Create Your Own Genesis Child Theme with the Dynamik Website Builder – without Coding!

The Dynamik Website Builder has just been promoted to my number #1 WordPress theme framework – right next to Genesis. Dynamik allows you to create custom page layouts and add custom styling to these layouts without the need to code.

But of course, when you have read The Dynamik Website Builder for Genesis – A First Look, you already knew that. What you probably also know is that you can import and export the Dynamik Settings and Dynamik Design options for backup, restore and transfer purposes.

More exiting are the features at bottom of the Import/Export page of the Dynamik – Design Options. You will see a section “How To Use Genesis Child Theme Export” there. When I discovered this, I thought by myself “Wow!”.

The Genesis Child Theme Export

When you have completed the structure and styling of your website with the Dynamik Website Builder, the process of creating your own child theme seems fairly straightforward. Basically, it is a matter of filling in the blanks:

• Theme Name
• Author
• Author URI

After that, you can probably just accept the default settings of the check boxes, so that there is only one more step to take – hit the [Export Genesis Child Theme] button.

The result is a zip file with a functions.php, a style.css, a default screenshot.png and two folders:

• images – the default social icons, and the uploaded logo
• js – with the responsive.js file

Everythin you need for a Genesis child theme. You can use this child theme, that you have created with Dynamik Website Builder, without the Dynamic Website Builder itself – you only need the Genesis Framework to run that child theme!

That sounded too good to be true of course. And in my personal experience it was. Unfortunately. Although I was able to create the zip file, it was not possible for me to activate the child theme that I had created with Dynamik.

The Support Forum to Rescue

Earlier this week, I opened a thread at Catalyst forum, since I wanted to get to the bottom of this.

Eric Hamm replied promptly asking me to upload the Dynamik Design Export Options as well as the “broken” Child Theme Export file. The next day he came back with the solutions. Apparently, it is only a minor bug, which will be fixed in the next update of the Dynamik Website Builder for Genesis – probably version 1.0.3.

In case you cannot wait, because you are eager to create and activate your own Genesis child theme, it is my pleasure to share the fix with you. The problem is located in the dynamik-import-export.php file which you will find in the /wp-content/themes/dynamik-gen/lib/functions folder of you Dynamik installation.

Open that file in a plain text editor with line numbering like Notepad++ and drill down to line 440 of the file.
Replace:

$ez_structures =
 substr( file_get_contents( dynamik_get_ez_structure_path() ),
 67, -67 ) . "\n";

with:

$ez_structures =
 substr( file_get_contents( dynamik_get_ez_structure_path() ),
 67, -64 ) . "\n";

Save the file. That is it.

Please note that what is presented here above over three lines should really be only one line.

Just put the fixed file in the /wp-content/themes/dynamik-gen/lib/functions folder and you are ready to go.

Simply Superb

The Dynamik Website Builder for Genesis is a powerful WordPress theme framework and hopefully you will agree with me, that the service is top notch too.

When you want to create your own Genesis child theme – without the need to code – you need the Dynamik Website Builder ($77) and the Genesis Framework ($59.95).

In order to activate and run your Genesis child theme, you only need Genesis and the files of your exported child theme of course.