There are hundreds and thousands of WordPress Themes to choose from. What to choose? What features makes a theme worth the money? Many other questions crop in our mind, when purchasing a WordPress theme.

This article will make you reconsider all your questions and ask yourself, is there one theme that can changes the whole game?  Yes, there is one theme that changes the whole game, and today I am going to go through the most popular theme of 2014, the X Theme from Themco.

X Theme has revolutionized the way we approach theme selection from user perspective. The team behind X Theme made sure that their theme is the “last theme” you ever buy!  Looks Promising isn’t? Let’s dig deep into theme functionality and features that proves some of their bold claims!

[symple_box style=”boxinfo”] Top Selling Theme of 2014: X Theme[/symple_box]

The Stack Theory and Implementation

Stacks are fundamental computer idea of keeping information on top of each other. They utilized this simple idea generating 4 simple stacks, which are stack-able and flexible enough to bring creativity in the hands of the user. One of the important factors that make me choose a theme is its flexibility. X Theme scores a ton of positive points in this regard.

Is this revolutionary?

X Theme changes our perception about User Interface Design by introducing Stacks. The engineers and Designers at X Theme made sure they had enough of using old pattern WordPress theme building.

The 4 stacks currently available in X Theme are:

1. Integrity
2. Renew
3. Icon
4. Ethos

Let’s discuss the 4 stacks one by one.

1. Integrity: What can be more beautiful than Integrity? The stack name speaks for itself.  Integrity deals with the design aspects from all horizons to make it all purpose design solution for both creative and professionals alike.

The integrity stack features the black version which gives it an antithesis sense.  The stack has unique design attached to it. Integrity offers a unique styling throughout including a custom blog for bloggers.

This doesn’t end here; it has the capability to improve from a standard layout to a masonary layout, the JavaScript library that places in optimal position based on available vertical spacing.

Integrity stack also sports clean and organized portfolio section. The portfolio also supports both standard and masonary layout for maximum re-designs.

Each stack offers their unique design in respective category, like the e-commerce. Each stack has its own design shop. Integrity offers a clean and standard layout, e-commerce design which can fill many needs for any e-commerce venture.

In short, Integrity stack is mainly targeted at business segment with good set of features.

2. Renew:  All stacks carry over the simple philosophy,  implement an idea in more than one way. Renew is flat design stack. It deals with clear typography, fonts and flat design ideas. No gradients, drop downs or shadows are used in flat designs.

Many designers and developers want to keep things simple and that’s why they choose flat design over flashy ones. Simplicity is the key here.  It just eradicates stylistic choices that give the illusion of three-dimensions.

Renew also features blog design, shop design and portfolio design but renders them from the scope of flat design philosophy.

Renew Stack also features easily configurable background color, inviting more creativity for theme users.

3. Icon:  Blogging has change the world around us, it gives us the platform to exchange our thoughts, make new discoveries, read new things, we never knew about. It makes us feel complete in many ways.

Icon relishes the idea of modern blogging networks, giving the limelight to the text and not the things surrounding it. No one wants to visit a blog full of whistles and balloons hovering all over the site. Icon takes care of this and builds a minimal design.

One can dive deep into the Icon minimalism and bring creativity to unleash a much better and wonderful user experience for blogging, which reflects both the personality and thought process of the blogger.

Icon also sports clean portfolio design, which integrates seamlessly with the rest of the site. It also features modern shops like WooCommerce with modern and minimal flare.

Like other stacks, Icon features the option to change the background color of each post format in WordPress. The opportunities are endless because of random choices, users can make by choosing colors for different backgrounds.

4. Ethos: The latest in stack releases from themco, Ethos stack brings magazine site creation to already impressive X Theme. Ethos is targeted to engage audience and promote clickthroughs.

Post Carousel exemplifies the idea to keep specific posts front and center across the site. Ethos also features blog, which is more content centric.

Ethos features custom portfolio and integrated shop design built on top of Ethos clean, modern design free of distractions.

Ethos blog system also offers real-time blog indexing filtering, enabling the visitors to filter content based on category for easy maneuverability and discovery.

Multiple feature image options take care of engaging content on the index page as much as possible. Ethos sports two additional featured post layouts for the users. Featured sections are important part of any site as they host the best and popular idea on the site.

So, what’s the point of discussing all the 4 stacks for X Theme? The reason is simple, stacks are the core of X Theme and with more additional stacks scheduled for future releases, X Theme seems to be an endless journey for their buyers and WordPress Enthusiast.

Let’s dive deep into other features X Theme offers

Customizer:

Ever felt bored with the WordPress admin panel? I do and I bet many of us do too. X-Customizer builds upon WordPress Admin Panel enhancing the functionality and experience considerably.

The Customizer adds new controls to change the theme appearance, which can be summarized as below:

• Change the stack
• Sidebar position
• Menu placement
• Colors
• Fonts
• Buttons
• Header placement
• Background
• Logos
• Boxed or full width

Customizer comes with fully functional live preview so that you don’t have to go back and forth to check small changes. The changes are not live making experimentation easy with time-saving features.

Another great feature provided by Customizer is the ability to export and import settings. This can be huge advantage, when you want to build from previous work, sharing your ideas and validating them.

ShortCodes:

Every theme comes with some sort of shortcodes to use the core functionality. X Theme has provided 40 shortcodes that are merged into a custom plugin, which takes care of the whole process whenever necessary. This might be useful when changing from one theme to another. The custom plugin handles all the hassles relating to shortcodes like cleanup and integration, giving the customers more time to fiddle with theme.

Two featured shortcodes from X Theme are Responsive Visibility (shows device specific content) and Table of content (shortcode to increase page views).

Layout Options and Navigation Options

Layouts are great way of building new themes. More layouts bring more flexibility and that’s why X Theme provides array of layouts to the users.

The layouts supported by X Theme are as follows:

1. Content/Sidebar.
2. Sidebar/Content.
3. Boxed
4. Full Width.

X Theme also provides navigation options. They are listed below:

1. Fixed Top
2. Fixed Left
3. Fixed Right
4. Static Top

The customizer takes care of the size and place where the navigation goes. They are re-sizable and fully responsive.

Custom Pages

Custom Pages lets the user build whatever they want. The developers behind X Theme created several custom pages layouts including: About, Contact, Pricing and more. The idea is simple, to provide limitless potential in the hands of the user.

E-commerce Support

Those looking for e-commerce site build will not be disappointed from X Theme. X Theme provides full e-commerce support. Plugin installation is easy and customizable. It integrates flawlessly with the free and popular WooCommerce shop builder plugin.

The entire 4 stacks comes with their own e-commerce design, so there are many possibilities of creating a unique looking e-commerce website.

Responsive Design

In the age of tablets and iPhones, Responsive design is a must. It’s becoming more important with time, as new devices with custom sizes are coming out. X Theme’s, all 4 stacks supports fluid layouts which are capable of rendering the page on any possible screen size.

Installation and Setup

Installation is simple and intuitive, just like any one premium theme installation. Purchase, download the zip and then upload it into your hosting account. During the installation the setup will ask you to install few pre-requisite Plugins, some of which are provided with the theme and others you have to download. The installer keeps everything clean and unlike other theme, it provides a nice visual appealing demo to start with.

Popularity and Community Support

X Theme Authors has grown from a newcomer in November 2013 to Elite Author Status at ThemeForest by selling to hundreds and thousands of customers. It also holds the tag of the fastest author to reach elite status in ThemeForest.

There are plenty of resources and documentation provided by the X Theme developers. The community is strong and helpful. All you need is a bit of creativity to start with X Theme and build something that not intellectually engaging but also create a piece of art for others to admire.

Pricing

The X theme is available at ThemeForest for $63. Comparing with other themes the price can be on higher side but the price is a fair for what you are getting.

Some other features that are worth the mention are discussed in brief:

1. Search Engine Optimization – Google loves semantic well-defined websites, X Theme uses HTML5 to build the base of Semantic SEO.
2. Thumbnail Resizing – Automatically resizing of thumbnail according to the theme provided.
3. Slider Revolution – Supports one of the best sliders.
4. Social Sharing – Social Sharing is supported by X-Theme.
5. Typography – Fonts are the smallest unit of UI, one can alter to change the looks of the site. The theme provides 600 Google Fonts. Other features relating to typography like letter spacing, color, capitalization and more are also supported.
6. Experts Opinion – The theme is forged by many expert internet marketers and the results are spell-bounding.

Conclusion

I have never seen something like this in a while, the amount of hard work and innovation gone into building such a great product is truly out of this world. If they keep building more stacks, this could surely change how the WordPress Theme market works.

The wide array of options, the stacks, the vast UI elements, and the customization makes it the best theme of 2014. An undisputed winner, which outshines almost everything other paid themes have to offer.