WordPress Theme Review: Explorable

WordPress Theme Review: Explorable

Explorable is a unique, Google Maps based WordPress theme that adds a custom post type – listings – which are displayed on a map with big pins.  Clicking on the big pin opens a box with the featured image for the listing and an excerpt of the content.

Explorable WordPress Theme

The Home Page

While the theme is optimized for a travel company or review site, I could definitely see this being used by photographers, travellers, authors or anyone whose content can be location-targeted.  A little tweaking would be necessary here and there for these kinds of authors, and I provide information about those below.

The links can be filterable by types, location and rating.  As you can edit the types and location (think of them as categories) they could be used for different kinds of classifications with some small code changes  for example:

  • Year
  • Expedition or Trip Name
  • Exposition type: Poem, fiction, history, images, etc.
  • Subject Matter: Nature, Architecture

So instead of filtering by listing type you could filter by Year and Exposition Type.  Or Subject Matter and Trip Name.  You get the idea.

The Listing Page

The interior listing page features a header with the map, with the featured image superimposed:

Explorable WordPress Theme

I’m not completely fond of the content layout – the top box feels a little formal to me, but it could be edited or deleted.

Explorable WordPress Theme

Also, the theme does not come with a widget that would display some sort of list of listings in a sidebar.  Again, this can be added by someone like me.

Other Content Pages

A regular blog page layout with sidebar is also included as well as 5 different image portfolio layouts, a full-width page (no sidebar), a contact form and a sitemap.

Additional Goodies

Explorable is created by Elegant Themes, so it includes some great add-ons to the post/page editor so that you can add the following compenents to pages or posts:

  • Buttons (large, small and icon)
  • Content boxes
  • Accordion toggle boxes
  • Tabs
  • Slideshow (text and image)
  • Tooltips
  • Social Media buttons
  • Author Info boxes
  • Column layouts:
    • One to four columns
    • variable widths
  • Custom Icon Lists (like this one)
  • Pricing Tables
  • Testimonials
  • DropCaps
  • Quotes

Take a look at the demo page to see all of the options in action.

What’s the Verdict?

Explorable is an interesting WordPress theme, though I think Elegant Themes could have gone further to make it more usable by different groups by including more widget boxes and allowing editing of classification titles in the admin area.  However – you are never going to find an absolutely perfect WordPress theme.  If you are interested in displaying posts by location, this may be the theme for you.

One note:  If you decide to change WordPress themes in the future you will probably need to convert the “listing” posts to regular posts or allow your new theme to display those posts in some way.  You won’t lose anything, but keep in mind the conversion will add time and possibly money to the switch.

Interested in Explorable?

I can install Explorable on a test site on my servers for you to play with and can assist you in installing and customizing Explorable for your own website!

Contact me today!

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