How do you celebrate a dozen episodes of Genesis Office Hours? Why, you just have Brian Gardner on! Brian Gardner is the founder of StudioPress and arguably the man who started the custom theme market. He’s a writer, designer, runner, coder, and all-around man of internet interest.
As usual, we opened up the chat room and great questions came forth. Eighty live viewers had the opportunity to ask Brian questions about StudioPress, Copyblogger, New Rainmaker, and even Starbucks – and he answered all!
Below are the questions we covered and some links mentioned during the show. In case you missed the announcement last week, Genesis Office Hours is now available on iTunes and Soundcloud.
What We Talked About
Rainmaker
- I’
m wondering how Rainmaker compares with what you offer through Copyblogger and Premise. . ? What * is* Rainmaker? - So would you say it’
s for someone who wants to DIY only? Or would it make sense for a person to hire a developer to help them set it up? - What about someone who wants the marketing/
business/ content information, but who doesn’ t need to be protected from code? 
- Any insights you will share about what features are coming to RainMaker Platform?
Copyblogger & StudioPress
- What is the official method for getting a site into the StudioPress showcase?
- Where is Genesis when it comes to accessibility being implemented?
- Are you guys hiring?
- Any plans to update and launch new video tutorials on Genesis.
It doesn’ t seem to be active any more. - What is your vision for Genesis.
Where it stands in 10 years? - What about GenesisCamp or AuthorityDev?
- I have a question not very genesis related but for copyblogger (
since brian gardner is here) how do you get the most out of it. So, what’ s the best way to get my hands on all of the business knowledge over there at Copyblogger? Seriously – I see so much content, but not sure where to dig in, if that makes sense. - Any thoughts on going the iThemes route and doing any bundled plugins for security/
backup or will studiopress be staying out of that pool? - With WordPress Core making things easier for theme devs to incorporate customization features via the Customizer,
are full theme “ frameworks” all that necessary anymore?
Just for Brian 🙂
Why are you not using briangardner.com?
- What everyone wants to know.
What’ s his favorite drink at Starbucks? - What’
s your typical routine during the day?
Theme & Plugin Features/Functionality
- Question:
why no fully responsive menus? I love that Genesis keeps things simple ( big time! ) , but I’ d love to see fully styled ( not just inline- block menu items) mobile menu. Thoughts? - Question.
There are always a lot of problems and question ( in the forums) about the responsive image logo and header. Why don’t you make it easier? - What’
s the deal with Grid Loop and rather using column layouts - SASS for StudioPress themes?
- Are you planning to release a mobile-
first responsive theme? - Any guidelines on selling Genesis child themes?
Is it ok to create a 3rd party marketplace using the Genesis name in it? - I see genesis is working on updating their themes to html5.
Any word if the Backcountry theme will be included? - Potential for StudioPress to take on Genesis Sandbox Featured Content Widget officially?
- What has SP been working on?
No new themes in some time. . so what’ s up your sleeve? - Question about the featured widget that comes standard with the framework.
are there plans to ever expand on it to fill the gap between it and the genesis featured widget amplified/ genesis sandbox plugins? - ETA for Genesis Simple Share widget ?
?
Show Notes & Links
Code
(Note – I pulled some of these links from the group chat, but haven’t tried all the code)
- Genesis Fix for Mobile Menu Sub-Menu Problem – Tom Hickey
- Custom post type featured widget – version of the Featured Post Widget plugin with CPT support by Jo Waltham
- Trestle | A handy boilerplate child theme for serious Genesis
- Add The Coolest Off Canvas Mobile Menu In The World To Your Genesis Theme by Tony (@Alphablossom)
- Bones for Genesis 2.0 – starting point for new Genesis projects
- Genesis Sample theme with Sass – Greg Rickaby
- Genesis Accessible plugin by Rian Rietveld
- Lieden child theme – Accessible Genesis Child Theme
-
eleven40 Pro Theme – Mobile responsive and HTML5 theme built (example of responsive menu with secondary levels)
Articles & Interesting Stuff
- The Ultimate New Rainmaker Platform Review – Seth Spears
- A More Accessible WordPress – Awesome wpbacon.com podcast episode talking about accessibility and WordPress
Just Because