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Sarah Gooding

Opus: A Free WordPress Blogging Theme With A Big Personality

Opus is a new WordPress theme for bloggers, now available in the official themes directory. Created by WordPress theme developer Fikri Rasyid, Opus takes a mobile first approach to responsive design and features a fluid layout. When he set out to create Opus, Rasyid wanted the theme to provide a great reading experience on any device. He also wanted it to have personality.

Inspired by the Square UI Design Kit, Rasyid created Opus to incorporate a similar flat design with big fonts and spacious elements. Opus makes use of the popular Open Sans font.

opus

A Post Editor to Match the Frontend

One unique feature of the theme is that the developer has added styles to make the post editing experience match the frontend as much as possible when the visual editor is in use.

post-editor

The Personality Factor

The main visual feature of this theme is the big header image on the homepage, which is intended for users to customize. Opus includes support for WordPress’ native custom header and you can easily change the theme’s colors via the customizer as well.

customizer

Check out a demo on the developer’s website to see Opus in action.

If you like the theme and want to contribute, Opus is also hosted on github and its developer welcomes you to fork it, submit a patch, pull request or report any bugs you find. Since the theme can be found in the official WordPress Themes Directory, it has already passed a rigorous review by the WordPress Theme Review team and you can be certain that it doesn’t contain any malicious code. Opus is a great option for anyone who wants a minimalist and responsive one-column blog theme with a splash of personality.

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13 responses to “Opus: A Free WordPress Blogging Theme With A Big Personality”

      • Customizer in general is fine. The problem is: mostly you are only allowed to change a few colors. All other stuff has to still be done via CSS and other stuff… Also, bringing in options to the customizer that are just “options”, typical backend stuff with no effect on the frontend, is confusing not only to users (if I ever let them access the customizer…) but also to webmasters. That would take more clicks and effort to change some checkbox value as to open an admin page if you’re already in the admin area…

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          • Thanks for your feedback! — I know that.
            What I meant is: change an option that is for the backend but for some reason is only accessable within the Customizer. To set it I have to:
            1. open Customizer
            2. open a panel in Customizer
            3. find the option there, set it/ tweak it
            4. wait for the live preview — if is any regarding that option…
            5. save and waiting for the go back.

            Makes 5 steps/ clicks, including some moments of waiting time…

            Otherwise – when I’m already in the backend, it’s fewer steps:
            1. open specific admin page
            2. set option there
            3. save.

            From there you can go to other options pages or whatever.

            2 steps saved.

            May sound trivial, but if you work hours and hours in the backend each day, then IT DOES MATTER!

            Customizer has to be choosed wisely by developers if it really makes sense!

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    • @Sagar Nangare

      Would you elaborate what kind of option you’d like to have? This theme is intended to be as simple as possible, but I’d love to have more insight from your point of view

      @Sarah Gooding

      That is exactly what I’m trying to do. I used to utilize theme options on my daily job as WP Theme developer on a private university. I thought theme options is straightforward easy to use. However, the complexity becomes clear once you train faculty member how to customize their site. Switching back and forth between backend and front-end is just confusing.

      Once I learn how customizer works.. this is what easy is. What you see is what you get.

      @David Decker

      I think we can do much more with Customizer than changing few colors. In context of Opus, I intentionally built it to be as simple as possible.

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  5. I like the minimalistic inclusion of options that is going on. That is why WordPress has a plugin directory. Relying on a theme for all of your options can be burdensome because if you decide to update the look of the site you’ll have to go back and edit posts because things are now broken. That’s too much work and a time suck.

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    • not to mention when you want to add a custom slider plugin and discover that some whacky bits in the theme cause the ‘add slide’ button to malfunction in the slider and the original theme author can’t even figure out why, despite having updated his original theme to be compatible with 3.8.

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  6. I tried it. First, thank you to the developer for doing nice clean work and donating it.

    The reasons it doesn’t work for me are down to the readers I have. It’s fine that the minimalist menu is just an unmarked icon if you’re under 25.

    For those who are over that, and I deal with semi-obsolete tech, I needed to add a Page hierarchy to the sidebar of my current theme because the menus were too oblique or perhaps script-blocked; whatever it was, readers weren’t navigating well. I also added links to child pages on the parent page because they would click that instead of the child links in the menus.

    There is no option to add sidebar widgets, because no sidebar, so def. CSS required and then it would be a mess.

    Also, I know narrow is cool and makes it easier for different kinds of screens, but I like it wider than what it is. I post photos, and this was reshaping my thumbnails (480 x 640) a bit to fit them in.

    I loved the large header, my headers tend to strain at the boundaries of most themes allowances, and it worked with the random header plugin I use. So the top looked fantastic! Perhaps a smaller title font…

    It didn’t work with the infinite scroll plugin for some reason, perhaps the Automattic version would work.

    That said, a version that remedied some of the above would definitely grab my attention. Looks are great, but it’s about communicating and easy nav. for us ancient folks. I think there is a middle way, and you are on the right track with Opus in general, looks great!

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  7. Hi Sarah,

    I’m Fikri, the author of theme. Thanks for reviewing my theme. This is the first time I’m submitting the theme to repository and it’s an honor for me to have my craft reviewed by WPTavern.

    Once again, thanks. This kind response of yours makes me want to submit more theme to the repository. :D

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