After reviewing WordPress themes for a few years, I’m still seeing the same mistakes theme developers do when they code a theme: not enough options, a lot of options that you don’t need.
Even though there are a lot of WordPress themes to choose from when you’re creating a website, or you want to re-design the existing one, there are not so many themes that you can really count on – spend money on.
Actually, I think there are only two that really deserve your attention: Total and Jupiter.
Still, this post is not for either of the two. It’s about a theme that actually has the potential to climb on my top 3 of the best WordPress themes.
The template that we’re going to review today is called Uncode.
A powerful multipurpose WordPress theme that can transform your site and make it shine.
So, if you’re still not sure what theme to use for your new, or existing WordPress site, you might wanna stick around for this detailed review.
Uncode detailed review:
Who Is This Theme For? And Is It For You?
The primary use of this theme doesn’t fall into a specific category. Meaning, you can use the theme for any type of site.
It’s especially good for high-quality products and eCommerce shops. The theme whispers class and no matter what you’re writing for or what you’re selling, the theme will definitely make it look even better.
Installing Uncode WordPress Theme
Let’s get down to business and start playing with Uncode.
The first step will be to install the theme. I’m going to add Uncode to a fresh WordPress install.
The steps are like always, access your admin section > Appearance > Themes > Add new > Choose file > Upload the file and press Install now:
Activate the theme once the process is complete:
You’re all set. You can even check how your site looks now.
Installing Uncode Recommended Plugins And Demos
Ok, we have the theme added. The next step will be to add the plugins required for this theme to run and also to check what’s the case with the demos. I saw really cool demos on the sales page and I want to see if we can use them:
Adding Uncode Recommended Plugins
Right after you have the theme added, you will be redirected to the following page:
You can add your registration code in the field mentioned below. Also, a couple of additional settings will unveil. The second tab from the list is called Plugins.
It will lead to you a list of plugins. Some of them are required others no so much. I’ll go with the ones that are a must:
- Uncode Core
- Uncode Page Builder (Visual Composer);
- Related posts for WordPress;
- Uncode Live Search;
- Uncode Privacy.
Only the first two are absolutely required but I’ll add the others also to see what will happen.
I’ll get the message above when the installation is complete.
Later, I’ll go back to actually activate the plugins.
Import Uncode Demo
To be honest, the current way you import demo content on WordPress site running with
When you go to Import Demo section, we’ll see a couple of sections. Let’s check them one by one:
- Import Demo: This will import the whole demo site as we see it when we go to the Preview section of the official page on ThemeForest. To be honest, I don’t like this option here. There is no point to import everything.
- Import Single Layout: Here you can import specific sections you like from the demo site. When you click on the button you can select which page you want to add. It sounds OK, but in reality, it’s hard to choose because you’re seeing only the names of the sections, which means that you need to go through the whole demo to find a section you like. Not cool.
- Import Menu: You can import all the menus from the demo site. Again, you can’t see what you’re importing. You just see this message:
- Import Theme Options and Import Widgets: The same applies for these two. When you press the button import you have only to option to accept the import. However, you don’t know exactly what you’re importing.
To be honest, I’ll start without importing anything.
Getting Started With Uncode WordPress Theme
Once we installed
Most of them are not something we’ll use. For now, we’re going to focus on the Theme Options panel.
Navbar Settings
Logo
Once you access, you’ll see options logically categorized, as the authors of the theme put it. The first section is the General > Navbar > Logo:
You can decide first if you want a switchable logo. This means one logo for dark skin and one logo for the white pages. In addition to these settings, you can also decide what will be the height of the logo.
Menu
The next tab is the Menu tab. From this section you can decide how your menu should appear:
Additionally, you can decide on the bottom of this section if you want full width menu or not.
Visuals, Animations, Additionals
The next settings that follow are all related to your the menu of the theme. You can add and configure a bunch of stuff: Sticky Menu; Menu Shrink; Secondary Menu; Social Icons in the menu.
Also, Call to action menu and etc:
You can go extreme with the settings of the menu itself.
Layout Settings
The next type of configuration is an important one. You can adjust the layout of your website. Also, you can add a frame that will wrap your content if you wish:
The body frame will look like that on your website:
Additionally you can decide whether you want your header and content area to be full width or not.
Footer Section
The footer section includes everything you want:
Copyright area, social links, content blocks. I’ll talk about content blocks a bit later in the review.
Single Post Settings
Ok, we’ve gone through the basic settings. Let’s now play a bit with the options for the blog posts.
Uncode allows you to set specific parameters for the Menu, Header, and Footer for specifically the blog section.
If you really need a different set of
The section that’s more interesting is the Content one.
This option allows you to adjust the width of your posts. Decide what you want visible in your posts. Also, you can add content after the post if you want:
Keep in mind that there are a couple of options for metrics in terms of width: unit, PX, %. I personally use PX and I’ll set the width to 1000px or 900px.
The same options are available in the Page, Portfolio, and 404 sections. You can activate the sidebar for your pages.
Typography Options
Using different fonts it’s kind of tricky with this theme. You need to do a couple of things in order to use different from the default fonts.
So, the first step will be to go to
Now, once we have the fonts we want to use, we can go to Theme Options > Visual > Typography > Add new > Add title > Select the font from the drop down:
Ok, we have the fonts added, now what?
It took me 10 minutes to figure this out. In order to use the fonts we just added, we need to go to Visual > Customize > Here you can find the places where you can change your fonts.
I know, it’s a bit confusing. But that’s how the guys who created this theme setup this.
Additional Uncode Settings
Besides everything I explained above, there are a couple of additional settings you might find interesting. I won’t go in a lot of details, I’ll only show you the fundamentals:
- Under
Uncode Menu > Visual > Extra: You can find settings related to the scroll of the site. You can make it faster. Also, decided what will be the parallax speed. - Utility > Sidebars: You can add custom sidebars.
- Utility > Socials: Here is the place where you add your social media accounts.
- Utility > Google Maps: Add your Google maps code.
- Utility > Performance: From this
section you can activate adaptive images and a couple of other things that will boost your website speed.
Creating A Landing Page With Uncode WordPress Theme
Uncode uses Visual Composer plugin for creating landing pages. So, the first step will be to activate the plugin and start working on a page.
Access a new page using the Classic Editor and click on the Backend Editor button:
This will load the Visual Composer builder and you can start adding elements:
I will add one row:
And I will make two columns:
I’m going to add the element Single Image on the left:
On the right I will add the following three: Empty Space; Heading; Text box.
You can always arrange the elements by simply dragging and dropping.
One more thing before we preview: make sure to disable the Breadcrumb and the Show Title below inside the settings on this page:
Now, you can preview the page:
Of course, you will need a additional elements below that first section but the future steps are pretty straightforward.
Customizing Your Posts And Blog Section With Uncode Theme
As we saw before, there are a lot of options related to the blog posts. In addition to that, we can also adjust the settings for each individual post in order to fit our needs.
Once you access a post, you can scroll down and make few adjustments when needed.
The two most interesting ones are:
Header options: From there you can decide what will be the height of the blog post, whether or not to include the title in the header section, the alignment of the content and other interesting things.
The other interesting section is the Content options: You can adjust the width of your blog post if you want to be different from the default one, show breadcrumb, title and etc.
Also, you can add blocks below the text of each blog post if you want.
To do so, simply go to Content Block > Add new > Add some text > Publish.
Now, get back to your post and load what you’ve just created by going to Content > After Content > Load the block > Save:
See what happened on the live website:
How cool is
Uncode WordPress Theme Price
At this moment,
The price, it’s pretty common: $59 for a single site license.
To be honest it’s well worth it having in mind the features included. You can get the theme and preview the demos by going to the link below:
Uncode Pros/Cons
Pros:
- Visually stunning;
- Tons of options;
- GDPR features;
- SEO ready;
- Highly customizable. You can basically change everything;
- Optimized for performance;
- Premium plugins included;
- Documentation for the theme.
Cons:
- The demos section is not well thought out;
- Adding different fonts to the different sections can be a real pain.
Final Thoughts
Even the mentioned cons, Uncode WordPress theme is a really unique theme. You can tailor every section of the theme to fit your sophisticated needs.
No matter what type of site you’ll be creating, I will surely suggest checking
Have you ever used Uncode for a project? Do share your thoughts below: