1 Introduction

Good News! Genesis Framework (aka Genesis) 2.0 is now available and its arrival has been greeted with lots of excitement. After all, we’re not just talking about a simple upgrade here. Genesis 2.0 contains state of the art code covering both big and small changes to functionality and appearance.

In total, Genesis 2.0 incorporates 131 fixes, improvements, additions and removals over Genesis 1.9.2. It means there’s a lot to get your head around if you want to really understand the implications of its release. So as a talented web developer who creates child themes and plugins that run on the Genesis Framework, how will you ensure you make the most of the new functionality?

Will you:

  • Sift through the mass of articles and tutorials on the web
  • Tinker and play to figure it out
  • Immerse yourself in the discussion forums

Well, you could do that, or you could just read the guide that you’re currently looking at!

Each chapter has sections grouped and ordered as Fixed, Improved, Added and Removed.

This guide also include a chapter at the end detailing nine further changes between 2.0.0 and 2.0.1, and another for 19 changes between 2.0.1 and 2.0.2.

1.1 Who Is This Guide For?

This guide is primarily aimed at those who develop child themes or plugins that work with the Genesis Framework. To a lesser extent, those who just use Genesis or make simple customisations may also find parts of it useful although much of the content matter is purposefully written from a technical perspective.

The official launch announcements that accompany each release necessarily skip over the finer changes to cater for the majority of the StudioPress blog audience, so if you’re looking for the details of what’s changed, and why, then read on.

1.2 About the Author

I’m a web developer who specialises in WordPress. I’m a key contributor for the Genesis Framework, and I also train and mentor other developers, with a focus on improving the code in their client work or products.

I started using WordPress around version 2.3 (Sept 2007), Genesis at version 1.2 (June 2010) and contributed to version 1.3 and every version since. I don’t think it’s conceited or unfair to say that, outside of the StudioPress core team of Brian Gardner and Nathan Rice, I’ve contributed the most to Genesis in both code and persuasive discussion on how to do something the right way. I have been arguably one of the top three most important figures in the history of Genesis… 1 as some might say.

Hire Me

If you’re looking for a Genesis theme or plugin audit, or some code mentoring to improve yourself as a developer, then get in touch via gamajo@gamajo.com.

1.3 Contributors

Thank you to the following people for their help in getting this guide completed:

1.4 Notes

Some sections have notes - here’s a key to what they mean:

tip

Tips

The tips section is for giving you extra help or key pointers, such as references to useful plugins.
warning

Warning

The warnings section is something you should read carefully. It’s mostly used to highlight when updating to Genesis 2.0 might break something that is considered an edge case; that is, something not many sites are doing, or might be doing something in an odd way.
information

Information

Information boxes are small asides to the section that you might find useful.

Up next

2 User Interface