Page Builder

[paaljoachim]

Creating a page builder to easily create a page. What I saw in the chat made me think of Visual Composer that separates the content too much into different sections.

Go back a bunch of years to when we used the HTML tables. It had lines and rows. Cells and cell spacing. One could place images or text into the cells and also change the size of these cells.

Go forward to the present. A grid layout turn visibility on or off. Add content and move them around to where you want to have it placed (on drag the grid becomes visible). Like Photoshop objects or an InDesign document. But now there can be a grid. Drag the grid lines to make a specific cell bigger or smaller. It seemed pretty simple 10 years ago using a table, but it never seems to have received a modern CSS touch.

The less intrusive a grid is the better one can experience the content layout.

[dovy]

Yes, take a look at enfold's page builder. That's how I want to build it, as far as drag/drop. ;)

[paaljoachim]

Enfold's page builder looks really neat..... but..... everything becomes boxed within another box. It needs a better visual flare to it. It is also very similar to the themify.me page builder. Check their free themes and then take a look at the builder. I have been using their free theme Basic as a parent theme for a long time but have decided not to use the page builder even though it would make things easier and better looking.

What is important here is how can one help the user create a visual page. Without it all being boxed up. It needs some kind of preview. Similar to having an image click top left to delete or edit as can be seen today with any image used in the content area of WordPress.

I saw the Enfold video: https://vimeo.com/channels/aviathemes/

What is missing here is actually seeing a smaller representation of the background image directly in the view/content area. Seeing the live slider as it movies. Seeing the testimonial and contact form directly inside the content area. Drag these around to place them differently. Click top left of the object to edit.

Boxed up content creation is a creative wet towel. Seeing the content being able to move it around checking out the visuality on the spot really lifts creativity.

Another thing. For 3.8 there was a Core Plugin group called CEUX which planned something similar. http://make.wordpress.org/core/features-as-plugins/ There was not enough developers to keep it going so it was put on freeze. I do think it stopped about here: http://diegoliv.github.io/wp-contentblocks-prototype/ The approach looked interesting.

[dimitrilongo]

hi

see also http://www.screenr.com/qlcH cloudFW

[paaljoachim]

Hey Dimitri

A lot of options in that page builder. One thing though. As I mentioned. Too many boxes. It takes the writing out of the natural environment and puts it into a box. The more natural environment to write the article/page is in the better. It is natural to write select a heading for it from the typography options right above in the menu or similar then continue writing and adjust the h or p tag. Drag in an image. Drag in a divider, or click the menu above for a divider etc. To try and keep most of the page in place as natural as possible. Seeing the result as one creates the page/post.