I concurred Blocs this week, so figure I’ll take a bash at Wordpress next ;-)
I’ve done a basic install via Softalicious, but just wondered what those familiar with the platform suggest I install next, so as to help with the build-out of it.
I figured I’d aim for a basic four-page affair with just some standard layouts.
As your coming from Stacks you’ll want either Elementor or Gutenberg, these will give you the most Stacks like drag and drop experience.
You can read more about them here https://wpbuilderhelper.com/wordpress-gutenberg-vs-elementor/
Elementor is certainly good, but for your purposes it’s really pretty crazy not to use Elementor Pro.
The free version of Elementor can do stuff, but it’s really a “free sample” version of Elementor that is missing some very important bells & whistles. Vanilla Elementor really won’t give you the comparison info you want.
While Elementor Pro has some disadvantages compared to RW (e.g. designing via internet connection), it also has some key advantages. The article that @paul.russam linked to points to some advantages but it mainly focuses on vanilla Elementor. Pro lets you create templates for your main building blocks. These work quite nicely. Pro has a navigator tool that lets you quickly navigate to any portion of an active page you are working on: a fantastic feature when working with a longer page. And there’s a lot more. I’d say there’s really no comparison, feature wise, between Elementor and Elementor Pro. Pro is MUCH better and really worth the yearly price.
…and you all know what I’m gonna say - Elementor pro lol. It was a game changer for us. @steveb I’ll happily create a walkthrough video for you. Getting set up with E and creating some pages etc (being an ex RW junkie I know where it can get confusing). Cheers
I’d LOVE to see that video, too, Justin!!
@Justin can provide a great video for people who already use RW. But there are a couple of other vides that should really help.
Keep in mind that WP was a theme-driven blog, then theme-driven website tool. Only relatively lately (last 5-6 years) have products akin to Foundation, Foundry, et al. come out for WP. Elementor Pro is to WP, as Foundation/Foundry/etc. is to RW. It takes you beyond the basic theme-based approach and project builders give you a lot more freedom.
One video to definitely look at is this one:
Translation: How to Use RW without a Theme. i.e. all our page builders.
After that first one, another great one to view (also by WPTuts) is this:
I look forward to Justin’s tutorial also, but these should also help. I think both pretty much assume you are familiar with WP in general. That said I think they are both clear and helpful.
Thanks for the headsup and offer of help with Elementor, but at the moment I’m just playing with WP, so not going to make any investment, as yet.
If I get comfortable and happy with the general backend and control with WP, and can satisfy myself that any site I build with it won’t become a nightmare keeping the hackers out, I’ll look at things like Elementor.
@steveb no worries. I want to do demo videos more regularly for my customers anyway so this would be good practice, so for those that do want to see a vid - I’ll sort this week. Cheers.
@steveb Give OxygenBuilder a look as well
Only real negative, not as “polished” and a little geekier than Elementor, but has far more potential, and is basically a “theme builder”. I have the “Agency license” which is $169 lifetime/unlimited sites, and includes the Gutenberg and WooCommerce builders as well. I have built 8 Oxygen websites in the last 3 months, and just scratching the surface of what I can build with it. Elementor is a good product, but becomes pricy fast for a 1 person shop like me, and Oxygen can build better sites.
I am more worried about the hackers trying to hack WordPress. What is the best tool / plugin to take care of this automatically?
As long as you run back-ups and or download a local version you are good - but the most popular plgin by far is WordFence and the free version is fine for most. Thanks!
Hi @Raimo can I see some of your Oxygen sites? Interested in two comments here 1. The site speed test and 2. It can build better websites (is that not down to the designer)? I have a feeling (a part from the fact its on their own marketing page), that the site speed test was before the vanilla Elementor theme was released…
@Justin Nothing against Elementor - just went the Oxygen route instead, and just getting into it. Price was the biggest motivator for me, and stuff like cleaner code (Google “Oxygen vs Elementor bloat”) was icing on the cake. Elementor was my 2nd choice. (I’m forced to use Divi a lot as well… I do a lot of sub-contractor work for an agency that uses that on everything… although before I found Oxygen, have used Divi on a few of my client sites as well)
Here are a couple of my sites I’m still working on - I’m very new to using Wordpress as my main builder after 10 years of Rapidweaver… Nothing special about the hosting either, just shared Namecheap hosting. I haven’t actually done any real optimizations yet, but every oxygen site I’ve built scores very high on Google Pagespeed Insights: usually 90+ for mobile and close to 100 for desktop, and do great on Yslow as well.
Here are a few of my Oxygen Builder sites (admittedly, fairly simple sites, now that I have my “feet wet” have several much larger/complex sites to tackle…)
One note: Oxygen doesn’t use “themes” it actually disables the Wordpress theme (you can delete all of them)
Yeah I do see they are fast - E sites with sim complexity are not far off though.
but do not think it Oxygen can produce better websites that’s down to so many other variables, servers, designers etc… anyway cheers for the insight@Justin Yeah, sorry about the “better websites” comment, that does come down to the person/people building the website and not the tools. I have seen crappy stuff using great website builders, and great stuff from so-called inferior builders (Even Divi can give you really good results, one of my “best sites” uses it.) Elementor is a great tool, very well supported, and you have done some awesome work with it!
If you are a coder: html, css the you would want to avoid Elementor as it has a good deal of bloat, even with its Hello theme. Elementor is one of the better page builders. However, it hasn’t really updated itself & Templates look dated. Brizy is the new kid on the block - obviously not as advanced (yet) as Elementor but has features Elementor does not. You can take a look. YouTube has many videos on the page builders. Elementor Pro is $49 a year for 1 website.
If you are a coder, the Oxygen Builder is for you. It is a website builder, not a page builder. It doesn’t have any bloat: it loads only what is needed on the page. Take a look at try it out at OxygenBuilder.com in their sandbox. The Facebook community is excellent & you can also speak with Louis R & Eliah M. The pricing is very good - lifetime means lifetime - not version lifetime! There are 3 offerings.
Divi is very population, love it or hate it, its pricing is far better than Elementor. You can get a taste of it on their website. There is something about Divi that works for many people. As with all things, only you can decide.
Play around with all of them!
Good luck!
Okay so here’s a quick demo of Elementor. It’s messy as I didn’t get time to plan - I just jumped in and started recording. I think it demo’s the product okay though (just LOL).
Merry Christmas! Cheers
