This is how WordPress admin demos for premium themes should be done!
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the fact that too few premium theme companies offer fully fledged WordPress admin demos for their WordPress themes.
In this WordPress community blog, I highlight one of the rare companies that has given its users and prospective buyers that very option.
The company is called ThemeFuse. They are one of the larger WordPress premium theme companies out there and they produce high quality work. In the video I take a look at some of the main features of the ThemeFuse Test Labs and give viewers a sense of the benefits that this feature brings to the WordPress platform in general.
If I may be so bold, I would like to reiterate my plea to all WordPress theme developers to take a look at what ThemeFuse is doing; dare I say, even get in touch with ThemeFuse to see if they won’t advise on how best to implement this feature. Even better would be to develop a plugin that could provide this sort of functionality. Open source collaboration project anyone?
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WooThemes has actually been doing this for a long time!
Thanks for pointing that fact out Jack. Good to know ThemeFuse is not alone. But we’re still dealing with a minority right?
Completely agree with this idea. See and play with the theme back-end is an absolute necessity for the buyer.
Jack mention Woothemes but we can mention AppThemes too. And soon, Kattagami.com, my futur themes shop, will run in the same direction
http://hop.tl/bkn
Thanks for your posts, always interesting.
Thanks for stopping by Gilles. I’m very pleased to hear that AppThemes supports this feature too. All eyes are on companies like ThemeForest, the big guns in the WP theme landscape, to adopt this approach.
I’ll post an update to this blog soon that highlights the WooThemes and AppThemes admin demos too.
Kattagami looks fantastic by the way. One of the slickest holding pages I’ve seen for quite some time. Why the Japanese name? (型紙) It’s a term associated with paper patterns for dress/kimono design right?
Yes, kattagami comes from the Japanese word “Katagami”. And you’re right, katagami is a paper patterns to design Kimono. I went to an exhibition few years ago in Paris dedicated to this art and I have been very impress by the precision and beauty of this ancestral Japanese art.
The katagami.com domain was not available, so i decided to add a “t” to the katagami word and Kattagami was borned.
Thanks for your compliment on my coming soon page.
See you.
Love your work! You have a new subscriber waiting for that WP Themes…
Thank you Miguel
You can also follow the kattagami Twitter account if you want. (@kattagami)
Some themes from Elegant Themes support admin demo too.
Hope other themes providers will pay more attention to Admin Demo
This is a great idea!
I frequently get disappointed with the poor admin panel options in some themes… that’s why sometimes I don’t buy the theme I like the most but the one I know I can manage easy (ElegantThemes, Woothemes, Themefuse, Epicera…)
This is an awesome post! I found Theme Fuse a few months ago and use their themes for this exact reason. It is so helpful to understand everything on the back end before making a purchase. I’m glad you took the time to highlight this for other WordPress users. Plus, your videos are interesting and easy to follow. I look forward to reading more of your posts!
It’s not so much of minority, but the big companies do offer this and like you said they seem to be hiding the link to the “labs” or how ever they decide to call it. You have to look for it to actually find it in woothemes or prothemedesign
Thanks Omar. Strange that these admin demos are so hidden. I wonder to what extent theme developers see the admin side of WP as a deterrent to their less “tech savvy” clients?