KLEO is a multi-purpose WordPress theme that holds the title of the best-selling BuddyPress theme on ThemeForest in 2015.
The theme was developed by 7th Queen, a design company who was responsible for the Sweet Date dating WordPress theme I mentioned in my dating scripts roundup last year.
7th Queen kindly sent me a copy of KLEO so that I can check it all for all of you. I hope you enjoy the review.
The WordPress Community Theme
KLEO has a fantastic list of features. As a community WordPress theme, it was built with BuddyPress and bbPress in mind from the ground up.
It also has support for many other great plugins such as WooCommerce, Sensei, Paid Memberships Pro, and rtMedia, Geo Directory. The WordPress Multilingual Plugin (WPML) and right to left languages are also supported together with contact form plugins such as Gravity Forms and Contact Form 7.
Slider Revolution ($18) and Visual Composer ($33) are included with KLEO when you purchase it. They also include their own custom drag and drop solution called K Elements.
When you install all of these plugins, your WordPress admin menu gets quite busy. I therefore recommend installing Admin Menu Editor to help tidy the admin menu up.
KLEO has lots of cool features such as a sidebar manager, Google Maps integration, testimonials, and native support for all WordPress post formats.
KLEO is a big WordPress theme that has a lot of options and features. As you can see from the plugin installation page above, KLEO offers good support within the theme to help you understand things at the beginning. With a large theme options page and many feature-rich plugins to install, this is welcomed.
If you are unsure about how to use KLEO after activation, I recommend installing the demonstration data. This will help you see what is possible with the theme.
When I normally review WordPress themes, I display screenshots of key areas such as the home page and blog posts. However, a quick look at the KLEO demo area highlights how difficult that is for me to do because KLEO can do so many different things. So where do I begin?
Everything from portfolios, to online shops, to resumes, is covered by KLEO. Its integration with third-party plugins is one reason why the theme is so flexible. For example, by using the WordPress plugin Geo Directory, you can build a professional looking business directory website.
I highlight recommend checking out the KLEO demo page to get a better understanding of what is possible with KLEO.
The demo area has a style selector that lets you customise what is displayed in the demo. You can change the layout style, background patterns, header content, main content, and footer content.
It is easy to see why KLEO has become so popular with BuddyPress users. As a dedicated BuddyPress theme, it offers everything you will ever need for your community. The addition of hundreds of theme and plugin options expands the possibilities of the theme even further.
KLEO has great WooCommerce and BuddyPress support, but as a blogger, I was keen to see what kind of blog templates they offered. I was impressed with the clean design of the single post area.
They include a couple of blog index templates such as masonry, carousel, thumbnails etc. Blog posts have a three column design since the date is displayed at the left hand side of the page.
The quality of a website design is subjective, however I believe KLEO has something for everyone.
All of the most successful WordPress themes on ThemeForest are a jack of all trades that can do many things, so it is fair to say that KLEO has a lot of competition in the area. In my opinion, KLEO rightly deserves to be popular as it offers everything you need.
Using KLEO
The vast majority of theme settings can be found in the main KLEO theme options area. The options area has everything you need.
You can customise layouts, blog settings, page settings, social media sharing, and more.
I was pleased with the options that were available. There are a lot of nice features that you do not always see in WordPress themes. For example, in the header options area you can choose from a wide variety of different header layouts. The title area and breadcrumbs can be customised too.
Dedicated options pages are also available for key plugins such as BuddyPress, bbPress, and WooCommerce. If a plugin is particular plugin is not installed, no options page will be displayed for it in the main options area.
The integration of plugin settings is really good. With BuddyPress, for example, you can change the layout of key areas in your website at the click of a button. Or, if you prefer, you can make all areas keep the default layout you choose.
In the styling options area you can change the overall colour scheme of your design and modify the colour of text, headings, and backgrounds.
KLEO has support for the WordPress theme customizer, but the options are quite limited since most settings are controlled from the main theme options area. You are, however, able to modify the colour scheme of most fonts, links, and backgrounds. These are essentially the same options available in the styling options area mentioned above.
While I would liked to have seen more support for the WordPress theme customizer, I was overall very pleased with the way that KLEO can be customised. The addition of two drag and drop page builder plugins also means that you can easily design professional looking pages using a user-friendly interface.
Final Thoughts
While KLEO is marketed as a community theme, I think it is fair to say that it is an all in one design that can handle just about anything you throw at it. It can be used to build communities, online stores, portfolios, landing pages, resumes, blogs, corporate websites, directories, and more.
KLEO retails at $63 from ThemeForest and comes packaged with the two best selling WordPress plugins on CodeCanyon (worth $51 in total).
If you are looking for a flexible WordPress theme, I recommend checking KLEO out. You won’t be disappointed.
Thanks,
Kevin
* Thanks again to 7th Queen for providing a test copy of KLEO so that I could test the theme.