Nail. Head.
Website design has lots of tools, we’re just chatting about Elementor here
I agree, perhaps you should add a category for stuff like this. Maybe “General Web Design”.
Anyone who is doing websites professionally should have more than one tool in the toolbox. Wordpress being about 25% of the websites out there and all the available tools it offers, it should definitely be one of those tools.
If websites are a hobby or you only are an occasional developer then RapidWeaver is probably all you need.
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Blocs 3 is shaping up to become a very capable tool and I like the general direction of travel. The weakest link has been the CMS options, however I agree with @Webdeersign that when the developer API receives an update in the near future, it should become very interesting.
The developer of Blocs has also said that he plans to introduce a module allowing users to export designs direct to Wordpress. I shall definitely take a look at Elementor, but Blocs is worth keeping an eye on.
A Blocs specific CMS is currently being developed that allows for inline editing and the install process is dead simple with no need for a MySQL database.
It’s def a neat app. The only problem is I wouldn’t be able to sell this onto my clients . The eco system has a very long way to go. As said the API update soon - but boy do they have some catching out to do!
I have spent a couple of hours playing with Elementor and as a WP builder it is impressive so far. I find the whole WP, Mamp, themes, WP settings, plugins settings, etc., all a lot of stuff that needs dealing with but I suspect it would be a more usable beast using Elementor Pro with blank theme or canvas. The MSQL database is a non issue and it is a mere 2 minute step that is done once.
I think I am fortunate that I get no demand from my customers to use WP but if I do then Elementor Pro will be the first thing I reach for based on what I’ve experienced and read here and elesewhere.
Elementor’s UI is some way behind the elegance of Blocs3 IMHO. E.g. in Elementor, the padding and margin settings belong in the old Stacks world where you enter individual values instead of dragging an onscreen box as in Blocs3. There is still some polishing of the UI to be done in EP. (Maybe it’s different in the Pro version).
Blocs3 is not a WP builder competitor any more than RW is, but I use it as an example of how well things can be done and probably the leader in web creation UI’s today.
As has been mentioned several times in this thread, it’s about using the best tool for the job. What is really good about say Elementor and Blocs is that they all use the same type of visual builder interface and if you are familiar with one, then it will be easier to use another. Who knows where web creation apps will be in 12 months but it would be safe prediction to say they will be fast visual WYSIWYG apps with strong 3rd party plugins or addons.
I doubt there will ever be a thousand addons for Blocs, but that is partly because it is already so capable without a single 3rd party plugin. Sometimes I look at expensive stacks and reflect that Blocs does it already in half the time at zero cost thanks to custom classes. If you know a bit of code as well, it can do an awful lot.
One thing we could all agree on though is that having more than one option makes good business sense and I know I’ve lost jobs in the past by not offering Wordpress.
I think the reason there a 100’s of stacks for RW is that the basic Stacks does so little and if you build a site with the just the basic stacks, you have a very dull site. I know we are going off topic but Blocs3 does a hell of a lot of stuff and it is all included in the core app.
Agreed - I jumped into WP and E getting to all the juicy bits and finding everything else really REALLY frustrating & annoying. But if you do take some time out to get to understand the WordPress terminology, eco-system, engine etc eventually it’ll all click into place with a huge WOW moment (well for me it did anyway). As Obi-Wan Kenobi once said 'You’ve taken your first step into a larger world.” LOL
@Justin Yesterday you wrote:
But also worth noting with the pro version you can just select canvas mode so no theme is used at all just E. You can then design a header and footer in the templates sections and bring them in. Done.
You also provided an image. I can see you are at General Settings but not sure exactly how to get there. Can you describe? I want to play around with Elementor Canvas but having no luck fiding what you are seeing.
Okay … finally finally found it. Too many “settings” options, even “general settings”. :)
Sure, hit the cog icon bottom left, to reveal General settings, there you’ll see the page layout out options
Agreed. But it’s not just the websites frontend (look and function), we need to be looking at. For me that’s 50% or less of the work nowadays (also you can build a pretty decent website nowadays for free). The rest is marketing/PR/branding, back linking, local SEO, review management, CRM, A/B testing, email campaigns, PPC I can go on, to be able to manage this from one admin is very powerful.
Without doubt Wordpress is powerful. It’s just a question is avoiding the downsides as well.
It’s a few years ago now, but I remember when we were both using Freeway and you first talked about switching to RW and Foundation on the Freeway forums. We both got out just in time.
LOL yeah I remember - I heard on the grape vine that it’s coming back - someone bought it apparently… doubt I’ll ever go there again though, but never say never - as my track record shows - I have no problem leaving a platform if another betters it - it’s just business ;-)
You got me thinking… how many Freeway websites I built are still out in the wild? 6 lol
https://islamoradafishingtrips.com
http://www.evergladesassociation.org
http://www.milesandlyle.com
http://tigertrace.com
http://www.floralgroup.net
https://goodhavenllc.com
This actually raises a question of how long we should be expected to edit or update an existing site, when the tools have changed so much. Three years, five years? At what point can we reasonably say it is no longer possible and they’ll need a new site.
I know some Blocs users are already upgrading Blocs 2 sites to Blocs 3 for this reason, because it is using a new version of Bootstrap, but you wouldn’t want to do that on every client website for free.
For me, the biggest difficulty with RW is simply the time it takes to complete a project. I seem to spend ages just waiting for pages to preview, so I am not at all surprised you have gone in a different direction.
I wouldn’t do anything like on going updates for a client for free.
Yes same here -
Weirdly, that is exactly a question I’ve been mulling this week. My little web business is now getting to the point where some of the early (horrendous) sites are well past their sell-by dates. I host all the sites I make, so I’m on touch with and taking money from all past clients. It’s only a matter of time now until a site owners asks for some changes and I have to explain that I need to rebuild the site, and that it’s gonna cost.
A lot of my clients have me on a monthly maintenance retainers, so I tend to do updates/upgrades as I go (most recently was changing a load of text stacks on various sites to Scribe), but for those only on hosting packages there are going to be some difficult conversations coming.
Oh, and for what it’s worth, I decided that 36 months was the cut off. Any site built over three years ago will not get updates only a rebuild. To my mind, three years is a bloody long time when it comes to a website.