Any Elementor users in the house?

I don’t. Perhaps it’s because I spent a very long time on the client end of things, perhaps it’s because I understand my design skill limitations, perhaps it’s because I know what in the real world actually works better than most, but I spend more time talking clients down from daft website designs that they’ve seen and like than pushing any design envelopes.

In 99% of cases a website is merely a carrier for the content. It should simply transport and present the content, not fight with it for attention.

And I’m not aiming that at you Webdeer as some sort of design advice, I would rate your design skills for proper working websites as 2nd to none.

Just having a look at Elementor, certainly looks interesting, and the pricing looks good too. I’ve wahtched a few videos but have some questions…

  1. Elementor is a page builder, not a site builder? So, you use WP to build out the structure of the site and E to add the page content? Have I got that right? What about menus, is this handled by WP or E?

  2. I’m assuming everything is browser based? If so, doesn’t this make the whole thing reliant on the browser maker: One update could break things?

  3. I’ve seen a few videos now but it’s hard to see if the page widgets have the same sort of control and power as say the BWD stacks, anyone comment?

  4. Main page features like galleries etc. Are these added via WP or E?

Ta.

As an analogy WP is RW and E is Stacks. E is a builder? you use within WP with WP doing the work of managing the pages/site/publishing etc and E doing the content elements.

You do all your work in a browser just like you do your GMail in a browser, WP is a platform not an app so you can use any OS, any browser to build your site. Nothing gets installed on your machine, you just login and start working.

Menus etc are E elements(think stacks), they are as simple/complex as the dev makes them and like stacks you can buy additional packs that contain alternatives by other devs.

Things like galleries are E elements though I imagine the heavy lifting is done with the underlying WP functionality with the chosen E gallery doing the styling… this is true for menus too, the pages are managed by the WP core with the chosen E menu displaying and styling the page list.

You don’t switch between WP and E, you use E within WP as in ‘interface’

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Thanks.

It all sounds interesting, but the whole browser side thing worries me. Where is the site stored? If the server dies, how do you rebuild on a new one?

And… I’m guessing all this needs installing on top of your own install of WP? Or, is it all held on E’s servers?

All content within WP and Elementor is stored in the database. You can install WP plugins to back up the whole site, including database. It’s a bit like Armadillo where you need a database for all the content.

I don’t use WP back up plugins. I manually FTP the public_html folders and download the database through cPanel. My web host also does daily backups, which an added layer of safety, but I’d never rely on it.

If you go with WP, keep plugins to a minimum. Every plugin adds “weight” to the page, and the more plugins you install, the more to keep updated. Some plugins also get abandoned by the creator then they can become a security concern.

I’ve worked on WP since 2008, and I’ve helped many people sort out the nightmare they created with WP. I had one client who had over 50 plugins installed and the site took over 10 seconds to load. If a page takes over 3 seconds to load, it’s “broken”, IMHO.

Been thinking, and as good as WP and things like E might be for some, it doesn’t suit me. Neither the whole being browser side thing, or really having to be reliant on a third party (E).

For now RW has legs, who knows, they might even overcome the present issues I think they have and thrive in the long term (it’ll need a new pricing model though IMO) but for me, longterm, the only way forward is learning to code!

This will no doubt all end of tears. But, I’ll control them ;-)

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Learning the basics of styling code is just about the most useful thing that any RW user can do to extend the styling of stacks and also speed RW up drastically by avoiding using stacks within stacks with stacks to achieve what can often be achieved in a few lines of code. As a skill it can also be applied to any other web creation app so you get to carry forward that skillset.,

Also IMHO it doesn’t really matter whether RW8 gets sorted out as you can still use RW7 which is probably as solid and less slow that RW will ever get.

I’m finding 8.0.3 fine. Has just enough new stuff to warrant using it over 7, and I’ve put in place workarounds (which have become 2nd nature now) for it’s issues.

I do still use 7 for newsletters and older sites that see little updates though.

  1. No you can build an entire website with Elementor - you need the pro version. You can in theory install WP and E forget about WP and just build out a site with E.

  2. Possibly - never been an issue so far.

  3. Some do some dont - just use the proper CSS editor for that widget OR use this https://www.csshero.org/plugins/elementor/ immense tool

  4. Whatever way you want - most widgets are Dynamic or not at a press of a button.

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Yo - sorry, I’m not here to persuade anyone to leave RW whatever works for you and the business of course. - just when I see a comment that I know the answer too I cant help but chip in lol. You can work locally very easily. It’s super easy to back-up a WP sites too. RW for me is done but its nothing to do with RW per say and everything to do with my clients needing more powerful tools.

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Hey, not a bother, didn’t take it that way at all.

I’m a big knocker of RW, but it’s based on a passion for the product and a desire for it and RM to see it’s potential.

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Marten, I was about to comment on Oxygen! It is a website builder, not a page builder and I think it is going to knock the socks off of many WordPress page builders.

Having said that, there is a steep learning curve which might put some people off. Louis R, the author, is fantastic. There is a very active Facebook group for Oxygen. The community is lovely; Louis is also there to answer questions and actually listens to what people are saying. The development is carefully planned and the users are central to its development.

Currently, Oxygen is $99 for LIFE. I wrote to Louis asking whether he meant just version 2 to which he replied, “NO - every version in the future!” Those with Version 1 were unhappy because version 2 is a complete rewrite and not compatible with version 1. It was a rewrite because according to Louis, he was not satisfied. Those who purchased version 1 also received version 2. I have never come across anyone like Louis (other than RapidWeaver authors)! Oxygen is for unlimited sites.

Someone has done comparison between Oxygen, Elementor, Divi in terms of bloat and speed. All I will say is that Oxygen loads only what is necessary, unlike Divi, Elementor. My recommendation is to research yourself. If you go to their Facebook page, you can see what I mean.

A caveat. Someone who “reviews” WordPress plugins did a horrendous review of Oxygen; actually it was version 1. It was “updated” in January but it was still version 1 and there seems to be some animosity with this reviewer, which means people do not get a balanced view of Oxygen. This is why you must do your own research. I tried Oxygen online. You can also purchase and if you want a refund in 30 days, no problem!

My other recommendation to view is Brizy. This is similar to Elementor and still in a very new state. One problem with Elementor Pro is that there is no life time purchase. At $50 a year, this is ONLY for ONE website. It is also very bloated. There is a LifeTime offer currently before the Pro version is formally released. The same reviewer - I don’t know if it is ethical to mention his name - identified a list of features which are unique to Brizy. Usually, when placing an image, you refer to “top left” “top right” “centre” etc but in Brizy you can actually place the image yourself. As they say - wow!

Divi is perhaps the most bloated and if you disable it, you will not get clean code. I have never seen any plugin that is updated as regularly - to bug fix. In one week, it was updated almost every day! I think it is to include as many new features, but without regard for the complexes ie bugs involved.

RW is different and it depends on what website is being designed. I love Marten’s unique features; and I love Will’s “Intrinsic” which I am saving up to buy.

Another delight is Pinegrove Web Editor which comes in various formats, including for WordPress - and now includes CSS Grid!

There are many free tutorials on Elementor eg FerdyKorp.com.

YellowPencil is also very good.

While I disagree about the steepness of the Oxygen learning curve, I’ve been very impressed with their support and their obvious conscientiousness when it comes to owning and fixing bugs, all of which reflects what you say about their carefully planned development. I haven’t visited their FB page but I do hang around on their Slack channel.

I hadn’t heard of Brizy before — and you’re right, it looks very interesting and may well become a worthy competitor. Downside, as with Elementor, is their subscription based pricing model. I find Oxygen’s ‘$99 unlimited everything for life’ far more attractive, especially to those weaned on RapidWeaver’s pricing model.

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So far in this thread, some great resources:





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For this of us who wish to keep our eggs in 2 baskets this is really useful, thank you all.

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Does Oxygen solve the central problem - for me at any rate - with WordPress?

i.e. is it a page a post or a page with posts or a post with lots of pages or a static page?

I’d love to get into WordPress - and tried for a year with Avada - but while I was eventually able to get something that looked vaguely OK, I was never confident that I understood the nomenclature.

Rob

What’s really interesting about all of these visual editors/page/web builders is that they all approximately follow the same visual approach. They all have visual Blocks/Brics/Blocs/ that can be identified visually and dragged onto a WYSIWYG window that updates instantly. The instant margin and padding drag boxes are a joy to adjust. This is clearly the way forward for web design.

I wouldn’t really include Pinegrow in this group because it has such a steep learning curve, ongoing learning commitment and really demands a deep understanding of code that it is a different egg in a different basket. I try it every now and then and each time I stare at the screen trying to recall how to do what should be basic stuff.

Similarly I find that BootstrapStudio seems to be chasing Pinegrow and has consequently lost it’s previously simple visual approach.

By contrast, the visual builders need no learning refresh and very little learning is required.

No theme will override the WP core functions.

Posts are for blogging. You put posts in categories.

Pages are for “About Me”, “Contact”, “Services”, “FAQ” and that kind of thing. You don’t need to blog if you don’t want to in WP, but that was its main feature. Now, of course, WP can be anything you can imagine.

If I were building a site that would never have a blog, I’d mostly stick with RW. But none of the RW “blog” options suit my needs so I’ll use WP for blog based sites.

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@rob.beattie It’s tricky to answer your question these days. Pages are pretty simple as @Neil mentions. Posts are for blog pages but … the nature of how you use posts has changed (at least in Elementor and probably in some of these other options).

If we take a step back, posts are (typically) much easier for clients (and there can be multiple users per site) to complete rather than editing pages. And there are good reasons to limit client access (especially if there are multiple clients contributing to one site). So, posts can be an easy way for folks to contribute to a site.

… but the result need not be a typical blog page. Using “conditionals” within Elementor it can be set up so posts of a specific category go to one page, posts in a second category go to another page, and so on.

Further these multiple blog pages need not look anything like a blog. In Elementor using custom templates you can set up a very custom look for one category of posts that’s very different from a second category.

Let’s pretend you have 3 categories:

  1. Travel
  2. Financial Planning
  3. Great Books

In essence, using conditionals and custom templates you can have three page in your site for each of the 3 categories and each one looks substantially different from the others. Each category, of course, can have it’s own listing on the main menu.

When a client creates a new post for “Travel” then it is automatically sent to the Travel page that has it’s own look and feel. Very easy for the end user. No old-timey blog structure (sidebar, links to categories, archives, etc.).

There are limits to look and feel, but it’s a really nice approach.

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