Drag and-Drop WordPress Themes

Post on 15-May-2015

1.351 views 1 download

Tags:

description

Sallie Goetsch provides a whirlwind tour of some of the available free and premium drag-and-drop (or, in some cases, click-and-add) WordPress themes, frameworks, and plugins, for the August 2013 East Bay WordPress Meetup. Of the themes she actually analyzed, iThemes Builder is the only one that uses child themes (though it is not really drag and drop) and Themify Builder has the most intriguing interface, with front-end editing, though it is extremely heavy on the JavaScript and engages in some questionable practices, like adjusting your PHP memory without telling you it's going to do this. The themes from Site Origin and CyberChimps offer limited drag-and-drop layout options that are easy for beginners to use, though they are designed to work within the existing styles of those themes. In most cases, developers with any knowledge of PHP, HTML, and CSS will want to avoid these themes. Beginners with little knowledge of code may find the learning curve for some of these themes (e.g. PageLines DMS) too overwhelming. In all cases, the use of one of these themes may make it extremely difficult to change themes in the future, because they store content in special database tables. And no ability to drag elements around a grid or select fonts or colors from a drop-down will teach you design skills, so if you don't know the principles of good design, your site could end up looking like a flyer from the early 1990s, when desktop publishing software first became popular.

Transcript of Drag and-Drop WordPress Themes

August 18, 2013

EastBayWP.com

Ongoing Sponsor: Page.ly

http://page.ly/

Drag & Drop WordPress Themes

Sallie Goetsch

FREE OPTIONS

Page Layout Builder Settings

MiniMax Layout Tab: Columns

MiniMax Add Modules

MiniMax Page with Modules

MiniMax Page: Front End

MiniMax Layout Builder: Conclusion

• Reasonably intuitive

• Limited selection of modules in free version

• Some conflicts with normal WordPress functions, e.g. media library

• Could still be useful, but I wasn’t that impressed.

iFeature (CyberChimps)

iFeature Options

iFeature Header Layout

iFeature Blog Layout

iFeature +Portfolio -Slider

iFeature: Conclusion

• Partly drag-and-drop

• Easy to use

• Can create a home page without posts

• Minimal control over styling

• Limited layout options

• Suitable for beginners

PageLines Lite

PageLines Site Options

PageLines Layout Editor

PageLines Layout Editor 2

PageLines Drag and Drop

Applying a PageLines Template

PageLines: Conclusion

• Fairly flexible even in free version

• Not immediately intuitive—lots of different settings pages

• Combination of drag-and-drop and other selectors

• Modify templates on a per-page basis

• Can be used by beginners, but there’s a learning curve

Snapshot (SiteOrigin)

SiteOrigin Page Builder

SiteOrigin Page Builder Settings

Site Origin Widgets

SiteOrigin Home Page Builder

PageBuilder Tab

SiteOrigin: Conclusion

• Widget-based

• More click-and-add than drag-and-drop

• Allows page-based and post-based layouts

• Assumes you already have site content (post categories, etc.)

• Designed to work within the styling of the SiteOrigin themes

PREMIUM OPTIONS

iThemes Builder

Builder Layouts and Views

Add New Builder Layout

New Layout Applied

Error message due to lack of posts to feature

Custom Builder Layout Metabox

Select a Builder Layout instead of a page template when creating a new page.

Builder Style Manager

iThemes Builder: Conclusion

• Not really drag-and-drop

• Very well-documented

• Page-by-page layout options

• Modules for restaurants, churches, events, audio

• Style manager plugin

• Many child themes available

Themify Builder

Themify Default Layouts

Themify Page Builder Settings

Themify Custom Panel: Page Options

Themify Custom Panel: Post Query

Themify Custom Panel: Builder

Themify Page with Modules

Themify Front-end Editing

Themify Builder: Conclusion

• Good number of modules

• Fairly intuitive to use

• Front-end editing is cool

• Themes are resource-intensive

• Can add custom CSS classes for custom styling

• Test it with free “Basic” theme