Tutorial – How to Install the Genesis Framework

This is a tutorial on how to install the WordPress Framework known as Genesis. If you missed my earlier two posts you might want to check them out:

• What is the Genesis Framework?
• How to easily install WordPress

Please remember since Genesis is paid for framework you can’t install it until you purchase it from StudioPress. When you buy Genesis Framework you are actually buying “two themes”. You are getting:

1. Genesis
2. Genesis-sample

NOTE – If you buy any of their other starter themes you will get that other Child theme as well as “Genesis” & “Genesis-Sample”.

Before Uploading Genesis to your site please remember you will need to upload at least two items. You will need to upload:

1. Genesis Framework Theme
2. Genesis Child Theme

You can’t touch the Genesis folder in any way. This un-activated theme folder is required for ALL Genesis child themes. You can have one or more child themes on your server however only one can be active at a time. NEVER try to activate the Base Genesis theme!

There are two main ways of installing Genesis.

1. Log into your WordPress site and use the theme upload wizard
2. Manually unzipping and getting the theme files into the “\wp-content\themes” folder.

I will cover both ways.

WordPress Theme Upload Wizard

The first thing you will need to do is to log into your website. Click on Appearance – Themes

Click “Add New”

Click “Upload Theme”.

Click on “Choose File” and select the core genesis Framework file. In my case it is “genesis.2.2.7.zip”. Click open. Notice that “No File is chosen” and the “install now” button is greyed out.

The open screen will close. You can now see that you have chosen a file and the “Install Now” is now clickable. Please click “Install Now”.

You will see that “Genesis” is now installed.

This next step is constantly missed by people new to Genesis. It is important to stress once again:

1. Do NOT activate the Genesis framework you just installed.
2. You still need to upload a child theme and activate it.

To install the Genesis child theme you must follow the same steps you just followed BUT this time, you are going to select “genesis-sample”. You will activate this theme!

How to Manually install Genesis and a Genesis theme

NOTE- If you have already uploaded the themes through WordPress you don’t have to do this. This is just an alternative way of installing the framework and child theme.

The second way of installing Genesis is by copying the contents of the zip files and putting them into the “\wp-content\themes” folder. On my local install it can be found at: C:\xampp\htdocs\genesis\wp-content\themes

After you copy the file to the folder it will look like:

Now that you have copied the files go log into WordPress and go to the themes section.

You will have at least 3 themes that you can choose from.

You need to click on the “Activate” button on the “Genesis Sample” theme.

That is all! Next post I will talk about the Genesis plugins that I install on almost EVERY site I work on! Stay tuned!