If you built a page with Elementor and then disabled Elementor, would the page still look and behave in the same way? Or if you paid for 12 months of Elementor Pro, and then did not renew after 12 months , would the pages built with E still work.
I’m now exclusively using the Elementor Hello theme. It is the most minimal theme out there that works with Elementor. And it is very minimal.
As @justin noted, I imagine using more complex themes makes things both slower, and for a non-pro like me: also more confusing. Focusing on using just WP and Elementor through a very minimal theme seems to be the way to go.
No database that’s cool. So how does elementor store the values and styling when you make them via Wordpress?
Dunno about the first question - never tried. 2nd Yes. Just no updates.
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I now have a live site created using WordPress, Elementor, OceanWP theme, Ocean Extra plugin, Safe SVG plugin, Word Fence security plugin and Ninja Forms builder (total cost = zero). YouTube is full of useful videos and the workflow proved similar to my normal one using RapidWeaver, Foundation, Stacks and stacks.
With RW I always publish to a local folder and then sync to the live site, reliable and fast. Not the same with WP, where I use a staging site (an exact replica of the existing website that is not public facing). Softaculuos software, in the CPanel, has Create Staging Site, Push to Live and Backups. Now I edit the staging site (in a sub-folder of the live site) and then push to the live site. Softaculous creates a backup before pushing so I download this backup to a local folder then copy to 2 different cloud accounts.
OK, only one WP site but at least I have some idea about WP/Elementor (2 million active users) and can choose to build future sites in either RW or WP. Experienced WP users please tell me what I have done wrong and I will learn. Next small step is a WP blog.
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@Phil That’s a long list of stuff in your workflow. Out of interest, why do you use a staging site with the Elementor setup?
Anyone know if it’s possible to try ElementorPro as a trial or to try Elementor (not Pro) with the blank Hello theme as a trial?
Because don’t like working on a live site. I work on the staging site, save it and a couple of clicks later I have an updated live site and backup.
Thanks. That’s clear. I though there was possibly something about the Elementor solution that required it.
Just over cautious me!
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Me too - Was thinking that’s a lot of hoops - I do it a bit differently - I’ll build out a site on a different server location then point the URL when done. I’ll also make it clear that they’ll need to have some sort of back-up plan. I may back-up my self once (unless they pay me to run this of course)…
@Webdeersign Elementor is free. Hello theme is free. So you can do both without any cost. But of course you won’t have any of the Elementor Pro features. There’s no trial that I know of. I believe the Theme Builder aspect is Pro only, or only partially implemented on Elementor regular.
When I looked a while ago I recall that you had to have Elementor Pro to use the Hello theme. When I last tried Elementor you were not able to start with a blank page, and it it was somewhat confusing to figure out what was the theme and what was not. That’s why being able to evaluate Elementor Pro with a blank theme would make it much easier to try out Elementor.
@Webdeersign I suppose you might be right. The problem is I only have Elementor Pro: so I have no way to test with Elementor non-Pro at the moment. (Actually I could, but I don’t have time to set up a seperate installation). But the Hello theme webpage does not state you need Elementor Pro: https://github.com/elementor/elementor-hello-theme
Yes, I agree that at first it can be tricky to make out what’s done via theme vs. Elementor. That’s why Hello is so useful for me. It’s like juggling 3 things at once: WordPress stuff, Elementore stuff, and Theme stuff. To be fair, when folks start using RapidWeaver there’s some vaguely similar issues with juggling RW with Stacks with stacklets. Hello essentially reduces the juggling down to 2 things: WP and Elementor.
If you are serious about using E then 50 bucks for the pro is really nothing compared to what it will open up to you. But I do stress it helps a lot if you understand how WP works, esp when it comes to themes - then applying E pro should be a bit easier… I too was super confused at the beginning. Especially as E isn’t just a flat HML page builder lots of the widgets are dynamic, to make the most you’ll need to understand whats what behind the scenes… I’ve never used the free version so I dont know what it can do other than edit existing themes content (not the header or footer), I doubt the free version has any theme building capabilities either…
Elementor
Page Setting
Elementor Canvas (native blank page template)
I’m still at the “this looks too interesting to ignore” stage but there are a lot of hoops to get in the right order and a lot of stuff to grasp before jumping in to try to build a site with. Thanks for all the guidance.
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Just to answer my own question, Yes you can install and Activate the Hello theme with the free Elementor, and create a new page based on Hello.
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Interesting read on WordPress page builders:
Very positive and glowing review with some good detail and discussion about Page Builder competition. The company behind Elementor seem to have an enviable record of demonstrating what makes a company successful with their interaction with their customers. I found it interesting that Elementor has over 1 million active installs and it’s encouraging to see the demand for such a tool.
There was some mention of increasing bloat and that’s something that always rears its head in WP discussions. Thanks for posting it.