Many premium themes come with their own theme options page which isn’t native to WordPress, and can therefore be painful to use. However, that isn’t the case here and X comes with a very intuitive feature they call the customizer, which is used for changing how your site looks. The Stacks As mentioned, this theme comes with four separate designs which are referred to as Stacks. While they can all be heavily customised, they are the foundation of everything you do with X. While there are more stacks on the way, the four available at the time of writing are: Unlike child themes, the stacks are individual designs and are very much separate entities. However, you can still create child themes for each stack. This allows you to make changes as you would with any other theme. In fact, there are a number of child themes included in the X theme package to help you get started. Cornerstone: The New Page Builder Tool For X Version 4.0 of X sees the release of the new Cornerstone page buildercome with this theme. Responsive Design Responsive design is a must. With a growing number of users visiting websites on their smartphones and tablets, it’s not acceptable to offer a theme that isn’t usable on small screen devices. Thankfully the stacks that come with this theme swiftly respond to match screens of all sizes, thanks to their fluid layouts. Appearance There are many features of the X theme that are related to appearance and it seems a shame to lump them together, but for the sake of brevity here are some of the highlights: 600 fonts included Backgrounds support images, patterns and solid colours as well as multiple images that transition on single posts Icon fonts for adding 400 individual responsive icons to your posts Retina ready with support for high resolution displays Customised social sharing buttons Includes all Photoshop PSD files Due to all the control you have over the appearance of your site, there is little chance that two instances of X will look the same.Installation and Setup The installation of X takes place in the usual way for a WordPress theme. Simply download the zip file from your account and then upload it via your WordPress admin dashboard (Appearance > Themes > Add New). Like many premium themes, it does require and recommend the installation of a couple of additional plugins. These are: (free) X Shortcodes (included with the theme) (free) (included with the theme) During the installation and setup process, the theme provides an easy way to install these plugins, which saves you having to track them down yourself. Sometimes when purchasing a premium theme, it can be a bit of disappointment once it is installed and it looks nothing like the demo version that promoted you to make the purchase. Thankfully X comes with some demo content which can be imported to help start your site off on the right track. The support for this theme also includes some great walkthrough videos for configuring the theme. Usage With so many options,features and settings, you could be forgiven for thinking X is a tricky them to setup and use. Thanks to the decision to use an enhanced version of the native WordPress customizer for configuring the theme, there is no cumbersome theme options page to get to grips with. However, I did find it quite time consuming to work my way through the sheer number of options that make up the customizer. If you do want to delve deep into the settings and truly create your own custom designs, such as changing the style of the buttons, modifying font sizes and editing margins, then you will have to put some effort into navigating the vast array of options on offer. However, that is the price you pay for having this amount of control over the design of your site. It’s worth pointing out that if you are happy using the stacks as they are, then you can avoid spending the time exploring the options. Although you would be missing out on a great opportunity to really build something of your own. Also, itwould be nice to be able to reset the options once you’ve experimented with them and saved your configuration, should you not be happy with how it turns out. However, you can import the configuration file for each individual stack and its layout to apply those settings to your site, overwriting any changes you’ve made to the layout and appearance. Using the Cornerstone Front End Page Builder Tool Cornerstone works with both WordPress posts and pages, and can be launched from either the individual post or page editor screens, or from the view all posts screen. After switching to the Cornerstone editor view, you can launch the builder to start creating your custom page layout. Once Cornerstone has loaded, you get a full screen window to work on your page layout. The Cornerstone page builder windows consists of the main canvas, as well as the editing sidebar. This gives you a live front end view of your page as it develops, with the controls displayed in the sidebar area. If you’ve usedany other editing apps, such as Photoshop, or even the WordPress Customizer tool, then this layout should be familiar to you. At any point, you can collapse the editing sidebar. This then gives you a more accurate impression of how your website visitors will experience your page. One of the great advantages of using a front end page builder such as Cornerstone, is that you don’t have to constantly save your work, switch browser tabs, and reload pages to see how your page will actually look when it’s published. This live front end preview saves you lots of time and effort, making the whole process a lot more intuitive. When it comes to the page creation process, with Cornerstone, this is broken down into four main areas or parts: the layout, the elements, the inspector, and the overall page settings. The Layout Pane Through the layout pane on the editing sidebar, you can add sections to your page design. These sections are essentially rows, and each row can have its own custom columnconfiguration. As well as creating your own layouts from scratch, X and Cornerstone also includes some pre-built page layout templates. These can be loaded from the layout pane, giving you a head start when creating a specific type of page. The pre-built layout templates include: an about page, available positions, pricing plans, and a sales page layout. Cornerstone also includes a good selection of pre-built blocks. These blocks can be inserted into your layouts and include a number of popular page elements that you might want to use in your layouts. The available blocks include: about information, core values, features, frequently asked questions, menus, pricing details, product information, and meet the team details. Most blocks are available in a number of different variations, to suit a range of preferences. The blocks can be added to your custom page layout; while the pre-built page layouts replace your existing layout. If you do load one of these pre-built page layout templatesor blocks, you can then simply click on the elements to add your own content through the Cornerstone interface. The Elements Pane However, if you are creating your own layout from scratch, once you’ve added a section to your page layout, you can then insert one of the available elements into it. Simply clicking on the section switches to the elements pane on the editing sidebar. From there you can search, or browse through the elements to find the right one for your layout. Cornerstone comes with a good selection of page elements. This includes: accordions, buttons, rotating cards, call to actions, icons lists, pricing tables, sliders, and a whole lot more. Once you’ve found the element you want to use, simply drag and drop it onto the canvas, to add it to the section where you want to display it. After you’ve added an element to your layout, you can then click on it to begin customizing it and adding your own content. Depending on the element, you should be able to enter the contentin the editing sidebar pane. This gives you a live preview of your changes as you make them. The Inspector Pane The third pane on the settings sidebar is the inspector. Through this pane you can customize the sections, columns, and elements that you’ve added to your layout. From this pane, you can set a section and column background, including a picking a colour, specifying an image, or setting a background video. You can also set the padding and margin values. You can also click on any of the elements that you’ve added to your layout in order to edit its content with the inspector. Depending on which element you’ve clicked on, this could include editing the text content, changing a font or style, updating a Google Map location, or a whole host of other details and settings. As you make changes to your content though the inspector pane, you will in most cases, get a live preview of your modifications as you make them. The Settings Pane The fourth pane in the settings sidebar, coversthe settings of the page you are building. Some of the settings including changing the page or post title, setting the post status, controlling comments, and setting a parent page – all things you would typical manage through the WordPress post or page editor screens. Through the settings pane, you are also given the ability to set the template for your page. With X and Cornerstone you get a good selection of page templates to choose from. This includes options with and without sidebars, as well as a layout with no sidebar, header, or footer which would be perfect for creating a landing page. If for example you do want to create a landing page with Cornerstone, you can simply select the appropriate page template. After saving your changes, you will then have a totally blank canvas to work on, with none of the traditional elements of WordPress on display. The Cornerstone editor screen also includes a responsive preview tool. This tool makes it easy to see how your website will look on arange of screen sizes and resolutions. Once you are finished, you can save your page layout to add it to your website. You can also publish, or change its status, through the settings pane. Support With a theme as vast as this, in terms of features and functionality, it does need some good support material to help you get started. Once again X does not disappoint. There are numerous support videos available to walk you through setting up the theme from installation to using the customizer and beyond. There is also a support forum for raising any issues you might have while working with X. When posting a query to the user forums, a reply with a solution was posted in under two hours, which is very impressive. Furthermore there is an extensive set of written documentation accessible via the members’ area. This provides a good alternative to the videos. Also, as previously mentioned, this theme was built following the advice of successful internet entrepreneurs. The developers of thetheme have included the input and guidance from 10 of those experts, in the forum of text and videos. They cover a range of subjects such as sales, affiliate marketing, design & conversions, local marketing and SEO. This additional content gives you a great insight into why the theme was built as it was and how you can ensure your site performs to its potential. There is also a selection of training videos accessible from the members’ area which cover topics such as building a membership site, working with video and creating information products, to name but a few. This theme is definitely well supported and the additional videos provide good value. Popularity of X Despite this theme only being made available in November 2013, thanks to its large number of sales it has already propelled the developers to Elite Author status at . Not only that, but it made them the fastest ever authors to reach Elite status at this leading WordPress marketplace. However, despite this popularity there islittle chance you will run into another WordPress site using X that has been configured in the same way. This is due to the sheer number of options available for setting up this theme. Not only do the four stacks give you countless options that relate to the overall design of your site, but the multiple settings covering layouts, backgrounds, colours, as well as the newly added ability to create one page homepages, it means that no two sites built using X are likely to look that same. If you want a theme with strong consumer support, but without the risk of your site looking the same as everyone else’s, X definitely has the credentials. Pricing The X theme is available from ThemeForest for the price of $63. While this is a bit more than the usual price of a premium theme on ThemeForest when you consider what you get for your money, it’s a fair price. Conclusion X really brings something extra to the table, in terms of the individual unique designs that are included in one package. Thevast amount of options for configuring those templates also helps make it an ideal choice for anyone who wants to create something of their own, based on an already appealing design. Now with the addition of the Cornerstone page builder tool you get a truly versatile theme that can be used to create almost any type of website with WordPress. While many other premium multi-purpose themes may include a third party page builder tool, X goes one step further and features a purpose built tool that has been designed to work perfectly with the theme. Cornerstone is not only easy to use, but comes with a great selection of page elements as well as pre-built layouts and content blocks, which will enable you to have a custom built website up and running in no time at all. One of the best multi-purpose themes at ThemeForest just got a whole lot better, thanks to the inclusion of its own front end page builder tool. When you consider the additional videos from internet experts that are included,
