Kallyas is an all-in-one WordPress theme that was released on ThemeForest back in February 2013. Since its release the theme has been continuously improved and refined and as I write this review the theme has generated over 17,500 sales.
The design was created by theme developers Hogash Studio. The company are known for producing WordPress themes, Joomla themes, and HTML templates.
Kallyas has picked up a large fan base and is being used on high profile blogs and websites such as Koenigsegg Gear (Koenigsegg Automotive AB are a Swedish company that sell high-performance sports cars).
Kallyas is available for WordPress and Joomla platforms. There is also an HTML version available.
Hogash Studio kindly sent a copy of the WordPress theme to me so that I can test the design and review it fully for all of you. The version I tested is 4.1, which is the latest version of Kallyas.
I hope you enjoy the review :)
Features and Design
Built upon the Bootstrap 3 platform using HTML5 and CSS3, Kallyas is a responsive and retina-ready WordPress theme that can be used to create any type of website.
The theme is translation ready, supports right-to-left languages, and supports The WordPress Multilingual Plugin. There is also native support for BuddyPress and bbPress so Kallyas is a good option if you want to add community features.
A built-in contact form helps visitors contact you and MailChimp integration will help you increase your newsletter subscriber count.
Kallyas is packed full of customisation options too. From the WordPress admin area you change your website colour schemes and select multiple blog layouts and portfolio layouts. Twelve unique home page templates are included with the theme and you can add professional sliders to your website easily through the included Slider Revolution plugin (worth $19).
The old adage says that the proof is in the pudding. Thankfully, it only takes you a few seconds of looking at the demo of Kallyas to appreciate the quality of this WordPress design. Kallyas is, quite simply, a beautiful WordPress template.
The home page shows off a stylish navigation menu at the top of the page and a large professional slider underneath.
Kallyas lets you change the layout of individual pages. From the page editor you can define whether whether a sidebar is displayed left, right, or not at all. You can also set the style of your sub-header and the general layout of the page. This gives you a lot of flexibility over how different areas of your website look.
Ecommerce websites can be easily created with Kallyas due its support of WooCommerce. A wide range of layouts are available to help you sell your products and services.
Two unique blog index templates are available and they both look great. I recommend checking them out if you are looking for a good blogging theme for WordPress.
Bloggers will also be pleased to hear that Kallyas supports five WordPress post formats as well: Standard, video, quote, audio, and link. This allows you to present content in a number of stylish ways.
One of the biggest selling points of Kallyas is its front-end drag and drop page builder. As with all drag and drop page builders, you need to spend ten to twenty minutes familiarising yourself with the interface to get an understanding of how it all works, however it will not be long until you are creating unique layouts using it.
You can style your website using over one hundred content elements. Elements are divided into seven categories: Full width, layouts, content, single elements, media, headers, and widgets. This provides you with a huge number of ways to modify your website and content design.
You can save and export your layouts as templates and apply them to other areas of your website. Elements can be customised and saved too.
It is impossible to highlight all aspects of the Kallyas design and explain all of its features in just one article. I therefore encourage you to spend some time checking out
the demo of Kallyas in order to get a full appreciation of what this WordPress design can do.
Setting Up Kallyas
Once Kallyas has been activated on your website, you will be taken to a dashboard information page that walks you through how you can set the theme up. It’s a nice addition to the theme as it helps newer WordPress users get started with Kallyas.
A message at the top of the page recommends installing and activating four plugins: Cute Slider, PostLove, WooCommerce, and Slider Revolution.
In the next tab you can register your theme. I recommend performing this step so that you can receive automatic theme and plugin updates through your WordPress admin area.
The next tab gives information about the four recommended WordPress plugins. I recommend activating the plugin initially to test each plugin out, however if you are not actively using the functionality they provide it is best to deactivate them.
Sample data can be imported in the fourth tab. A message states that it make take ten to fifteen minutes to do the import, however it only took a few seconds for me.
Importing the sample data is a great way of seeing how everything works in Kallyas, but I do think it is better to perform this step on a test WordPress installation so that no sample data is imported into your live website.
Below is a screenshot of how your WordPress admin menu will look after activating Kallyas. It’s a long screenshot, but I think it is the only effective way of showing you what your admin menu will look like after you activate Kallyas.
Compared to many other premium WordPress themes, Kallyas does not hijack your admin menu excessively. Many of the added menu items are generated from activating the recommended plugins. There is a new menu item for Cute Slider, PostLove, WooCommerce, and Slider Revolution.
The menu item for PostLove comes under the heading Hogash Plugins. I have seen a lot of developers display their plugins under one centralised menu. It makes sense to do this if a user is using many plugins from one particular developer, though the PostLove settings page only asks you what post type to use and whether its functionality is restricted to registered users. You would rarely return to this small plugin settings page after you have configured your settings to your liking so it is a shame that they are not displayed in the main options menu instead.
Five more menu items are added by the theme itself (i.e. they will be added even if the recommended plugins are not activated). This includes portfolio items, documentation items, page layouts, and page builder smart areas.
All other options are centralised under the the “Kallyas Theme” menu item. If you include the Kallyas dashboard, there are a total of sixteen sections in the main options area.
At this point, some of you may be wondering why I am talking about the admin menu so much. I raise this issue because theme and plugin developers have a bad habit of displaying options in the main admin area instead of under “Appearance” or “Settings”. A live website may have up to fifty WordPress plugins activated and this can lead to the WordPress admin menu being overwhelmingly long.
Thankfully, Kallyas does not take over your admin menu too much. If you do feel the need to tidy up your admin menu, I recommend installing the free WordPress plugin Admin Menu Editor. That will help you organise your menu the way you want it.
Creating a Website with Kallyas
The Kallyas theme options area has a clean professional layout that is easy to navigate.
I noted above that the main options area of Kallyas is divided into sixteen sections. Each of these sections have multiple sections within them.
You will find hundreds of options within the main options area. The sheer volume of options can be a little daunting at first, but when you take a closer look you realise it isn’t so bad as everything is categorised well. For example, all blog options are handled through a dedicated section and fonts are handled through another.
The general options section is by far the largest as it contains eleven sections of options. Most other options sections are split into two or three sections.
Every aspect of your website can be configured through the options area. You will find lots of useful design and layout options and boxes to insert code directly into your website.
The only thing I noticed that was missing was the ability to import and export theme settings. This is something I consider an essential feature as it saves you having to reconfigure everything again when you have tested the theme thoroughly on a test website and are ready to set everything up on your live website.
Thankfully, the developers are working on adding this so we should see import and export functionality in an upcoming release.
Unfortunately, there is no support for the WordPress theme customizer. All you can do is modify your website name, your static front page, and widgets and menus.
I hope that they address this in a future version and start integrating their theme settings into the WordPress theme customizer. This will allow users to make layout and design changes and see the difference in real-time. At the moment, users need to keep two tabs open and switch between the settings area and the front-end of their website.
All in all in I was incredibly impressed with the options available within Kallyas. It’s a highly versatile design that is packed full of features, however they have managed to organise everything intelligently so that everything is self-explanatory.
Pricing, Support, and Updates
Kallyas retails at $59 from ThemeForest. Your purchase includes unlimited future updates and six months of support. An additional six months of support can be purchased for $17.70. Your purchase also includes a copy of Slider Revolution; a fantastic plugin that retails $19 on its own.
The developers of Kallyas have a great support area that features an active support forum. There is also an extensive documentation area that features tutorials on installing the theme, using the theme, and troubleshooting the theme.
Hogash Studio also provide customers with a large video library. You will find dozens of video tutorials on getting started, installing Kallyas, setting up and customising your website, and using page building elements. Tips and tricks videos are available too.
Below you will see an example of the quality of videos that are available to customers.
Hogash Studio are not unique in providing video tutorials to those who buy their themes, however the sheer volume of video tutorials available is refreshing. Those of you who are new to WordPress will find them very useful.
Final Thoughts
Kallyas is a great looking WordPress theme that can be purchased from ThemeForest.
The design is available as a Joomla template for $48 and an HTML template for $25.
I was impressed with what the theme could do. It has a great design and it boasts a lot of great features.
The theme is always been tweaked and improved so we should see many new features added to the theme over the coming years.
In addition to importing and exporting theme settings, the developers advised me that they are adding import and export functionality to their drag and drop page builder to allow elements to be transferred. They are also improving the sample data process so that users can install one page instead of the entire demo.
Hopefully, we will see more support for the WordPress theme customizer in the future. I would also love to see some kind of templating system introduced to the theme that would allow users to quickly change to pre-made layouts.
For example, an option to quickly change to a layout designed specifically for blogs or a layout designed for online shops. It would save users a lot of time and allow them to adopt a design that best matches their needs.
To find out more about this design, please visit the Kallyas demonstration page.
Thanks for reading.
Kevin
