Anyone got examples of the WP Theme addon in action?

General
#1

Looking to rebuild my business photography website with Backlight, and would like some more information about integrating it with WordPress. How does it work? Do you first build the site with WP and then integrate the Backlight galleries or is this esentially ‘skinning’ the Backlight website?

I would really love to see any examples of this in action. Thanks!

My current website is made with Adobe Portfolio, but I am moving away from Adobe and I would like to build something similar with Backlight https://dtphotography.co.nz/ - do I even need the WP Addon?

#2

If you’re using WordPress as a basis for your site, then install WordPress in the root of your site.

Your Backlight albums would operate independent of WordPress, but if you use the Backlight WordPress Theme add-on, your WordPress site will match the design of your Backlight albums and it all integrates really nicely. The navigation menu you create in Backlight will be used in WordPress, including the Gallery sub-menus.
I’ve written a post about setting this up:

I’ve got a small demo site here:

#3

Hi Rod,

Thanks for the quick reply, so it looks like I have this backwards…

I would like to use the core functionality of Backlight (galleries + client response area) but use Wordpress for the look of the site, considering the multitude of awesome WP themes out there. Is this possible?

#4

The WordPress add-on creates a theme that you design in Backlight.
But you could certainly use any WordPress theme you want and then try to design your Backlight albums to match as closely as possible.

Or, if you didn’t care about matching design, just use the theme you want and design the albums whatever way you want.

#5

Backlight is not theme-able, nor are its albums embed-friendly. That latter thing meaning that you can’t embed albums into Wordpress pages.

Instead of themes, Backlight has its Designer, which allows you to customize the appearance and behavior of your website with tremendous flexibility, without having to code or hire someone to code a theme.

Our WP Theme add-on takes your settings from within Backlight’s designer – mostly based on your chosen page template – and creates a matching Wordpress theme. You can see this in action on The Turning Gate’s own blog, as well as on other sites that user’s have shared in this forum. The Backlight WP theme is fairly vanilla by intention, to ensure high compatibility with available Wordpress plugins.

If you want Wordpress to be the main thing, then you’ll have to settle for whatever design approximation you can achieve via Backlight’s designer in getting your galleries to match your chosen Wordpress theme. Personally, I dislike Wordpress, so I would generally contest that Wordpress themes are awesome, built as they are on Wordpress itself.

Here’s a video; it’s concurrent with Backlight 1, so much has changed, but the way the Wordpress them works after install is mostly the same.

#6

Ok yes I definitely had it backwards, I’ll avoid integrating WP. Thanks for your help Rod & Matt!

So from your extensive experience, do you think I can build a site with Backlight only that matches the look and feel of my current site?

#7

Based on your home page, I’d say yes. It might not be an exact match, but you should be able to come close. Some things, like social media icons, may need to move. Or you may need to use some customization beyond the design controls in Backlight.
(And you can get lots of customizing help here on the forum)

#8

If you have the fonts, I think so, yes. Also, I think our slideshow is better than the one you currently have.

And +1 for what Rod has said.