Comments 144 Responses

1. I’d like to know more about toolset-based themes and would like to schedule a demo. Thanks

   • Great. I’ll arrange these demos for next week. I’ll write to you privately to coordinate a good time.

     • Hi Amir,

       Please write me privately as well. Thanks for the great work!

       • Sure. Agnes is organizing the demo times and will contact you to coordinate a time that’s convenient for you.

     • Like others I am too waiting for this update. Please put my name also in demo list. Thanking You.

2. Very, very good news! Thanks! 🙂

   I am also interested in themes building.
   So I would be happy to participate to a demo.

   And I can’t wait to try the new Post Relationship. 😉

3. I have lifetime account, do I also need to upgrade to dev to get new system to build themes and plugin? If so, I would like to have pricing details and demo so I could decide to upgrade. Thanks

   • The accounts will cost $649 for one theme or $899 for unlimited themes. If you already have a Lifetime account, the upgrade will cost you -$299 from these amounts. I’ll write to you privately to coordinate a demo for next week. I’d love to show you what we have and get your opinion about it.

     • Great, I would go for unlimited themes for $600 upgrade. Look forward to hearing from you.

       Thanks

     • I didn’t understand… If I have a lifetime account I will have to pay again to use Types Pro?

       • You don’t need to pay any extra. The upcoming features in Types will be included in your account. Folks who only used Types for free from WPORG will need to start paying to get the new features coming to Types. Anyone with an existing Toolset account doesn’t pay any extra.

4. Hi Amir,

   glad to know things are rolling out and great kudos to you guys!

   Just would like to have if possible some deeper information about several topics:
   – many-to-many relationship logic: are you dropping the “intermediate” cpt?
   – REST API support: as you know WP REST API will be merged what will be Types support?
   – Views sorting functionality: will it be included in the next release?
   – Toolset Maps cluster issues: will the next release include any fix to the bug affecting cluster of items on the same location on the map?

   As I’ve already said I know you are doing a great job, just like to ask!

   Best regards to all the team!
   Carlo

   • Thanks a lot for your feedback!

     The upcoming many-to-many relationship will make the intermediary objects optional. If you want to have custom fields in the connecting objects, Toolset will automatically generate the intermediary posts. However, this will be a very efficient and convenient process. A single query will get you the “many” objects from the other side of the “many”. Today it’s a whole story to go through the intermediary post.

     If you don’t need custom fields for the connections, there will be no intermediary object. No need.

     I need to check about REST API support. If you can tell me what you’re looking to do in Toolset with REST API, I can get more details about what/when/if we can offer it.

     Views already has a lot of sorting for different places (admin and front-end). This includes in tables and in the custom search features. Can you tell me specifically what sorting you’re missing?

     We’ll also get back to clusters on Toolset Maps. It’s not “in development” now, so I don’t have a schedule. In every release we fix all known issues. If you have bugs in the current version, let me know which and I’ll check that they are indeed handled. All Toolset plugins are getting updates next week, including for WP 4.7 compatibility.

     • Hi Amir,

       thanks for your quick response!
       First I forgot to tell you I’m also interested in having some more information/demo access concerning the toolset powered themes

       I’m going to give you some more details about my requests:

       – REST API: (https://toolset.com/forums/topic/rest-api-integration-of-custom-field-aka-metadata/#post-450117) actually I’m interested in custom fields management trough REST API

       – Views sorting: I was not clear enough, my fault. I’m asking for some live resorting of items in a view by switching the value of a filter element, let’s say a select element that enable the user to switch from date ordered list to title ordered list to custom field ordered list etc etc etc.

       – Toolset Maps: here I’m requesting for help https://toolset.com/forums/topic/update-on-cluster-expand-issue/#post-450121 wanna know if the next release will fix this as Juan suggested.

       Thanks again

       • Sure. Agnes will be in touch to coordinate a time for a demo next week.

         I’ll go over the links you game me and reply again. Thanks for the additional info.

     • I’d like to pile on to the REST bandwagon. I’m a Lifetime Subscriber and prefer using an integrated Toolset, but felt that I needed to start using ACF Pro recently because you are behind in the REST arena and not as developer focussed. Further relationships were a bit clunky to work with when I went the route of writing my own plugin for Types. Lastly past inquiries indicated that this was not a priority.

       From the reply to the thread from @carletto0282 (https://toolset.com/forums/topic/rest-api-integration-of-custom-field-aka-metadata/#post-450117) it sounds like you have a comprehensize plan, though the schedule details are mushy.

       I am not too far into development and would prefer staying in Toolset. Please let us know when you will share more details (feel free to contact me directly). Personally I would love to participate in alpha/beta testing.

5. I started using Toolset 2 years ago, now I use it on every site I make!

   Thanks for the good work 😉

6. I am interested in the theme developer edition and look forward to the many-to-many relationship update

   • Great. I’ll contact you privately to arrange a demo for next week. We’ll schedule a time that works for you and would love to get your opinion and ideas.

7. Excellent! Keep me updated as for the demo.

8. good news. Really looking forward for Layout 1.9. I miss such a content cell for a while.
   And hopefully some Bootstrap elements or Bootstrap cells will be available in further versions. That would be super.

9. Hi I am very interested in seeing a demo. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

   • Good to hear. Agnes will be in touch shortly to coordinate a time for next week.

10. Hi,

    I’d love to know about building toolset based themes.

    Please arrange a demo for me.

    Regards

    Matt

    • Great. Agnes will be in touch shortly to arrange a time for this demo next week.

11. Hi Amir, that are great news. I´m really excited about the new features.

    I also would like to know more about toolset-based themes and would like to schedule a demo.

    Like some of the others I also have a toolset for life subscription. And when I log into my account I can see a message saying “When you buy the full Toolset package (either yearly or Lifetime), you can already develop Toolset-based themes.” So at the moment I´m a little confused if I also have to buy an upgrade for the themes feature or if it´s already included or where the difference is. It would be nice if you could clarify that.

    Thanks a lot an keep up the good work!

    • I need to check why you’re seeing this message in your account. Looks like we accidentally updated the accounts system (not the plugins) with a message that shouldn’t be there. You don’t need to pay any extra to keep using Toolset plugins normally. You will have the option (not available yet) to upgrade to an Author account, so you can also build and distribute Toolset-based themes.

      Agnes will be in touch to coordinate a time for a demo next week.

      • I think you need to clarify what the difference is between this new thing and https://toolset.com/documentation/embedded-toolset/

        That pages (linked to from account page) states:

        Do I Need a Costly Developer License for Embedded Toolset?
        When you buy the full Toolset package (either yearly or Lifetime), you can already develop Toolset-based themes. We don’t sell any “developer” accounts. From our point-of-view, all Toolset accounts are for developers.”

        A matrix may be useful.

        • We originally started with the “Embedded” Toolset, but we learned that it has several critical problems which makes its applications very (too) limited. The new Toolset-based themes arrangement will allow to build and distribute themes that auto-install the full Toolset plugins. This allows end users to edit everything with the full Toolset GUI. These themes will come with a dedicated version of Toolset plugins which only work with that theme. So, if people buy such a theme from you, they get Toolset plugins, but can only use them on that specific theme.

          You don’t need a special costly account for the old Embedded version. Are you actually using it for anything?

          —

          To your other questions:

          1. Yes, we are planning to add the support for REST API. We’re doing our very best to add features, but we can’t do everything at the same time.

          2. The new post relationship will be a major improvement compared to the current parent/child relationship.

          • No, I don’t use the old Embedded version. We’re SaaS, so sell access to our system. What you’re proposing would allow us to accommodate requests for clients that want to self host. That’s not on our roadmap for a while.

            1. I understand, but and I am sure other developers need to have a timeline idea that’s more concrete than soon. This year, Q1/2017, later? For now it sounds like you’re agreeing that for the foreseeable future ACF is the tool to use if one needs REST integration without a lot of custom coding.

            2. The plans sound great. Reading between the tea leaves: you say that this will be worked on after v1.9. Your release velocity for full dot releases seems to be 3 months, so I’ll assume March 2017.

            • 1. I didn’t study the REST interface in ACF, so I can’t comment on how it fits this project. We’ve learned not to give a timeline to features that we’re not actively working on. In this long post, I listed what we’re working on now. There are a number of other features that people need. I get it. We just cannot implement everything at the same time.

              2. For full post relationship, March 2017 is also optimistic. It’s a huge project and may take longer than this. But not double the time.

            • @ChrisH-10 and @Amir

              Dunno if you’ve tried it – it’s on my “to do list” to do so, but there’s a private project on Github integrating views into the REST API.

              May – or may not – be of help…
              Link is here (hopefully the embed works): https://github.com/adrianosferreira/toolset-rest

            • This project was created by Adriano, which was the former Toolset support leader. Adriano has moved to WPML development and Mohammed is now leading Toolset support.

              The project that Adriano created is great. In order for it to be part of Toolset, it requires a bit of work. Then, it needs to have a full set of unit tests, documentation and to be integrated into the main code. Once this is done, it also needs to be added to the QA sheet.

              Like I previously explained, we’re not abandoning this project. We created it for a purpose. We just have to prioritize and we cannot work on everything in parallel.

              I hope it still makes sense.

            • BTW – I concur with @chrisH-10 ‘s comments.

              I do appreciate the work the whole Toolset team puts in. I also appreciate the difference between income from developers vs the broader “design” marketplace.

              Having said that, I do get the sense that Toolset is pushing to “code less” development paradigm to the extent that the it tends to become less developer efficient (embedded Toolset, for example, flipping to embedded in theme vs the previous embedded in plugin that we had.)

              I know some of these things are still possible – technically, though less documented. But the concern tends to be they may be deprecated (embedding in plugins for example.)

              I sincerely wish we could generate PHP from Types and Views. Even if it’s a paid only option. It would be more flexible and safer when deploying.

              Again – not meaning to whine. I do appreciate all your work and what you bring to the marketplace!

            • The decision to move from the old “Embedded” Toolset to the new scheme is based on our talks with clients and what we’ve seen ourselves. Our goal is to make it possible to leverage Toolset features to build themes. We understood that the way the Embedded version was partitioned doesn’t achieve this goal. We also understand why. For this reason (only), we’re moving to the new system. It avoids the drawbacks and offers new features that theme developers need. I’ll cover it in detail in a few days.

12. Hi Amir, Hi Agnes,

    I am also very interested to be part of the demo.

    Thanks very much for an invitation.

    Hansjörg

    • Great. Agnes will be in touch very shortly. We’re just organizing the meeting slots now and will send the invitations to pick a time.

13. Hi Amir,
    @Major update for Layouts: just to be sure – there will be Genesis compatibility?
    I am interested in Toolset-based themes…

    • Yes, certainly. We’re updating the integration plugins for all themes, including Genesis. This update, with the “page builder” mode makes the Genesis integration a lot nicer and simpler to use. Agnes will be in touch to coordinate a time for a demo next week.

14. I would like to know about the demo for theme development. I am hoping the Toolset for Life includes this functionality as per what the agreement was when I bought the suite of plugins.

    • Joff, actually, it’s going to cost an extra. Toolset for Life, allows you to build sites based on Toolset for yourself and for your clients. The new arrangement for Toolset-based themes also allows to create themes and distribute them, including for pay. This is significantly different because it’s a redistribution license. We’re not taking out anything from the normal Toolset accounts. We’re only adding another option.

    • Hi Amir, so exactly why are we having to pay more for this when I specifically purchased the Lifetime license which states

      “Do I Need a Costly Developer License for Embedded Toolset?”
      “When you buy the full Toolset package (either yearly or Lifetime), you can already develop Toolset-based themes. We don’t sell any “developer” accounts. From our point-of-view, all Toolset accounts are for developers.”

      It would now seem this isn’t the case.

      • Because it’s not an extension of the current set of plugins, but something completely different. Again, please tell me if you’ve used the old Embedded plugins to create or sell themes before. To my best knowledge, nobody used it. This is why we’re scrapping it. If you have, we’ll work it out so that YOU don’t need to pay any extra now.

        • Thanks Amir,

          I have a couple of themes developed using the plugin. Mainly on internal and dev sites.

          I never quite liked the way the embedded toolset worked so did not widely distribute the themes, they were mainly used for intranet and internal web systems within some corporate entities.

          • That’s what we got from others too. Nobody really liked the usefulness of them. This is why we’re scrapping it for a much more sensible system. The new system does really offer a lot more and is intended for a completely different purpose. Let me publish the details, so you see what it offers. Then, if you feel that you’re getting a bad or unfair deal, let me know and I’ll fix it for you.

15. Selling themes with baked in cpts and views made with Toolset? WOW. I asked for this a few years ago. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. Can’t freaking wait.

    • Great. I’m reading the responses here and it looks like there’s significant interest in this. Would you like to have a private demo for it?

      • Oh yes, and I’d be happy to provide any feedback if you want. I can already think of dozens of use cases.

        • Great. Agnes will be in touch to coordinate the time. Thanks!

16. I, too, would like to watch the demo.
    Thanks.

    • Great. Agnes will contact to coordinate a time. It looks like we’re a little full for next week, so probably the following week. I hope it’s OK.

17. World Types implement repeater and flexible fields as ACF does now?

    • We’re not trying to create a copy of ACF plugin, so I can’t promise that exactly everything that ACF does Types will do. We’re going to implement repeating groups and post reference based on post relationship. The major change from what we have now is that it will be a lot more convenient to use. Instead of multiple steps and complex setup, it will be only a single click to create either. I know that it sounds a bit hazy. I’ll write a much more detailed description when we have something to show and I hope that it will clarify completely.

18. Hello Amir,
    I’m interested in the demo, too, whenever possible.
    thanks.

    • Glad to hear. Agnes will be in touch to coordinate the time.

19. Hi,

    I’ve tried toolset a few years ago (when you rolled out views bêta I think) but didn’t go through with a lifetime account then. I have been thinking of getting one lately and would also be interested in a demo of the theme builder fonctionality.

    • Sure. Agnes will contact soon to arrange a time for this demo.

20. I would like to watch the demo.
    Thanks.

    • Sure. Agnes will contact you soon to arrange the time. It’s going to be a pretty busy week for us next week 🙂

21. Hey Amir, just to be clear, as we have not worked with the Toolset/theme integration before – does this mean the ‘custom’ toolset plugins for a client using the theme will update automatically for the client going forward, sort of like a lifetime subscription? Thanks

    • Yes. The new Author accounts for Toolset will all be “Lifetime”. When you distribute such a theme, which is based on Toolset plugins, your clients will:

      1. Automatically get the right Toolset plugins installed
      2. Get a full configuration and demo content, exactly like you see in your development environment
      3. Be able to edit everything with Toolset plugins
      4. Receive automatic updates for Toolset plugins
      5. Not need to register anywhere. The theme is registered and gets the updates for them

      The copy of the plugins that they get is locked for your theme. They can use it as much as they want and for as long as they want on that theme. If they want to use Toolset elsewhere (on other themes), they will need to buy an account from us.

22. Hi Amir

    I’d love to watch a demo.

    Cheers

    Jon

    • Great. We’ve been getting very positive response to the upcoming Toolset-based themes. Agnes will be in touch shortly to coordinate a demo. We’re doing one-on-one demos, so we can show you what we’re building and get your feedback and thoughts. We’ll try to do all demos next week, but it may spill over to the following week too.

      • Thanks Amir. It definitely sounds very exciting. To be able to bundle Toolset into a theme I’ve built is an excellent concept.

        Do you have any thoughts on pricing?

        • Yes. The Author accounts will cost $649 for one theme or $899 for unlimited themes. This price includes a Lifetime Toolset account. So, if you already have an account today, you will only need to pay the difference from what you bought already and the Author account that you’re interested in.

          • Thanks again. I guessed it would quite a bit more expensive so am not surprised. It’s a great idea, though. Looking forward to the demo.

23. I am also interested in toolset based themes!

    • Great. Agnes will be in touch to coordinate a demo. Thanks for the interest!

24. I have a question about the post relationship upgrades. I am very excited that your team is working to make this stronger. It’s incredibly useful for WordPress website builders / front end designers like myself. Toolset in general has taken my ability to the next level.

    My question is this: will your post relationship framework ever support posts->users or users->posts relationships? The plugin to use this, I would guess you have heard of, is Posts-2-Posts, which has been dropped by the developer. I would really love to see your team develop toolset to encompass what that plugin does, relieving the need for it. https://wordpress.org/plugins/posts-to-posts/

    • In the first release, we’d prefer not to handle posts-2-users. Implementing good many-to-many relationship is a huge project anyway and we don’t want to further complicate it. Doing so will likely double the development time (and the amount of bugs on the way).

      We’ve had a detailed look at posts-to-posts. For anything related to post relationship (not users), our design covers far more than what this plugin is currently doing. These additional features are not for fun, but are actually important for a lot of sites. And, Toolset will handle both the connections and everything related to front-end display.

      One of the highlights of this project is actually in CRED. Many-to-many relationship for front-end forms opens a lot of possibilities. I’ll explain all this better when we’re closer to a beta.

      • Awesome! I am really excited about this!

25. Hi Amir,

    As usual you and your team have a lot of surprises under your sleeves, count me in for having more information with demo access concerning the toolset powered themes.

    Because of what happened to TYPES I see now you use a prevention to stop bitten twice with the hope that you will knockdown the use of any external builder.

    Please what ever you doing always keep in mind the integration part with toolset suite plus the performance.

    ArabsW

26. Amir, I am also interested in seeing this Demo for the Toolset Theme update.

    • Great to hear. Agnes will contact to organize a demo.

27. already planning to sell themes based upon toolset design, on the old method. So any upgrade to add the page builder type functions sounds very interesting.
    just about to launch a new toolset based design for my main site with lots of bootstrap tricks to change the layout for different devices.

    • Great. I think that this upgrade will be just in time for you. Layouts 1.9 makes it a lot easier to build entire sites with Toolset (and easier for end-users to further customize). The new system for bundling Toolset plugins with themes should work exactly for you.

28. Hi Amir
    Now the Embedded Toolset can be used to create themes and sell them. What are the difference with the new system ?

    Lifetime Accounts will get free upgrade to the new system ?

    Thanks!

    • The current “Embedded Toolset” includes everything for the front-end, but without the user interface. We thought that it would be a good basis to build themes, but we saw that actually nobody is using it.

      The new system actually implies complete redistribution of the full Toolset plugins, locked to the theme. Themes will come with the full plugins, including the GUI for making changes. People using the theme will be able to customize, add and remove anything. It will have a completely different pricing, because it gives something completely different.

      If you are using the current Embedded plugins and are building themes with it, please let me know and we’ll find an arrangement for you, so that you don’t need to pay any extra.

29. Hi Amir,

    Super nice upgrade… I am excited to try out the new Layouts features! How will all this effect the use of Beaver Builder? Is Layouts going to be more BB like?

    Thanks for all the hard work and the direction Toolset is going…..

    Mel

    • Actually, Layouts 1.9 will improve the integration with Beaver Builder. The new “post content” cell makes it easier to combine between Layouts and BB. You’ll be able to conveniently design the overall layout of the site with Toolset and create content for specific pages with BB. Then, when you edit from the front-end, Layouts will launch BB when you edit “the content”.

      • Hi Amir,

        Big thumsb-up for the next Layouts 1.9 and the next amazing new features.
        Toolset Combined with Beaver-Builder next updates, will provide an amazing workflow for wordpress development.

        Good luck and keep up your amazing work.

30. Hi Amir, I am also interested for the Theme Demo.

    • Great. Agnes will be in touch to coordinate a time.

31. Eta on new update – like hard date?

    • I’d love to have hard dates, but I know it’s not realistic. We’ll have a hard date when development is done and all tests pass without any problems.

      On Monday, we’re going to release a minor update for WordPress 4.7 compatibility. I can say with with certainty, because we’re at the end of the QA now.

      Layouts 1.9 still needs a bit or work to finish last things. We’re aiming for a beta next week. Then, the final release will depend a lot on the feedback that we get and issues we find during final testing.

      Toolset-based themes need about a month of work. Then, the new system will be ready for production.

      Does this help?

32. Hi Amir,

    I have built a site using a lot of Toolset components that is running on a popular WP theme and I think the theme adds a lot of unnecessary stuff, impacting performance. I haven’t used layouts a lot but I am curious to know your thoughts on creating my own theme using layouts. If you have the time I’d love to hear your thoughts to help me with this decision.

    Thanks mate,
    Chris.

    • Sure. We’ll release a full tutorial on how to build Toolset-based themes, as soon as Layouts 1.9 and the new distribution systems are out. I’ll write a new newsletter about it, so that it’s easy to notice.

33. Hi Amir,

    Thank you for adding the content cell to Layouts. The integrated page builder sounds interesting and would be nice for themes with Toolset integration. I am interested in learning more about themes built with Toolset, but this is a busy time up to Christmas. I wonder if you might be able to record some of the demos for others to watch as time allows?

    You are obviously investing heavily in the development of Toolset, which is to our benefit. Thank you. I think that the pricing for Toolset theme integration is reasonable.

    As you are now moving into visual building of content, do you have any plans for drag and drop building of view templates?

    • Yes, of course we’ll also make this information public. Honestly, when I wrote about it here, I was expecting much lower response (I don’t know why). I see that so many people are interested, so we’ll also prepare organized material that explains exactly how it works – both for the theme authors and for end users. We’ll have it online in a few days.

      Layouts 1.9 allows us to create a Layouts for anything. We’re starting with the “post content”. Our plans are to also extend this to CRED forms and to the View loop. However, this will take us a while. First, we need to release this major update of Layouts. Then, our upcoming plans are for the post relationship. We’re talking about several months to complete all this.

34. Layouts should compete with BB and Divi after the NEW update (1.9) otherwise the fate so negative for many Toolset users.

    I did not understand the benefit of using the themes based toolset plugin instead of the current modules if it possible to make a theme with the current setup I hope this is not a new way to milk the cow even your lifetime customers you did not provide to them any incentive and attractive offer for the new upgrade.

    Tom

    • I think that Beaver Builder and Visual Composer (and other page builders) are great. They’re especially great for their purpose.

      Layouts is still a bit different. It allows to design entire sites and not only “the content” area. Now, Layouts will also have a dedicated “page builder” mode, which avoids the need of using a separate page builder. I suspect that people who start with Toolset will consider this as enough (because it really does provide a lot). People who are used and invested in BB or VC may still prefer to design their content with these builders. We respect this and therefor we maintain and improve the integration. We’re also opening the API, so that others can easily integrate their favorite page builders.

      The benefits of the new Toolset-based themes is mostly in the packaging and redistribution. We’re creating an entire system which will easily allow you to design locally and distribute an exact copy of your design to clients. This includes providing updates, resolving conflicts (between new versions and local edits) and more. It’s a lot of development and it makes it possible to sell themes that your end-users can fully edit with Toolset.

      I’ll write all about it very soon, so you can see how it works and what it offers. We’re going to have demo sessions with folks who requested it. There, we’ll give a preview of how it works and get feedback about the applications.

35. Hi,

    Even though it was mentioned but you did not explain what is the good offer for your current lifetime members also many keep ask you for Layouts to be a premium builder but still you keep insisting on using external builder like (Divi-BB-VC).

    • Sorry for the miscommunication. We currently have a team of 3 full time developers working on Layouts (plus UI expect, plus front-end developer, plus testers). We’re not insisting that you use different page builders. I’d love it if you use Layouts exclusively. The upcoming release should make it possible and convenient to you. Having said this, a lot of people are heavily invested in other page builders. So we’re maintaining compatibility. I hope that it’s not a bad thing.

      • Hi Amir,
        the reason why I am waiting for Layouts 1.9 is that toolset and some builder are making the webcode not looking good. too mutch overhead. And not all webpage with wordpress are cacheable. Some webpages need strong interactivity with mysql so Its good to have the layouts 1.9. I know you would not like to tell this here, but for me it is the reason for waiting.

        • Great. So I’m happy to report that you’re not going to be disappointed. What you like in Toolset is exactly what we like and Layouts 1.9 continues on this path. We’re doing our best to push this development. Now that we are done with the work on WP 4.7 compatibility, more people are joining Layouts. We should have a nice beta next week. I’ll write about it separately.

36. The big appeal to using WP Toolset was the ability to build theme patterns, which we have begun to do. We currently have a number of themes built on Toolset which we use internally for our client solutions.

    Can we potentially get a look at how these changes are going to impact our themes, future theme development, and clients using our themes?

    Are we going to be charged more now because of these changes?

    We are half excited and half terrified by this news.

    • If you’re building things internally or for your own clients (as work for hire), there’s no change for you.

      We are adding ANOTHER option, which you can use or skip. That option allows you to redistribute themes that use Toolset plugins and INCLUDE the full versions of Toolset plugins. The new model includes two parts:

      1. A different license, which allows you to do more (not just use and build but also redistribute).
      2. An entire system that takes care of everything for you. It handles downloads, updates, change resolution, import of your demo content and more.

      When I mentioned it in this blog post, I thought that it’s going to interest only a small number of Toolset clients. This is why I didn’t go into all details about it, because this post is a general overview of our plans. We were all very positively surprised to see that a lot of people are interested. Of course I’ll prepare a more detailed explanation of how this will work for you and for your end-users. We’ll have this update next week (I need to sit down and prepare it).

37. Hi Amir,

    Really can’t wait for the Many-to-Many relationships upgrades to drop. I am about to re-subscribe and upgrade to lifetime, so I’m very happy to see at least an estimated time frame for this (probably not before March 2017 but very probably before Autumn 2017 – if I’m reading your replies above correctly).

    I’d also like view the demo for Toolset based themes.

    Regarding the embedded Toolset, I’m just about to use this for a site. When are you planning on scrapping it?

    Thanks

    Jeff

    • We’re going to discontinue the Embedded mode from CRED first. It will drop from Types and Views also in the major update for many-to-many.

    • Okay, I mainly just don’t want a client to be able to mess about with the admin. Will the CRED functionality be discontinued in this coming update?

      • Not in the upcoming release. This release only handles WP 4.7 changes. We’ll be removing the Embedded mode in the next major release which includes the m2m relationship. It’s just a few months into the future so I didn’t cover any of this yet.

        • Okay, thanks Amir, that’s great to know, and just to confirm that you will arrange something so that these sites won’t cost anything extra if I choose to not go for the theme developer license (I will in most likelihood opt for it at some point, but just to be safe).

          Also, one last thing, since you’re around, I have to congratulate you on Toolset, it’s pretty awesome, but more than that… your support people are absolutely, hands down the best, second to none. They really make the difference when considering continuing with your product range.

38. I will like a demo of the latest theme development. Thanks Amir keep it up.

    • Great. We’ll arrange it.

39. How about if we buy the lifetime version. will we be covered?

    • The current Toolset accounts allow you to build sites for yourself and for your clients. We don’t limit the number of sites, but it doesn’t support redistribution.

      The difference between a yearly account and a Lifetime account is in the need for yearly renewals. Both accounts offer the same possibilities.

      Now, we are adding another option to Toolset accounts. The new Author accounts will make it possible to build and redistribute themes which include the full versions of Toolset plugins. This includes a different license and also a completely new system, which makes it possible.

      I’ll write a detailed description of how it will work and what it offers to theme authors and to their end-users.

40. Hello Mr Amir,

    I have some points need your kind clarification if you can elaborate more to the following queries:

    Q1. With the new theme based toolset are going to add skin to be on top of the theme so skin can be equal to a child theme.

    Q2. Are going to add templates for Layouts 1.9 and what are they.

    Q3. Are there any SPECIAL upgrade offer for your current lifetime members.

    Q4. Will you add REST API support soon.

    Q5. How flexible and dynamic to make the themes for the AUTHOR option is there going to be an extra function like drag n drop builder and css tool.

    With Regards,
    Tony

    • Hi Tony,

      A1: It’s not exactly like a child theme. I recommend to use this to distribute only ‘parent’ themes. This way, your clients can easily create child themes just to modify styling. If you distribute both a parent and child, it’s hard for your end users to do additional customizations. But the system will not restrict you.

      A2: We’re not planning to add predefined templates. Layouts already uses Bootstrap, so it comes with a present grid. I think that for many themes this is a good starting point. Anyway, since we don’t know your theme, it’s going to be very hard to create templates that will actually look good on your theme.

      A3: Yes, definitely. Like we do now, if you upgrade to a more expensive account, you only need to pay the difference.

      A4: We have some code for REST API, but it’s not going to be included in Toolset in the next couple of months. We’d love to do that, but if we spread over too many things, we’ll get nothing done.

      A5: This you’ll need to see and decide for yourself. I think that it’s very flexible and convenient, but it’s not fair because it’s our product. We’ll have a public demo soon and I hope that you will also think that it’s convenient. If not, we’ll be glad to get your feedback and improve.

41. I’m very excited to see how the new field groups works! Lots to look forward to!

42. I definitely am interested in building themes with toolset. I try am always experimenting with development on several platforms all with the focus to find the best work flow for me.

    So yes please allow me access to this demo. I would very much appreciate it. It could be what finally makes me purchase toolset.

    I still want to code though. I find that it still keeps me from having headaches and long standing problems.

    It’s not just a bloat issue either. I keep getting reminded over and over that no matter how awesome the ui is, it slows me down because code has no ui. It’s just there. That isn’t a fault within your plugins either. It’s the problem with all plugins because even the most well designed and intuitive ui, there’s still a learning curve.

    I still find development important through the use of such plugins though and that’s because the frame can be built with blocks rather than one character at a time and that speeds up production.

    I have a question though. When you say that we can build themes with toolset, does that imply it will be branded this way in our final product and also the end user will need to use the toolset interface to work within their website?

    Could you be more clear on that? I think it’s important for developers to know since we are trying to speed up production while maintaining our own brand, isn’t this why we would pay more for licensing? I if I’m paying more for licensing it’s with intent that I get to be exclusive from your brand while still using it to build sites under mine. Does that makes sense?

    Thanks again too. You all really are a great team.
    LB

    • You’re right. Layouts (and Toolset in general) produce very clean HTML. This is because we stick directly with Bootstrap and we don’t need to add even a single character to the output besides the normal Bootstrap elements.

      When you include Toolset in themes (the upcoming development), all Toolset plugins will still appear under the same Toolset menu. They will appear and work the same for your clients, as they work for you. Your clients will be able to modify anything that you create. This is “good” or “bad”, depending on what you intend. We’ve learned that in order to deliver really flexible themes, end-users need access to everything. Otherwise, they quickly run into brick walls and there’s no advantage in using Toolset.

      We saw that there is a lot of interest in Toolset-based themes. It’s a lot more than I anticipated when I wrote this post. I’ll write a complete description for this, together with a short clip and publish it next week. This will clarify everything and then we can better discuss pros, cons and features.

      Sounds OK?

43. I really look forward to try Layouts 1.9 with the new page builder mode. I use Toolset in many sites now and can’t live without I am also an heavy user of the Genesis framework and I really dream a perfect integrarion with Layouts. Many developers today use page builders like Beaver Builder, Elementor, etc. etc. They look great, they offer awesome modules with lots of nice jQuery effects and so on but I am still not very sold on using them, i follow the Facebook groups of BB and Elementor and many times I see posts like “I made an update and my website home page is broken” I have installed a new plugin and now my page builder editing area is not working. Further I read the Pippin Williamson post on page builders and my caution on using them has increased. Why not try to spend sometime and learn more Bootstrap that work beautifully with Layouts? You maybe wondering why I am considering all of this and why I am not so convinced about page builders, think about it, you have more than 50 websites of your clients that all use the same page builder, a new update of WordPress or some popolar plugin break all 50 websites….. this scenario looks terryifing but IT CAN HAPPEN with page builders. They produce a very heavy code, to write a stupid heading they use in between 7 to 8 divs and dozens of CSS classes. Each module has its own Javascript precoded and that as well can cause head aches. I dream a page builder that produce a very clean HTML code, it doesn’t matter if it don’t offer 300 millions of modules that in time will cause more stress than joy, that integrate fantastically well with Toolset plugins and hopefully with Genesis, it’s that Layouts 1.9? Let’s hope yes.

    • Many keep asking for Layouts to be the ONLY premium builder especially with the integration part with toolset suite plus the code performance but still Toolset team keep insisting for US to use external builder like Divi BB VC so as a result and
      reflection to that Layouts become the weakest link in Toolset chain.

      • I’m sorry if this blog post did not make it clear. We are making a very big update to Layouts, in the hope that it will be your primary page builder. Let’s wait until we release a beta and you can tell us if something is still needed for you.

    • That’s what we’re trying to do also. We’re focusing on the core functionality and trying to avoid feature bloat. Sometimes we do it better and sometimes less. We’re updating the integration with Genesis, to make use of the new features in Layouts 1.9. This upgrade actually simplifies the Genesis integration, due to the new Post Content cell.

      • Hi Amir, just to clarify…

        With the new page builder mode I can use Layouts exactly like other page builders targeting specific pages and this not involving the necessity to create a template header to footer.
        Did I get it right?

        Thanks

        • Yes. Precisely. Now, there will be two kinds of Layouts:

          – Template layouts, which work as “templates” for many items. This is what the current layouts will do.
          – Content Template, which each belongs to a page (or post or custom type). These layouts are stored as postmeta for each page and are unique to it. They replace only “the content”, so they work with any theme.

44. Amir,

    I love the idea of front-end editing! Is this development designed to replace the need for another front-end editor, such as Beaver Builder or Visual Composer? Are there any limitations to the Toolset front-end editing where it would still make sense for someone to use a third party front-end editor?

    Thanks!

    • The front-end editing in Layouts 1.9 will allow you only to change the content of cells. It will not allow to move cells, add or delete them. For this, you’ll still need to use the backend editor. This is step 1 for front-end editing in Layouts. In the next steps, we’ll gradually add more capabilities to refine the front-end editing.

45. I’d love a demo as well for the themes

46. Although I experimented many builder and for sure adding the new features to Layouts will drive Toolset users not only to have very good experience but STOP using any other builder.

    Certainly will require the development team a lot of effort and organizational planning for Layouts to accept any external bootstrap elements which has not been added in Layouts default setup for example adding new ready made bootstrap elements dynamically into the content cell with proper CSS format and flexibility plus the native integration with Toolset suite will turn Layouts like a swiss army knife for any site builder.

    • I like your idea if Layouts will accept external bootstrap elements so any ready made bootstrap elements can be imported dynamically into the content cell with proper CSS format.

    • Wow let’s hope this feature will be included in Layouts 1.9

    • In the previous release of Layouts, we’ve added a number of major Bootstrap elements. These include Tabs, Accordion and other elements. All of these required a combination of GUI and rendering. We created them using the Rows and Cells API in Layouts.

      It would help us if you can reference specific Bootstrap elements that you’re looking to use. Maybe they will be trivial to add and maybe they will require a lot of work. Let’s first see which elements you’re talking about.

      • Hero sections with photo with parallax effect and text centered are very popular among page buillders, I wondering how easy is to reproduce this kind of row with Layouts using the jumbotron bootstrap class.

        • As far as I remember, the hero section is simple CSS. You should be able to create it by just setting the right CSS for a cell. Have you tried?

          • Will do some testing tomorrow in my localhost. Thanks Amir.

47. I’d like to be included in the list of demos for the new themes “toolkit”. Thank you.

    • Hi Steve. Glad to see you here. We’ll arrange a demo for you.

48. Hi Amir, please include me in the list of demo for the new Themes Toolkit. Thank’s

49. A question I have is whether the new page building component of Layouts 1.9, will allow for an easier development of directory sites, such as those for health professionals. Specifically, will the ‘search’ facility be more friendly to develop for non-coders such as myself. Thank you.

    • The custom search feature in Toolset does not change in this release. You can create such a search in Toolset without programming, but you need to follow a multi-step process for it. You need to determine the search criteria, design the search box and the results. If you’re doing this and are having trouble, best to open a ticket in our support forum. Our supporters should be able to quickly help you get it working.

50. I’d like to know more about toolset-based themes and would like to schedule a demo. Thanks

    • Great. We’re arranging these demos now, as we speak.

51. So when will Types Pro be released exactly? How will that affect lifetime members? Will I have to download it once it’s ready? Very important questions for me because I’m in the middle of a build-out and the intermediary objects just never made sense to me, so not having it is a good thing.

    • Exactly, I don’t know, but we’re working on it. Our plan is to be ready in about 3-4 months. Types Pro is part of the post relationship management for all of Toolset plugins, so it’s a lot of new development (but worth the wait, I hope).

      It will be a separate download from the regular Types on WP.ORG. If you already have a paid Toolset account, you will receive Types Pro and you don’t need to pay any extra.

      • Hey! I would like to know whether it is possible to do this. For example, there is a post type – a lesson. Would it be possible using custom fields to specify the users who visited him? Can I put the assessment of users for the lesson?

        • In this round of development, we are not implementing connections between posts and users. So, what you’re describing is not directly possible. You can implement this “manually” with usermeta, but it will take a little bit of custom coding to load and display the lessons that belong to the user.

          • Amir. Do you think that if you use WordPress + Toolset as a web application, with hundreds of thousands of post, user and relationships, it is a good idea? Or better to use special frameworks?

            • The one-to-many relationship in Toolset is solid and has good performance. We don’t yet have a complete solution for relationship between users and posts. It’s something that we want to create, but will not be available in the next few months. The amount of posts is not a problem. On our own sites, we have millions of “posts” in the database.

52. Hey I’d like to checkout the new Theme building tools as well.

    • Great. We’re going to publish a public demo and full description next week.

53. With the old embedded version of toolset we could create and distribute themes with just the toolset settings that we wanted and the end user would have the option to use the theme as is or to purchase toolset through our affiliate link if they wanted to further customize the theme.

    Is this still the case or will the end user now have full capabilities to further customize the theme without having to purchase toolset?

    I would also like a demo of the new theme building functionality.

    Thanks.

    • The old Embedded mode for Toolset didn’t fulfil its intended purpose. To the best of my knowledge, nobody used it to build and distribute themes. So, we decided to retire it and we’ve built something completely different. At this moment, the Embedded versions of Toolset plugins are still available. They will continue to be available for the next few months, however they will reach end-of-life soon.

      The new arrangement includes the full version of Toolset plugins in themes, not only the render part. It also includes a complete packaging and distribution mechanism for the plugins.

      I wrote all about it here:
      https://toolset.com/2016/12/sneak-preview-toolset-based-themes/

      This will also come with separate pricing and is not included in the normal yearly or Lifetime accounts. There will be an upgrade option, so that people don’t need to pay from scratch.

      If you actually used the old Embedded mode and you’re relying on it for themes that you are actively distributing, let me know and I’ll arrange a solution for you.