In October Alex Miller gave an introduction to page builders. These are plugins that can drastically change how you manage content in your WordPress site. From drag-and-drop layout options, easy galleries and more.
I took down a few notes, which try to cover some of the larger points Alex made through the evening. Feel free to drop a note below if you have any questions or feedback.
- Why use page builders?
- One reason is that it keep folks from messing up things they shouldn’t be messing with!
- It also makes it easy to update content without out having to be a design/layout genius.
- Only going to cover WordPress.org page builders – ones that are freely available
- Live Composer – https://wordpress.org/plugins/live-composer-page-builder/
- Cons
- bunch of clutter in the sidebar you can’t remove
- navigating tools in live view are a little cumbersome
- pre-populates text fields
- lots of toolbars, confusing
- Pros
- lots of tools
- can bring up standard WP editor in visual mode
- Cons
- Site origin – https://wordpress.org/plugins/siteorigin-panels
- Cons
- limited layout options for ‘rows’ (like only bottom margin for each row)
- Pros
- no clutter in sidebar
- easy-to-use visual editor
- import/export layouts
- Beaver builder – https://wordpress.org/plugins/beaver-builder-lite-version/
- Cons
- no prebuilt templates for free version
- limited media ‘modules’ (called widgets in other page builders)
- no gradient support in column/row settings for backgrounds
- some default padding/margin are a little weird
- Pros
- limited modules are really easy to use
- responsive design break points can be set per module
- Cons
- Cons
- General notes on page builders
- Once you commit to a visual editor, switching (or going without) will be work – there’s not a lot of cross-migration between these competing tools.
- Uninstall might not keep your content!
- Beaver builder and site origin does add html and thankfully no shortcodes! Live editor is all inside their plugin – hard to salvage underlying content
- Think about what you need. Do you need a page builder (landing page) or just custom post types and ACF?
- Beaver builder is #1 pick
- good usability, flexibility, and support