can find all doctitle related code in/lib/structure/header.php.

genesis_site_title
By default, this hook outputs the site title, within the header area. It uses the user-specified SEO settings to build the site title markup appropriately.

genesis_site_description
By default, this hook outputs the site description, within the header area. It uses the user-specified SEO settings to build the site description markup appropriately.

genesis_before_content_sidebar_wrap
This hook executes immediately before the div block that wraps the content and the primary sidebar (outside the #content-sidebar-wrap div).

Filter Reference Guide

Some really great filters that StudioPress developed into the Genesis Framework include…

genesis_seo_title

Default value: $title, $inside, $wrap
Applied to the output of the genesis_seo_site_title function which depending on the SEO option set by the user will either wrap the title in <h1> or <p> tags.

genesis_footer_backtotop_text
Default value: Return to top of page
Applied to the back to top text in the genesis_do_footer function.

the_search_query
Default value: get_search_query()
Applied to the search query in the genesis_search_form function.

Shortcode Reference Guide

The Genesis Framework comes with a bunch of shortcodes ready to use out of the box when you buy the Genesis Framework.  Here are a couple shortcodes of interest.

December 30, 2010

This function produces the date of post publication.
list of attributes for this short code:

• format – The format for the date. Defaults to the date format configured in your WordPress options.
• before – Text/markup to place before the post date.
• after – Text/markup to place after the post date.
• label – Text to place before the post date.

Example:

Output: Dated: October 20, 2010

Return to top of page

This function produces the “Return to Top” link
list of attributes for this short code:

• text – Default: “Return to top of page”
• href – assign to which div this link is anchored. Default: #wrap
• nofollow – assign nofollow to the rel attribute in the link to backtop. Default set to true.
• before – Text/markup to place before the “Return to Top” link.
• after – Text/markup to place after the “Return to Top” link.

Example:

Output: Top of post

So, as you can see there is a ton of functionality that you can use to develop any website using WordPress.  The Genesis Framework is “power-house” for those of you looking for a great.  Let’s look next at what you are going to need in order to run this on your website and start developing websites.

Requirements for using Genesis Framework

Current Version: 1.4.1

Required WordPress Version: 3.0

Compatible up to version: 3.0.1

Cost

The cost of the Genesis Framework is $59.95 which is really reasonable considering that it is very extendable, allows web developers to get a lot of functionality for their web projects quickly and amazing documentation and reference guides to get the job done!  Click here to check it out and buy it today!

Overall Comments and Thoughts

This Framework isn’t definitely for “newbies”, however if you are comfortable working with WordPress, PHP and other types of coding you won’t have a lot of issues trying to use this on your next website or in your next website project.

Also, because you can leverage this framework in your projects the return on investment is high and it will cut down your development time.  This is a bonus for web developers and web development companies that use this to their strategic advantages.

In the end, it’s a great framework to use on your next website project so check it out today.  You won’t be disappointed in the Genesis Framework.