We listened to your feedback. You want a theme that’s flexible, easy to customize and can build custom layouts. After years of development we’ve come up with our most advanced and versatile theme to date and called it Enlightenment, a pun on how the theme will lighten your website’s development process.
Click the download button below to try the theme on your website or read more to find out about the theme’s features.
The theme’s secret power lies in the framework that was developed along with it. We’ve combined all our theme’s most popular features and bundled them into a library that allows simple integration of separate features; we called it Enlightenment Framework. The theme we present you today is planned to be our long term flagship theme for showcasing the framework’s features.
A little History
Shortly after we started developing themes 5 years ago, the need for a theme framework immediately became obvious. Features were repeating, code needed to be ported from one theme to another and often implementations were not compatible so a lot of time was wasted rewriting code.
The process of isolating functionality from presentation and bundling it into a library began 4 years ago, during which time the project was scrapped and rewritten several times. Obsolete features were removed, new features were added and the principles of implementation were changed several times. We also needed to keep up with the constantly evolving web. Today we’re proud to present you the end result that we hope will bring a fresh experience to the way you customize your website.
Why the Need for a New Framework
The reason we built our own framework from scratch was that we needed a solution to a problem we were facing: the need to isolate individual functionality for future reuse. Traditionally theme frameworks were of a specific, targeted type: there were starter frameworks that offered a minimal set of code and functionality to get a theme development’s process started, options frameworks that offered lots of customization options and builder frameworks that offered a user friendly interface that allowed customization of templates, usually with drag and drop.
When developing this framework we used what we believe is a unique approach in that we isolated each piece of functionality into separate modules and used the magic of WordPress’ add_theme_support() function to load them only if the theme requests them. That way each theme feature can function independently without specific dependence on the theme’s implementation. Bloating each request with unneeded functions has been minimized and code is easier to maintain and reuse. We’ve called this new approach a “Features Framework”. While we may not be the first to approach such a principle, we’re probably the first to give it a name.
Stunning Features in all their Shine
The aim with Enlightenment Theme is to offer a collection of tools that allow for advanced customizations of web pages. Templates can be dynamically customized customized with the built-in editor, custom layouts can be applied to any page and content can be showcased in different ways so you can build awesome landing pages. The theme also supports WordPress’ built-in features like post formats, post thumbnails, custom header and custom background and has a responsive layouts that automatically adapts on any device. Read below for a complete list of features the theme offers:
Bootstrap 3
The theme was built on the world’s most popular front-end framework: Twitter’s Bootstrap. This allows for the creation of flexible layouts and simple customizations. Furthermore, the plugin Bootstrap Shortcodes for WordPress allows you to insert any of the Bootstrap components in your posts. See the demo page Bootstrap Shortcodes for an example.
Google Web Fonts
Google Web Fonts are a beautiful collection of fonts and many themes use them to improve the website’s visual appearance, but choice in matter of what fonts you can use is often limited. We’ve implemented a deep integration with Google’s Developer API that allows you to apply any font from the Google Directory to your website.
Custom Logo
Custom Website Logos of any dimensions can be added in the header. The theme’s automatically adapts it to fit to the container’s size while preserving the image’s proportions. The logo can also be displayed alongside text or standalone as a link to the home page.
Menu Icons
How else to make your navigation more intuitive and user-friendly than by displaying a suggestive icon next to each menu item? Now in the menu editor you can select a unique icon for each menu item from the greak Glyphicons icon set.
Menu Descriptions
Menu descriptions has been a long-lasting built in WordPress feature that few themes took advantage of. Now when you fill the description field for each menu item, it will appear in the navigation when the Large Navbar option is selected.
Custom Layouts
You can select one of the built-in custom layouts for each archive from the theme options and you can also customize the layout for each individual post from the meta box in the post editor.
Masonry Grid
Archives can be displayed in a flexible multicolumn grid powered by the Masonry script. The grid has been crafted in such a manner that any content can be showcased in the small space available, turning your post archives into beautiful multimedia galleries.
Image Lightbox
Image links can be displayed in a lightbox that automatically adapts to the screen’s dimensions and can be disabled from theme options. Multiple image links are also grouped so your visitors can navigate through them without closing the lightbox.
Infinite Scroll
Posts in the next page will automatically be appended when the bottom of the page is reached. Your visitors can engage smoothly with your content without the need for interaction. Some studies have shown this to increase conversion rates. Posts appended to the grid gracefully integrate with the Masonry script.
Template Editor
The built-in drag and drop template editor allows you to dynamically add or remove functions from each template so you can customize it to your preference. Individual posts can also be customized with the “Page Builder” meta box.
Unlimited Sidebars
The Enlightenment Theme has been widgetized to an insane degree. There’s a sidebar next to, before and after almost each page section. Furthermore sidebar can be integrated with the grid system via theme options and widget areas can be created dynamically and assigned to any sidebar.
Custom Queries
The Custom Query widget allows you to display any type of query inside a widget. You can display individual posts or archives, select the number of displayed posts and showcase the content as a list, slider, gallery or carousel.
Theme Documentation & Support
Enlightenment is an advanced theme that can help you create amazing page layouts and showcase any type of content, but may require a bit of mastering to take advantage of all its features.
We have prepared an in-depth documentation of all the theme’s features to get you stated with using this theme to make the best from your website:
- How to customize the Theme’s Header
- How to apply General Theme Customizations
- How to customize the Theme’s Typography
- How to integrate with the Google Web Fonts Directory
- How to customize the Theme’s Layout
- How to customize the Theme’s Grid Loop
- How to use the Theme’s Unlimited Sidebars Feature
- Understanding the Theme’s Handling of Sidebars
- How to use the Custom Query Widget
- How to use the Theme’s Template Editor
- How to set up a Portfolio
- How the Theme handles Post Formats
- How to integrate the Theme with Bootstrap Shortcodes for WordPress Plugin
- Deconstructing the Theme Demo Home Page
For any support questions please use the dedicated section at the forum. Please do not use the comment form on this page for support requests.
License
The theme is provided for free under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2. In general words, feel free and encouraged to use, modify and redistribute this theme however you like.
If you appreciate the theme please take some time to leave us a comment below sharing your experience.
The Fabulous theme framework yet free…!
A Benchmark theme in freemium category.. Keep it up…!
Thank you for your kind words. All of the theme’s features are bundled in the free version, there is no premium up-sell version so it doesn’t fall in the freemium category.
Great Theme, yet free thanks. Can we use Woocommerce and Directory listing plugins in this Theme? Nevertheless great theme to upload.
Support for WooCommerce is planned for a future version. You can try Business Directory Plugin.
Very nice theme and responsive too 🙂
Are there any premium features that must be bought later or is it all free including all possible features?
Enlightenment is and will always be a free theme with the complete set of available features. There will never be a premium version. The purpose of this theme is to act as the flagship theme of Enlightenment Framework and showcase its features, nothing more and nothing less. The long-term plans are to make Enlightenment Framework a community supported project that anyone can use and contribute to. We may develop other premium themes based on Enlightenment Framework in the future but Enlightenment Theme will always remain free. That being said, we’re curious to know what features you feel are missing from the theme.
Thank you for the answer Daniel
I do not need any extra features yet since I have not used the theme yet 🙂
I wanted to make sure that it was free before use.
The theme looks very fine and I will let you know of any future feature requests.
Hello and congratulations for this great theme. I’ve translated it in french today, feel free to download this translation here : http://www.wptrads.com/theme/enlightenment/
Best Regards,
Didier.
Thank you for your contribution, Didier.