I really think this is essential. Every other page builder or visual editor, for example Visual Composer, permits the addition of classes to rows and columns. As I’ve read through the threads I’ve noticed many other requests for this functionality. Your standard reply is either “we’re looking into it” or “use the unique ID” on the row or column.
Since your plug-in serves a unique service by permitting widgets to be placed anywhere in a semi-grid-like framework, it’s easy to fill up pages with interesting and relevant content. And that’s great…
But by forcing individuals to rely on individual row or column IDs for custom styling, you are also deviating from evolving css standards that, in many cases, advise getting rid of IDs altogether since they are too specific and make the creation of multi-use modular components impossible. Since every widget has the ingenious class name of .widget, how would one go about setting up a Page Builder column to be a fake sidebar when your .sidebar class styles can’t be applied to the column? Or if I have multiple TinyMCE visual editor widgets in the same column, which all have the same .widget class name, how to style them without relying on the ID again?
Page Builder has long had some hooks and filters to set up styles for rows so I can’t understand why you can’t add a little + sign on each column that would pop open a text field to add a class name to the column (or a comma delimited series of classes).
Your simple but effect plugin is going to be left in the dust if you don’t open it up to use classes. Not sure you agree but it’s awfully hard to use when I have to lock a style to an ID.
One last thing, which is just kind of annoying… When you’ve created a multi column row and you say to yourself, “Hey, I think I’d rather get rid of the columns so it’s a 100% row,” there’s no way to do it without making another row, moving content to it, then deleting the multi-column row. My intuition told me that I could just drag the column margin all the way to the right or left and the column would disappear, but that’s not how it works.
Maybe, when you add the ability to create classes, you could also make a way to remove individual columns.
Thanks. Page Builder was the first “Visual” editor I ever used with WordPress so I have a tender spot for it. Please keep improving it.
Is there a premium version of Page Builder? If so, where is it?
Hi Eric
Thanks for the feedback. We really do appreciate it. Especially feedback around things like standards. At the moment I’m the only developer working on Page Builder, so it’s difficult to consider everything. It originally started as a simple replacement to using (ugly) column shortcodes like many themes were using to create columnized layouts. It has been evolving a lot since then and being used in ways I never imagined – which is awesome.
I’ll take a look at using the row styles feature (which is currently only supported by our own Vantage theme) and extending it to allow the addition of theme independent custom classes.
The ability to delete rows in an individual column is something I’ve wanted to add for a while now. I just need to think of the best way to handle this and find the time to implement it.
Thanks again for the feedback – and the patience. We are starting our hunt for new developers to add to the currently-one-man SiteOrigin development team. Hopefully things will start moving alone much faster when that happens :)
Oh, and at the moment there is no premium version. I’d really like to keep it free and let our theme division subsidise its development.
Check out my plugin http://nyinker.com/siteorigin-panels-class.zip it adds classes to Page Builder without modifing the original plugin. If you like it, spread the word ;)
Thank you Mr. Cichy. I will certainly give it a whirl later today on a site that uses Page Builder. I’m sure there are details in a readme or php file in the zip but, for the sake of others who don’t have the file: Does it play nice with the latest version of WP and is there a version of Page Builder, for instance a version cutoff, before which the addition of your plug-in will cause an explosion?
I know people should keep everything current but some people hold on to older versions of things because their site depends on something that will only operate with certain versions of WP.
Also, I should ask, does the plugin add option icons on Page Builder’s native UI or does it invoke a modal or other window? I ask because because there have been some stacking order issues between Page Builder and some widgets. People will want to know…
Finally – A Big Thanks!