Yes it all takes way to long for an app with ‘rapid’ in the title lol. Also + the fact you have to build out the CMS e v e r y-t i m e - it just takes sooo damn long, previewing, waiting, , building out the admin, waiting, publishings, waiting (for 20000 files to-up-load because you changed a date in the footer)… waiting…
@Justin You’ve made a couple of great suggestions beyond using the typical theme with Elementor (I use Ocean WP). Here’s your recommendations:
- Hero theme
- Elementor Canvas mode
I’m working with students who are beginning the design process. At their stage having “options” is actually not that useful. Which approach (Hero, Canvas mode) do you think would be best for beginners? I like the “blank canvas” approach of both, and have tried each briefly. But I don’t have an intuitive sense of the plus/minus for these 2 approaches. Any insights?
That’s not free. Hopefully you’re charging enough to cover the cost of a rebuild when needed.
I’m used to dealing with much larger companies, so even with the smaller businesses I’ve done work for I do a pretty clear written statement of work of what’s included and what they can expect. Just helps with preventing “difficult conversations” from ever being needed.
I know! Did I say it’s done for free, or am I misunderstanding something?
That’s the point, these sites won’t need a rebuild to stay up to date, it’s done on a rolling monthly basis.
A solution might be 8.1.x and the simulator. I’ve no idea what they’ve done, but it’s fast.
This page on 8.0.3 takes 23 secs to load in to simulator and render on my machine running 8.0.3. On another machine, of a lower spec, running 8.1.3 it takes 3 secs.
Preview on both versions is still painful, but the simulator flies.
Oh, just tried previewing in Chrome, also super fast on 8.1.3.
Odd that external preview and simulator is now so fast but the built in one so slow, but, well, assuming these speeds are not some weird quirk of the 2nd machine, it’s a bit of a game changer. Or at least, a game improver.
I wouldn’t do additional work for free, but given the quantum improvement in Blocs 3 over Blocs 2, I might migrate a site and make some adjustments if I thought it would save me time and stress overall.
The post you where replying to said:
If a client says they want a change of address and opening hours on a website I just change it and forget about it. It’s not even worth discussing a charge for 5 minutes of work and better for them to remember you were helpful.
A client who comes back and says they want three new pages will obviously be charged for that task. At that point I have to decide whether it is better to leave a project in Blocs 2 or migrate to 3, but this is more about my workflow, than working for free. Blocs 2.6 was super glitchy for me and Blocs 3 is much faster to work with.
I know some Blocs users are migrating all their old sites to Blocs 3, while others are recreating them from scratch. They must have more free time than I do.
What about if the pages are all in total CMS/warehoused? Any better?
Not really lol - I haven’t give this any thought obviously - just go with what is easiest? Are just teaching website design or designing in WP or designing with Elementor or design principles or… ;-)
@Justin Teaching about web design. But in this course their practical tool is WP with Elementor Pro. So things need to be E-Pro centric.
I guess the issue might be: what’s fastest for starting new pages? Is there a way to always start with E-Canvas? I’m trying to avoid unneeded fiddling about before they even get started. Their initial tutorials (WPTuts) always use OceanWP, but I’d like to wean them off of using themes ASAP (i.e. within 2-3 weeks).
I can obviously run some tests myself. I just thought you might have a suggestion. (A little short of time for the next 5 days, so testing out of the question for me until mid-week next week.)
Warehoused images are fast with the simulator, Don’t know about TCMS. The Simulator uses a lot of caching I think, that’s giving it the speed. I have noticed on some of the betas it might “miss” a change you make once in a while. Not very often and if you trigger another change it seems to catch right up. It is a whole lot faster than the earlier versions.
Go canvas full width. Thats def the most basic and easiest way to go.
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Thinking about it - I never use The Simulator anyway. Always the browser.
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I too was a Freeway user, and when v7 was released with a big fan fare and hollow promises, I just said enough is enough and Softpress have lost the plot.
I was so disappointed with it and where it was not going I think I asked for my money back.
For a while I tracked the Softpress forum and kept reading the same crap from the same users who would explain that you don’t know how to use Freeway and then post a no responsive demo site that looked like something made with Win95 BMP clip art on a GameBoy. I also recall ongoing defense of Freeway from the hard liners eager to justify their financial and learning curve investment commitment to Freeway without any technical dignity.
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If you go back there now, some are still saying the same things and hanging out for Freeway 8. I think some of them are still using Claris eMailer as well.
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As a non-professional this is quite a fascinating thread to follow, thank you.
Interesting to see a few other tools that could be used
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I’ve been giving Elementor a shot today and, I have to say, it is pretty cool.
I decided I am going to redo my own site in this just to give it a thorough test. I was able to put up a template ‘coming soon’ countdown in about (literally) 5 minutes and my home page is coming together pretty nicely. It’s basic so far but it’s decent-enough looking for a first-time through.
I’ve probably spent as much time familiarizing myself with the wordpress dashboard as I have Elementor but I’m slowly coming around.
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Nice! Yes its def worth the effort learning how WP works. That way it’s a lot less frustrating when using Elementor and it will help grasp some of the concepts and flexibility of powering a website via a database (or not, of course). We just went live with this super simple site - Hello theme and Elementor only.
(note we are working on 4 sites for this company, we’ll be adding SSL when all 4 are done)… the next site due to go live in a couple of weeks - is prob the best we’ve produced with E…
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@jabostick It took me awhile to figure out where different things were. It’s a bit too much of find-and-seek for me. Then I learned about the Elementor Navigator and Elementor Finder. Both are fantastic for quickly editing and rearranging (Navigator) and getting to other “things” (pages, posts, templates, etc.): that’s the Finder.
If interested I can send you video links about each tomorrow. Navigator is very nice. Finder is absolutely essential (at least for me).
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