ESC is developing a new website as part of its overall communications revival. So far this theme (Ovation, test 6) and Lodestar (test 2) fit best our requirements.
(This is documented test number 6 – however numerous other templates have been tested in an accelerated way with no visual documentation. It should be added that the theme of this luther250.com site (Sequential) is quite good – especially noting that the front pages have been re-customized).
OVATION features of note:
1. Header overlay opacity control
2. Header can be full width video or full page width still image.
3. Sidebar can be turned on and off -is off by default and if no content applies to current viewing screen (Post/page/category/portfolio/testimonial/etc)
4. Very large and well implemented slideshow auto or manual control
5. Content option for masking post data or enabling/disabling featured images.
6. Top menu has “sticky navigation” so scrolling takes place “beneath” it. Means also that the top menu is always in place and visible.
7. The hamburger used for enabling the sidebar, also enables the menu in the sidebar on smartphone format – the first sliding screens are fixed on the smartphone version and the video is replaced by the chosen fixed image.
OVATION page attributes:
1. DEFAULT
2. FULL-WIDTH
3. GRID
4. RECORD archive (designed for CD cover squares and record names)
5. VIDEO archive – allows infinite matrix of live images – but playing the video takes place in a separate page and no auto-start, so yet another click – Lodestar is better there.
6. Portfolios and Testimonials can be scripted from any page (true now for all themes).
Any negatives can now be eliminated:
1. The VIDEO archive implementation is not good, as described already above – but as one of the few negatives of Ovation, we can live with it – and now with page-builder we can over-ride that restriction completely. Check out this video matrix made with the page-builder – it can be any shape, color, border, width, whatever – note that we can mix text, live images, videos, or whatever combination we want.
2. There is no footer area, so the few fixed items which we would normally place there – like Google map and contacts, etc – have to go someplace else. This is possible. Although with page builder we can make our own footer area as well.
luther250.com 