Created by the Alex, the brains behind the rapidly growing Blogussion.com, the Blogussion child theme for the Thesis WordPress Theme Framework is one of the most versatile and customizable Thesis child themes or Thesis Skins (as they are popularly called) available in the market today. If you own a WordPress blog (must not be confused with a wordpress.com blog) and are trying to make it look more attractive and professional then you might want to give the Blogussion Thesis Skin a try.

Installation Guide for the Blogussion Theme

The installation technique for the Blogussion Theme is a bit different from that used for most other Thesis skins. So here is a step by step guide to teach you how to install the Blogussion Theme.

  1. As mentioned earlier, Blogussion is NOT a WordPress theme but a Thesis child theme, which means to install Blogussion on your WordPress blog you must first buy and install the Thesis Theme for WordPress.
  2. Connect with your server through the ftp ID provided by your web host and locate the custom folder under your Thesis directory. Rename the custom folder to (say) custom1.
  3. Now upload the custom folder present in the Blogussion pack into your Thesis directory through ftp.
  4. Now log in to your WP-admin section and you should find a new Blogussion option within your Thesis tab. Click this to customize the Blogussion Skin.
  5. To return to your old theme simply interchange the names of the custom and custom1 folders.

Advantages of Using the Blogussion Theme

Some of the major advantages of using the Blogussion Theme (compared to other Thesis skins) include:

  1. The main advantage of the Blogussion Theme is its customizability. It comes with a number of equally good looking color schemes (including Blue, Green and Gray) and you can switch between them by the click of a button, giving your site a fresh look with ease.
  2. The Blogussion Theme uses a custom navigation menu where you can order your tabs any which way you like. Apart from the usual stuff (like drop-down menus), the thing I particularly liked about the Blogussion navigation bar is the fact that you can add small explanatory notes in the tabs themselves and make navigation through your site so much more easier for the new user.
  3. Other useful features include:
  • 3 footer widgets (which, for some reason, is missing in the Thesis parent theme).
  • Scope for uploading a custom logo in .png format.
  • Ready-to-use spaces for displaying your affiliate banners.

Drawbacks of the Blogussion Theme

Despite having several advantages over other Thesis skins, the Blogussion Theme is by no means perfect and suffers from the following major drawbacks:

  1. There is a limitation to the maximum number of options you can display on your navigation bar. So you have to select your categories and pages very carefully.
  2. Since when you are using the Blogussion Theme you are actually using two themes (Thesis & Blogussion) you have to get the dimensions (text size, logo size etc.) absolutely spot on, otherwise your texts and images may overlap each other.
  3. I did not quite like the fact that Blogussion has no provision for displaying your blog name in the header. If you do not upload a logo of your own then your blog header will simply read custom logo which looks very unprofessional.

Note: The Blogussion team has just launched a new website called Kokabule.com which is a full fledged marketplace for Thesis Skins. This indicates that the owners are keen to take Blogussion forward and expect regular updates and support in the days to come.

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