Extra Theme Reviews

Extra Theme is one of the latest theme edition from Elegant Themes. Powered by Divi builder and featuring several new modules and layout system, this is an excellent magazine theme for developing any news, magazine, portfolio, professional or corporate websites.

In today’s post, I will take an in-depth look at the Extra WordPress theme and explore what’s possible with it. Let’s get started, shall we?

Being a magazine theme, Extra features a lot of content on the home page. The page begins with a small bar with the social media links, a search field and a newsflash of the trending items.

And then, there is the main navigation menu. As Extra comes integrated with the mega menu feature, it is possible to display all the necessary links in the navigation section. There is a unique animation style for the drop-down menus.

The best place to start with the Extra WordPress theme is its appearance and design. As this theme has been created for bloggers and organizations who are publishing lots of articles, the main goal of Extra is to let your content take center stage.

One key area where Extra really excels is the way it enables you to publish articles that have the ability to connect more effectively with your readers. This is achieved by the options available for publishing long-form content on your website, in a range of formats.

Instead of using the default WordPress editor to create a standard post of text and images, this approach to publishing enables you to combine a range of elements, layouts, and effects to create the ideal platform for storytelling and elevating your content.

As well as the new possibilities for presenting your individual article layouts, there are plenty of options to consider from when it comes to setting up the homepage and category pages of your website. We’ll get to this in more detail shortly, but suffice to say, Extra offers plenty of flexibility in this department.

While Extra is very strong visually, this theme has more to offer than just its looks. Its style and appearance are backed up with a wealth of features and customization options that not only let you publish your content in style, but also allow you to stamp your personality on your site. There’s also plenty of additional features on offer that will help your visitors easily navigate your site, making it possible for them to discover more of your content.

One of the most impressive features of Extra is the way it allows you to easily create custom homepage and category page layouts. Instead of simply listing your most recent posts on the homepage of your site, or all the posts from a category in the standard archive format, as is the case with most other WordPress themes, by using the Category Builder, you have access to a visual interface for determining how these posts are displayed.

Drag,Drop&Build Anything

You don’t need to be an advanced developer to create amazing things with Extra. The Divi Builder does the hard work for you, turning your ideas into a fully functional and modern design. Simply pick and choose from the Divi Builder’s wide range of content modules and arrange them on the page using its intuitive drag & drop interface.

Key Features

Extra includes almost any feature you could want in a theme. More advanced users will love all the customization options and newer users can appreciate the set of pre-made templates and modules to make building a website simple.

Here are some of the key elements:

Includes plenty of categories and homepage styles: You can create a site that looks completely custom using the mix and match parts in the drag and drop editor. Categories and styles range from simple logo-based designs to more advanced magazine-style pages, giving users an immersive experience based on content type.

Includes the Divi Builder: You can build an amazing story (or stories) with this theme. There are more than 40 content modules that can be completely customized. And every piece has a modern design.

Customize it all: Every element in Extra can be customized to your liking. Choose from various header options, typefaces, color, spacing and more.

Built in review system: Allow users to rate your content or products using the build in review tools. Extra’s custom review tools are easy for you to set up and easy for users to work with.

Plenty of widgets: Extra is packed with custom widgets to fill your sidebars with engaging content. Options include widgets such as recent reviews, recent videos, recent posts, social media follow counts, recent tweets, author information and login information.

Integrated with social media: It only takes a couple of clicks to connect the Extra theme to your social media channels. You can display followers counts and links, plus Extra comes with built-in social sharing buttons – a website must-have! – for all posts and the ability to include links to popular social media channels in the header.

Sell online: If you are planning to sell items online, Extra can help you with that as well. The theme is WooCommerce ready (one of the most popular e-commerce tools).

As well as using the default category layout included with the theme, you can simply build a new custom layout and then apply it to all of your categories. However, you also have the ability to create multiple layouts and then assign them to each of the induvial categories on your blog.

.Multiple Custom Page Layouts

At the time of writing the newly released Extra theme comes with eight page layouts. These include purpose built layouts for your author, blog feed, contact, full width, and portfolio pages, to name just a few.

If you are building a website that will feature multiple writers, the authors page template does a great job of highlighting your team.

As well as the page layouts that have been created for Extra, you are also free to load any of the prebuilt modules that are part of Divi. These layouts cover a wide range of uses, including sales pages, landing pages, coming soon templates, shop layouts, multiple homepage layouts, and more. Each of these layouts can be customized with the Divi Builder too, for even greater possibilities.

Custom Widgets and Locations

To help your visitors find more of your content, Extra includes a selection of useful widgets. These widgets can be inserted into any of the supported areas of a theme, which in the case of Extra are the following locations:

Main Sidebar

Product Sidebar

Footer Sidebar Left

Footer Sidebar Middle

Footer Sidebar Right

You also have the ability to create your own custom widget areas and then decide where to display them on your site.

When it comes to the custom widgets you can display in these locations of your site, they include:

Furthermore, to add some interactivity to your site, you can enable user ratings for any post you’ve published. This gives your readers the ability to leave their feedback and influence how your content is presented and listed on your site. In the past, you’d have had to rely on a separate premium plugin to achieve this, but now with Extra is all part of your theme.

Support for Post Formats

Post formats are a little-used feature of WordPress that looked like they might have great potential when first launched. However, uptake doesn’t appear to have been great and they’re not a feature that is supported by many themes. Extra aims to change that and includes support for all the major post formats. These include the standard blog post, video, audio, quote, gallery, and link formats.

Depending on which format you select from the WordPress post editor, the corresponding input box will be displayed for you to enter the appropriate information.

Then, when you publish the post, the content will be formatted according to the chosen post format. Post formats and their individual templates, which are part of Extra, give you a quick way to publish a range of different types of content using a purpose built layout.

By drilling down into the customizer sections, you can access the controls that allow you to change many aspects of your website. The customizer can also be used to edit any of the modules included with the theme, as well as those from the integrated Divi Builder.

Extra Theme Review Final Thoughts

I review many WordPress themes and while most of them are good, none in recent times have impressed me as much as Extra has.

If you are creating a blog or building a content rich news or magazine style website, then Extra comes highly recommended. The overall design and appearance of this theme are of a very high quality. However, the tools that allow you to quickly and easily create your own custom layouts are equally impressive. Being able to use the integrated Divi Builder tool to develop your own layouts for your posts and pages will come in very handy, especially when posting long-form content.

However, out of everything Extra has to offer, the Category Builder tool impressed me the most. Now, with Extra, if you are publishing different types of content in different categories, you can display the feeds of posts from each category using a custom layout that perfectly suits the type of content being shown.

Just as Divi from Elegant Themes has been regularly updated and improved since its launch, I expect the same to happen with Extra. However, it doesn’t appear to be lacking any features, so it will be interesting to see how they are able to improve it in the future.

Considering you can get access to the Extra and Divi themes for just $69, or $89 for access to the Bloom email optin form plugin as well, this theme represents excellent value for money. With those two themes, no matter what type of website you are creating, they should provide you with everything you need.

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