GoodTheme Lead 2 Theme Features:
- Columns: 2/3
- Menu Type: Standard
- Pre-Styled HTML Elements: Yes
- Plugins: Included
- Trackbacks/Comments:
- Author Comments: Styled, Threaded
- Browser Compatibility: All Standard Browsers
- Widget Ready: Enabled
- Code: Clean, SEO Friendly
- W3C Valid: Valid
Theme Admin Options:
- Logo Options: Editable
- Page Alignment: Centered
- Advert Mgmt: Custom Panel
- Display Attributes: Yes
Package Includes:
Personal License:
- Price: Free
- The "standard" package, includes everything you need to use the theme.
- Full support provided with purchase.
- Not Applicable
Developer Package:
- Price: Free
- Ideal for developers and designers.
- Additional features, PSD files included.
- Not Applicable
Preview and Download:
Extended Theme Description:
GoodTheme Lead 2 is honestly one of the best-designed magazine themes, whether free or premium. When you see the features included within this theme (released under the GPL), it’ll certainly make you wonder why premium theme designers don’t include more features to separate their themes from this one.
Other than the dozens of options you have from within the back-end, including the option to change the color scheme and main layout of the site, this tour will go through the default template, found here. At the top of the theme there is a large area for both your logo and a banner ad, and this space also contains drop-down menus for your pages.
You can’t have a standard menu system with a magazine theme, however. Beneath this, there is an area for category links (plus short descriptions). This makes it easy for your visitors to find their favorite categories, especially if you’ve published a lot of content recently.
Heading further down the theme, you’ll discover a large area for featured content, with images that are just as powerful as your content. Thumbnail images are displayed further down, ideal for recent, but still equally great content.
Moving back up to the top of the sidebar, you’ll find a tabbed area for Popular and Latest posts, Comments, Tags, and a Subscription area. This helps you conserve space, while ensuring your visitors follow on through different areas of your site.
Speeding up a little bit, there is an integrated (but movable) search box, “About Me” box, more space for advertisements (this time 125×125 pixels), subscription buttons/links, a Featured Video, and more space for short links (a split, two-column is here).
Finally, the footer is three columns and is great for any additional content that you may want to place here. Many free theme designers skimp on the design of the footer, but this one actually appears as though it belongs here.
Upon closer inspection, the theme does have some things that could have been improved upon, like HTML tags (headings, lists, etc.), some more emphasis should be placed on the paged navigational menu, and video posts should be styled better. Other than these rather minor elements, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a theme that matches this in features, quality, and price (free).
Additional Features:
- Five color schemes – blue, white, gray, red, and purple colors.
- There is a two-column layout, but with a two-column content section and a third sidebar.
- Six widget-ready areas – three in the sidebar, three in the footer.
- Right main sidebar.
- Featured posts section on the homepage with large images.
- Automatic post thumbnails.
- Drop-down pages and categories menu.
- Control panel within the sidebar.
- Powerful theme options panel.
- Easy logo changing.
- Exclude categories feature.
- Display category description.
- Customizable sidebar layout – you can turn on or off sidebar blocks.
- Great advertisement manager – six ads block.
- Easy Google AdSense input.
- “About Me” image and text feature.
- Featured video section.
- Fancy social bookmarking manager – RSS, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter.
- Threaded comments with Gravatars.
License Breakdown:
• Free (GPL License) – This license allows you to use the theme on an unlimited number of websites and blogs.
