When I first got started in internet marketing 5 years ago (wow – cant believe its been that long already), I only knew about free themes being offered through WordPress. There were a few players up and coming, but the problem that I personally had, they were not user friendly for the average person. I literally looked at hundreds of themes and used quite a few during the past few years. That’s why I waited to test drive this new theme out and give everyone a proper catalyst theme review.
OK, here is a glimpse inside the back office of Catalyst. I know the clarity of the pictures are not great and I have tried to adjust them accordingly, but still can’t get them as clear as I need them to be. Just click on the link below and you can easily see big ass screen shots and watch some video’s of this new theme.
I remember a buddy of mine, Michael used to go into the theme editor and add or change up the code to suite our needs for a team project we were working on. I really got tired of the routine because, when there was a new release, he (not me) had to go back into the theme editor and change everything back again. This is a vicious cycle and something that I got tired of quickly.
So, about a year ago, I got tired of using free themes because of several reasons. First, anytime wordpress.org updates their code, you hoped that the person that programmed your theme would stay on top of updating their theme as well. Usually, you had to wait several months to check back with the developer of your free theme and that plain sucked big time. Second, when wordpress updates their code, its usually to fix security related issues I have noticed and occasionally add some new features. So, you can’t always wait for the free theme to be updated. Because of that, you sometimes have to change the your themes to something else because of the new updates.
My first professional bought theme was called Frugal – the same developers of Catalyst Theme by the way. I wanted a theme that had zero programming because, well I don’t know programming like I mentioned above. I have no desire to learn it either. Other than basic html code that we all need to learn a little on, I want to use the theme, have the ability to make each page or post unique and that’s what I got with Frugal.
So why did they change to Catalyst Theme?
Although, everyone like Frugal, there were some limitations and the developer, Eric built Frugal because he too was tired of all the crappy free wordpress themes. When he met Seth, his business partner and co-developer of Catalyst, they started realizing at the beginning of 2010, that they would need to start over and build a new wordpress theme framework that had much more flexibility and capability than Frugal. They set out and it took them close to a year in development to make Catalyst a reality.It was launched in the beginning of December 2010.
OK, I rambled on for a bit, but I wanted to give you a different perspective on some history of how it came about rather than the rah rah blah blah review that you see so often. Is this theme perfect and the best out there? Honestly, I don’t know, but I do know its in the top 10 from my own experience.
Features
- You have the ability to have unlimited custom layouts, widgets and hook boxes.
- The parent of the theme is called Catalyst for the core options and Child is Dynamik
- With the Dynamik Child theme – over 600 options and zero coding required
- 22 Custom skins comes with the purchase
- Custom CSS Building Tool that Writes the custom code for you – I used it – its cool.
- Unlimited Font control for each and every part of your theme.
- Rock solid SEO or search engine optimization
Here’s a look at the child theme or what they call Dynamik back office
There are just too many features to go over in this post and quite frankly you would get bored. I know this is just a partial list and you can go and read up and watch some cool vids over at the actual website. Here is the link Catalyst Theme – Learn More (affiliate link).
What that means, each and every page or post can have its own unique layout.
For example, in Firefox if you look at this site, you will notice that the outside edges are curved. It took me a few minutes to figure that out, with the help of our community forum. You can actually put curved edges around the inside portion and side bar widgets too. I haven’t figured out the sidebar widgets stuff yet, but I think I might give that a go too. The point being, is that you can add that level of customization without programming 
So, I gave you a little insight as to why I like this particular professional theme, but are there any negatives with it?
Sure, like anything there are bugs to fix like any other theme. The one thing that most people will find when they get started is that there are perhaps too many options and people are not really sure where to start. I know I didn’t understand the parent vs. the child theme. They work hand in hand for those that don’t understand. The parent is what you unzip first and activate, then you activate the dynamik (child theme) to use it. The reason for that is to avoid having to do any actual coding, unless that is your thing to do.
When they first released Catalyst, they didn’t have a pdf manual available and many people including myself, were disappointed as most of the time, the developers of professional themes typically have them. However, one of the team members, has produced an in depth and up to date pdf now that encompasses about 160 pages and is now updated with each new version update.
I still have some problems with setting up my widgets and hook boxes and placing them where I want. But, I am getting better.
The main thing that people have problems with is just organizing and setting up their initial site. If you have used frugal, you have to rethink how you did things because they are 2 completely different themes.
The other point I want to make, like any professional theme, it takes time to learn a new theme. So, if you have experience with using wordpress themes already, then you should be up and running within a 1/2 day or so, including customizing it too. Even if you have some experience, you will like have to invest a couple of week minimum to get used to all the new features and possibilities. Is it worth it? You bet because you will never have to rely on another free theme.