Layouts 1.9 and Views 2.3 Released

   Amir

Announcements

February 22, 2017
86

This update aims to change the way you build sites with Toolset. We’re aiming for one workflow, no matter what theme you’re using or what you’re developing. The new features in Layouts and Views are all intended for this purpose.

The new Start-with-Layouts Development Workflow

Toolset evolved. We started with Types and Views. Then we added CRED and Access and finally Layouts. When projects evolve, it’s hard to always foresee the end results. In this release, we decided to “reset”, rethink the Toolset-development process and offer a linear way for building sites with Toolset. This means, following one workflow, without having to use different approaches for different sites.

The way we recommend to use Toolset is:

  1. Install Types, Views and Layouts.
  2. If your theme has an integration plugin, install it also. This will give additional functionality, but is completely optional.
  3. Design templates for pages, posts and custom types with Layouts (no need to use Content Templates from Views).
  4. Design archive with Layouts (which will include the WordPress Archive cell).
  5. Add lists with Views and forms with CRED as Layouts cells.
  6. Keep using Access to control who can do what.

In the past, we talked about two workflows – for themes that are integrated with Layouts and for non-integrated themes. There’s no need for this anymore and you can use one workflow always.

The new Getting Started Guide explains this entire workflow (yey, finally we have a proper guide for getting started with Toolset). To clarify, we’ve created everything that you’ll need in order to build sites with Layouts. The Views elements are all there, so if you’re already used to doing things just with Views, this will continue working and is not going anywhere.

Design Templates and Archives from Layouts for Any Theme

Until now, you could only use Layouts plugin if the theme calls the layout-rendering. This means that if the theme wasn’t integrated with Layouts, you couldn’t use Layouts and that theme at all.

With Layouts 1.9, you can design templates, archives and single-pages using any theme. If the theme is integrated you can use Layouts to design the entire page from the header to the footer. If the theme is not integrated, you can design “the content” area. This allows you to create templates and archives inside “the content”, exactly like you can with Content Templates and WordPress Archives.

Page-Builder Mode

Layouts 1.9 makes it a lot easier to design single pages with the layouts editor. When you edit a page (or a post or any custom type), you will see a button called Content Layout Editor. Click on it to design that page with Layouts plugin. You’re not creating a separate layout (which also clutters the layouts listing page), but actually designing this specific page. The layout is part of the page, saved with the page and even translated with the page.

Quick front-end text editing

The primary editor for Layouts is still in the WordPress admin. However, sometimes you don’t need to completely change the entire layout. You only need to make quick text changes. Locating the correct layouts cell for editing in the admin can be tricky.

Layouts 1.9 offers a new front-end editing mode. Click on it and you’ll see editing controls for all rows and cells. You can edit simple cells from the front-end. Complex cells (like Views and CRED cells) will open the editors in the admin, where you have access to the full-screen editor.

Post Content Cell

We’ve added a Post Content cell to Layouts. You should use this cell when you design template layouts (layouts that are used as templates for entire post types).

When your template layouts use the new Post Content cell, the front-end editing experience becomes a lot better. Layouts will let you edit the page content in the right way. If you’re using the standard WordPress editor, you will get a TinyMCE editor on the front-end. If you’re using Layouts to design the page, the page layout will appear inside the template. It even opens Visual Composer or Beaver Builder if you’re using them as the page builders.

Proper and Working Previews

Preview functionality in Layouts has been a bit clunky until now (in plain English, unusable). Some things were auto-saved and some were not. Now, the layout editing follows the normal WordPress content editing flow. Your edits are only saved in the browser, as long as you’re editing. Click Preview to see your edits, but they are not yet reflected for visitors. Click Update to save in the database and update the site.

Ready-to-Use Theme Integrations

Another painful thing about Layouts was that you always had to work hard to get a site going. We’ve updated Toolset Starter theme and all our theme integrations, to change this.

When you install Toolset Starter or any theme that’s integrated with Layouts, it will come with a full set of default layouts and archives. You know, like you’d expect from any normal WordPress theme.

Everything will display correctly for you, without needing to first design your own elements. From that point, you can edit the layouts that we’ve created or delete them and create your own.

Views 2.3 Goodies

The majority of the work on this version went into Layouts, but Views plugin also got some love.

Front-end Sorting for Views

One of the most powerful features in Views is its custom search. Custom search got a big update with the new front-end sorting controls.

Now, when you build a View, you can allow visitors to choose how to sort the results. You control what visitors can sort by and how the sorting controls will appear. Of course, this new sorting works with all other Views features, including pagination, filtering and custom search.

This feature works great with custom search, but you can use it for any View, to allow visitors to control the sorting.

Better Customizer Integration

The WordPress project is pushing the Customizer and Views is playing along. Now, you can set options for Views using Customizer settings. Sounds like an eccentric feature? When we release the new Toolset-based themes (coming very soon), this will make a lot of sense. Being able to build Views and to control them from simple Customizer settings will make your Toolset-based themes a lot easier to use.

Download and Update

You should receive this update of all Toolset plungins automatically to WordPress. You can also download it from your account.

Please note that this is a big update. We’ve tested it for several weeks, on different sites and in different scenarios. Still, there’s a chance that we’ve missed something related to compatibility with a certain theme or plugin. We strongly recommend to back up your sites before updating. You should normally back up your site before any update for WordPress, the theme or plugins.

Layouts and Views include a lot of new Javascript. After you update, it would be great if you could clear the browser cache. This should happen automatically, but sometimes browsers cache files that we didn’t intend.

The full changelogs are:

What’s Coming Right Next

This has been a huge development cycle for Toolset. There were things that we wanted to include, but had to push for a later update.

Here are some of the things that we’re working on right now:

  • Release the TwentySeventeen and Avada integrations (this week) – we’ve had a few last minute usability issues with these integrations. Fixing and releasing this week.
  • WooCommerce templates for Toolset Starter and all theme integrations (about 2 weeks) – Avada, Divi, Genesis and other themes have beautiful styling for WooCommerce products. We’ll add the layouts for single products, products list (shop page), checkout and cart, to match these designs. This way, you can start with the beautiful design that comes with your theme and edit conveniently with Layouts.
  • A migration tool to the new Layouts features (about 1 week) – Don’t worry. When you update Toolset on your site, everything continues to work and you don’t have to migrate anything. If you’ve designed many pages with layouts (layouts assigned to a specific page), you will want to move them to the new Content Layouts. This migration tool will make it easy.
  • Support for all Views modes from Layouts (about 1 month) – Today, when you insert a View to a layout, you get the basic controls (which 95% of the clients use). There are some advanced controls that are not yet accessible from the Layouts cell. The simple workaround for this today is to use a Visual Editor cell and insert the View there. We’ll update the View cell so that this is not necessary.
  • Toolset-based themes (about 2 weeks) – This is basically ready and tested. Since Toolset-based themes rely on the new features in Layouts 1.9 and Views 2.3, we want to let the plugins run for a short while and see that you’re all set. If we release everything at once, it may become too complex to use and support together.

And, we’re also making great progress with the big post-relationship project. The low-level stuff is all complete, we have the full GUI design and we’re implementing it.

Feedback?

Toolset team is excited to deliver this update to you. We’re looking forward to your feedback, questions, ideas and suggestions. Leave your comments and we’ll get back to you.

 

Comments 86 Responses

  2. Haven’t seen the views update yet but the types update earlier today seems to have broken the ability to edit views and content templates across all the sites I use Toolset on. Hoping the views update will fix that along with bringing all the good news features.

    • This shouldn’t happen.

      1. Have you updated all of Toolset plugins? There’s an update to all of them and they have some cross dependencies.
      2. Try emptying the browser cache, including cookies and cached files.

      If you’re still having trouble after these two steps, we’ll need to see your site. I already passed your details to Toolset support, to contact you first thing in the morning here (European morning). They will need to see if there are PHP or JS errors in your site.

      • The issue is that the Types update showed up on its own this morning with no sign of the Views and Layouts updates and no dependency keeping it from installing. While Views and Layouts could be downloaded, one cannot update plugins from zip files. That leaves the hard choice of leaving sites “broken” and waiting for the updates to come out through the update process or breaking the sites further (with end user impact) by deleting the older plugins to install the newer plugins. Neither is a great choice.

        Things are further complicated when using Toolset on dozens of sites and managing them through a tool like ManageWP since it too will not do updates from zip files.

        I’ve got most sites fixed now as Views and Layouts have started to appear through the normal update process. Please make note of the process challenges for those of us managing many sites though.

        Looking forward to the new capabilities in these new releases despite a bumpy rollout day!

    • Hi Scott,

      I’m Mohammed, The Toolset support team leader.

      I would like to thank you for pointing out to this and we are sorry if there are any inconveniences.

      As Amir asked you, please try to update all the Toolset plugins, disable any caching plugins and clear the browser cache then test the issue and let me know the result.

      I would also suggest you open a new ticket in our support forum so that we can take care of your issue ASAP.

      You can open a new ticket from here: https://toolset.com/forums/forum/support-2/

      Thanks.

      • Hi Mohammed, I’m all set now. Through the afternoon, the updates for Views and Layouts became available to the sites and I was able to apply the updates to resolve the problems.

        My reason for sharing here isn’t to ask for support, just to share the impact and challenges so that you can continue to improve how you roll out updates. The Toolset family helps me make great sites with ease and gets better with each release. I’m a happy customer but do want you to know that this update wasn’t smooth and that does impact my business.

        I appreciate the attention paid to the issue. I did participate in a support forum thread and sent in diagnostics. They too suggested updating the plugins but until the updates showed up in WordPress’ updates screen, that is a slow, difficult process as I have to disable part of clients’ sites by deleting the old plugins before I can install the new versions from zip files. This may not be as obvious in a QA process where a site isn’t live.

        Again, all is working now. Thanks for responding!

        • You’re right. I think that we may have missed that. I’ll ask Toolset devs right now to test different upgrade sequences and see what happens. It’s OK for a site to display incorrectly during the upgrade (if you update one plugin before the other), but it’s not OK for a site to hang and force you to manually update the rest of the plugins.

          • Just to add my two cents to the discussion… In one site with Views Beta I had to update to Views production manually, even the commercial section in the back end was recognising the beta version as latest version with the checkbox faded.

          • I think that the general issue is that you’re delivering the modules as separate plugins.

            If you deliver a single Toolset plugin with different modules that would avoid things getting broken due to different plugin versions. One plugin one update.

            I am getting quite lost in the naming conventions already (see folder names in plugins folder).

  3. Hi Amir,

    Any update for video tutorials….

    “Detailed video tutorials are coming next week too. Dario, Marine and Agnes have been working in the last few weeks on completely new training material and “getting started” guide. We’re going to publish it all at once when the new versions are out”

    Thanks,
    Martin

    • When you’re quoting me, I feel like a celebrity, thanks 🙂

      Most of the how-to videos play on-demand from inside Layouts plugin. Set-up a new site with Layouts. When you create your first template layout, or archive or anything else (from the Toolset Dashboard), you’ll see the relevant explanation video.

      We play them intentionally on new sites only, so as not to interfere with your work on existing sites.

      There’s also a brand new getting started guide:
      https://toolset.com/documentation/getting-started-with-toolset/

      Seen it?

      • Is there a way to recall the new videos or somewhere else to see them? I accidently closed and very much want to see them. Really excited about this new release!

        • You have a good point. We’ll upload all the videos to a page on wp-types.com, so that it’s easy to see them again and in any order. We’ll have that page tomorrow and we’ll put it under Documentation->Getting Started Guide.

  4. Congratulations on the release…

    Have been working with your product since November of last year and super excited for this overall release. I do plan to use BeaverBuilder for static page content as well as some content templets for some of my custom post types.

    While I own the BeaverBuilder theme I am wanting to move to a more Toolset centric approach. I have downloaded the Toolset Starter Theme. In reading this post I see that Toolset Based Themes will be delayed by a few weeks. Is your Toolset Starter Theme fully ready to take full advantage of this release or are there things missing that will be released in a couple weeks?

    • Sorry for the misunderstanding about schedule. We already released the update for our own Toolset Starter theme. Tomorrow we’ll release the update for the TwentySeventeen integration. We need a little more time for the Avada integration, because their recent update includes a modified version of Bootstrap which conflicts with us (but we’ll manage).

      All theme integrations will get another update in the next two weeks, to include nice templates for WooCommerce. If you don’t need these WooCommerce templates, there’s no delay for you.

      So, you should be all set. Download the new versions of Toolset Starter, as well as all Toolset plugins you need (start with Types, Views and Layouts).

      Sounds better?

      • Great news 🙂 Is the current Toolset Starter Child theme (1.1) fully compatible with Starter 1.4, or is it getting updated too?

        • It should be, but really depends on your customizations. Can you first test the update on a dev site?

  7. Are there plans to integrate customizr themes with layouts 1.9?

    When I activate “Toolset Customizr Integration” the new “Do you want to prepare this site for quick editing with Toolset?” wizard pops up, but when I run the wizard I get the error “Sorry, you are not allowed to access this page.”

    Looking at the latest update date it reads January 25, 2017, but the blog only mentioned finishing integration for twentyseventeen and avada

    • Probably not. I wrote about it in the past, that we’re adding new themes (TwentySeventeen) and we deprecating themes that are only very lightly used. Have you looked at our Toolset Starter theme? It’s very basic, but gives you complete flexibility to display everything your way.

      • That’s a shame, I was experimenting with the various integratable themes to see if there were any that I wanted to use.

        I played around with Customizr, Divi/Extra and Genesis without toolset, and particularly liked the fact that the Customizr theme vastly enhanced the options available in the wordpress Customizr. It wasn’t about display flexibility, it was simply that the extended customizr was appealing.

        It’s odd that the theme is only lightly used, because it’s the only free directory theme that you’ve integrated with (other than the built-in themes), and is listed on the directory on the first page of ‘popular’ themes.

        As I said, a shame.

        • Sorry. Turns out that I’m wrong. It’s not down, just wasn’t updated yet. Can you go to the downloads page and get the current version? It’s there now.

          • Amir, it looks like it’s only a partial integration, but partial is better than nothing 🙂

            There are no WordPress Archives, Content Templates or Views, and where you would expect to see them in the templates, there’s a Visual Editor Cell with dummy text telling me to learn more about the WordPress Archive Cell.

            I noticed the same thing on the TwentyFifteen integration.

            It means that I need to do a little work post install to finish setting up the site, but at least there’s a starting point.

  8. Thanks for everything. 🙂
    I like a lot the process thinking.
    And I appreciate a lot too that you wrote it in “Getting started with Toolset”.
    After the post-relationship project release, I think I’ll use Toolset very, very often on many “clever” websites. 😉

    • Thanks for the feedback. Yes, we’re also looking forward to completing the post relationship project. This is my personal pet project.

  9. Amir,
    I posted this in a previous post.
    I have read somewhere about the conditional rows for future version of Layouts which is good. I want also to suggest the possibility to insert Layouts rows/sections as a short code to specific hook locations in Genesis or any other theme that use them.
    It is something the devs are thinking about?

    Just to make an example I can have a custom footer made with Layouts that is not part of any page or templates but that I can use to replace the default footer. Also I like the idea of re-usable rows made with Layouts that can be imported/exported to be used in other websites.

    Thanks for the great update.

    • There’s a list of other things that we’ll work on before we get to conditional rows and cells. We’re interested in that, but we want to complete other work first. We need to complete the control over Views from the View cell. Then, we want to update the library that we use to display cells on the front-end editing. This will allow to move the cell editor on the screen, so that it doesn’t block from seeing the background (the page you’re editing).

      If you’re looking for conditional rows for responsive sites, this is something to do with CSS. Agnes is writing a tutorial that will explain how to display cells and rows conditional, depending on the browser width. This is the right way to implement responsive sites. If you implement these conditions in the PHP, it will be impossible to cache the pages.

      Does this help?

      • Hi Amir,

        Excellent update 🙂

        Could we display the rows based on ACF fields (checkbox)?

        I am eager to have my hands on the theme, hope you release it soon.

        Thanks

  10. Thanks.
    To be honest I am more interested on Layouts rows insertion to hook locations (same feature offered by famous page builders).

    But I can wait for it no problems. Regarding the content templates you are suggesting to use Layouts to build templates for the various post type if we need. But if I build a WordPress archive I am still using the old way of content templates displayed by the loop created with Views since I assume that there is no way to insert in a WordPress archive a Template for single page/posts made by Layouts. DId I get it right that we still need the old content templates made with Views? Hope all is clear and that I am not creating confusion.

    • You’re right. The next major thing that we want to implement (will take a little time) is to offer using Layouts to design everything, instead of complex HTML. This should cover:

      1. The templates in the View loop
      2. The filter section in Views
      3. CRED forms

      Now we’re a lot closer to this than before. Layouts can belong to anything (like layouts already belong to pages).

      • Are you saying your plan is to eventually integrate a page builder of your own to handle the Layouts and/or templates?

        • Layouts 1.9 has a new Page Builder mode. We’re going to add more features to it in the coming releases, but a lot of the functionality is there already. What features are you looking for to use Layouts as a page builder?

        • Thanks for getting back to me Amir. I should say this is basically a pre-purchase query.

          Ideally I would like something as robust as BB. However, I recognize BB is template focused, and you are going in the direction of a Layouts centered work flow . This is fine with me because I see that the concept of Layouts is so much greater than a few templates. And, I’d like to work from the Layouts oriented work flow that you have suggested.

          I can do a certain amount of HTML and CSS, probably enough to make Toolset worthwhile for me, and I can learn more as I go. I’m just concerned that if I need to do something like a full-width background image behind a post title…I wouldn’t be able to pull that off. I know I could do it in a BB template, but can I do the same with a Layout?

          I don’t need all kinds of add-ons. I find the stock modules in the paid BB are plenty. I haven’t used any other page builders. I’d just like to be able to layout a page/post/cpt, pull in some custom fields, style things like backgrounds and fonts, plus position them to my liking, and move on.

          I think I’ll buy a single site subscription and try it out on my localhost with a website I’m about to re-do. That’ll probably answer a few questions about how the Layouts page builder features work.

          Does a localhost installation count as an instance of a single use?

          • I’m not a CSS expert, but we have them here. If you need to do anything with Layouts using a little bit of HTML and CSS, our support team will be happy to help. You’ll get the job done and will see how to achieve what you need with the right CSS classes.

            A single-site account lets you receive automated updates for Toolset plugins on one production site. You don’t need automatic updates for your localhost (development) site, so you’re all set with that account.

            Does this help?

          • I have downloaded and registered the training site, added my key, and I’m working my way through the training course. Can I unregister the training site?

            It seemed to want me to register, but it seems like you’re saying I don’t need to be registered for anything on my localhost if I’m just training and trying different ideas out.

            Can I do a number of sites on my localhost, as long as I don’t register? That seems like a good way to learn.

            • Yes, sure. To unregister a site, go to your Toolset account, then Sites:
              https://toolset.com/account/sites/

              Next to each site, there’s a trash icon that you can use to unregister.

              Registration is only needed to receive automatic updates. You can create any number of local sites and install Toolset plugins. Ignore the registration prompt. When you go live on a production site, register it to receive automatic updates.

  11. Congratulations on the release…

    What about the people who are only interesed to develop themes for Marketplace.
    We have to wait or do you have a solution ?

    Thanks!

    • Coming very soon. Like I wrote, it’s coming next. We need to complete the work on WooCommerce templates for the integrated themes (doing this right now). Then, we’ll release the theme integration system.

  12. When toolset released the beaver builder integration I went for that because it can really save some time laying out the parts of the site.

    Before that I used Layouts, but layouts did not play well with Beaver Builder at that time.

    Layout is very powerfull as a site builder, where Beaver builder is powerfull for content building / page building.

    Because of the incompatibility with layouts and Beaver builder, and some of my plugins, I decided to switch theme to the Beaver Builder theme. It had the benefit of including schema.org and being much lighter than the toolset starter (even though that is a light team as well)

    But The beaver builder theme and layouts did not work well, so I ended up ditching layouts and went the view / content template way on the beaver builder theme.

    I really miss layouts, not as a visual builder, but for the site structure. Lately Beaver Builder has been working on a plugin called beaver themer. It does much of what layout does, but Layouts is still more powerful than the beaver themer.

    I like that Toolset continues to support beaver builder, it is a very great plugin for building html fast and easy.

    I hope to see a Beaver Builder theme integration because the beaver builder theme with its schema.org and being lightweight is better than the starter theme.

    But if that does not happen, I hope that toolset would build a layout integration with the Generatepress theme. That is the second most used theme amongs the beaver builder community.

    All I am waiting for is to have the full toolset set of plugins working great with beaver builder tools, so I do not have to rebuild everything from time to time, and the toolset starter theme is not as great an option for beaver builder as either Beaver Builder theme or the generatepress theme.

      • Well I dont use Generate Press, I use the Beaver Builder theme, but judging on the beaver builder community (which you are part of) I can tell that most users actually prefer Generate Press.

        The reason why I recommend this over the Beaver Builder theme, is that if more people are actually using this theme than the beaver builder theme, maybe because you have to pay an extra 100$ for access to the beaver builder theme, then this would be the best option to spend some development time on.

        Not because I prefer the them, because I do not (I use the beaver builer them for max compatability) but because the wast majority of the beaver builder community seems to prefer this theme.

        But to find out you could make a survey on the Beaver builder facebook group just to be sure.

          • Amir, would you (or your team) by any chance update the Layouts theme integration documentation for Layouts 1.9

            Then perhaps I can try to see If I can get Layouts integrated into a beaver builder child theme.

          • One thing though..

            Layouts now plays nicely with BB. But I could really use a Beaver Builder cell in layouts.

            So I could edit the content for the beaver builder cell, visually.

            Sure I can insert an HTML editor and paste a shortcode to render a beaver builder template as illustrated here : http://kb.wpbeaverbuilder.com/article/125-shortcodes-reference

            But it would be much more cool if I could drop a BeaverBuilder cell into layouts and edit the content directly..

            I can see from your documentation that it is possible to add extra cell types to layouts : https://toolset.com/documentation/user-guides/creating-custom-cells-unique-functionality/layouts-cells-api/

            So this could be very usefull to have such a bb cell directly in layouts.

            • I agree. It looks like something that can help build sites with Layouts and BB with less steps.

              This coming week, we’re releasing a small update for Layouts with some stability improvements and a utility plugin to migrate old layouts to the new Content Layouts. Then, we’re going to improve the View cell, so that it includes all the options that the View shortcode already have. For me, this has priority over other features, because it closes gaps between our own plugins.

              We’ve already added your suggestion to Layouts feature ideas. Before we have features in the “upcoming release”, I can’t promise when they will be added. Sounds fair?

      • In relation to GP, I’m taking that as being an open question :).

        One of the sites I look after had a theme that had not been updated for 3 years and needed attention. I wanted to keep the original look. I was chatting with someone who said that they used GP and Toolset for building sites. They suggested I might like GP Pro. I found that GP Pro was simple and flexible. I got 95% of the original site look in about 2 hours and the owner of the site was happy. I don’t think it is a be-all theme, but for a blog, it offers a lot of options for creating a unique look. One thing I liked about it was that everything was in the customizer.

        I’m not suggesting that you add Layouts integration for GP. In fact, I wonder a bit about the wisdom of lots of theme integrations because then you are constantly running behind other vendors to keep up to date.

        In relation to this release, there are lots of good things and I have cleared some time to explore porting a site that uses other tools to Toolset, mainly because I think it is getting to the point where it could benefit from Views, but also to try out the new Layouts functionality. In preparation for that I was putting together some CPTs with Types and dived into the exisiting parent / child post type relationship functionality, which is a very nice feature.

        Thank you for including default Layouts. I experiment a lot and starting out with Layouts was a pain. I had exported the Layouts from one of the reference sites to import as a starter set to use with the Toolset Starter Theme. I don’t use a Page Builder on lots on pages and often forgo installing one and just use CSS instead. One of the pluses now for builiding a site with Layouts is that I can create Content Layouts in those cases.

        Your notes about workflow are useful. I’ll read the new guide. I’m looking forward to the post relationship feature.

    • I’d like to see more template possibilities with Beaver Builder, and getting the Beaver Builder theme as an equal relation to Genesis form the Toolset end.
      That would be great!

  13. Forgive me for straightness. But I think the way glamor pagesbuilders – it’s not the way of the toolset. It is necessary to pay more attention to performance and functionality. Many people write about customizr, visual composer or beaver builder, but this is not the reason why I bought toolset…I want to do things as an architect or an engineer, but not as a glamorous girl. Thank you

    • Sure. From the beginning, we built Toolset to cope with the less trivial websites. In every release we’re adding more features for that. Together with this, the purpose of Layouts plugin is to make design easier. I hope that it’s doing what you need.

    • Max forgive me for my straightness. But Beaver builder is much more than a glamor pagebuilder.

      I bought Toolset just like you to desing and build the solutions, but there is one area where toolset comes short.

      This is the content templates / views where you have to edit the html in the admin, save and test the settings in the frontend.

      You can do this, but it is so much faster to have a frontend editing tool. And the Beaver builder is very strong at this, and the community around beaver builder, as well as additions and templates are vast.

      So from a speed issue, building something fast it is really a great combination to have the toolset as the backbone of the system and use beaver builder as the frontend part.

      And in my honest opinion Beaver builder is so much better than the other “page builders” so the choice to integrate with that was wise. Also because the build quality of BB is great.

      The only other visual builder that comes close to BB is the Thrive Themes content builder. I use both. But mainly because the other plugins from thrive themes require the Thrive themes content builder for layout.

      So with that in mind. Toolset are great strong components, but the workflow can be greatly improved with a frontend tool like the BB plugin.

      And as this blog post also points out, the Toolset plugins has evolved over time and have shifted focus on what was needed to build a site.

  14. I am using Layouts to “any” site I build now and I see the potential to make our life easier. I know that there are many Beaver Builder fans here, I am an user as well but as mentioned in other threads I have decided to commit to Layouts from now on even if I am aware that other page builders are -at the moment- superior in regards of their visual and front end approach. In the meantime I am pretty sure that Layouts can give us pretty much the same end results but to do it we need go more in the HTML/CSS code area than BB or Elementor. I think that the fact to deal more with code and to know more Bootstrap at end of the day is an advantage giving us developers more skills. So i prefer to spend more time with CSS/HTML and some JavaScript with Layouts than getting the same results with a module outputted by these page builders. Without forgetting the powerful integration with Types,Views and CRED that are going to be totally integrated with Layouts. And I invite you to check with the chrome inspector and compare the markup outputted by Layouts vs. BB. I made a test: 3 divs (Layouts) vs 11 divs (BB) to output an header and a picture… Maybe this is not relevant for search engines… to be honest I have no idea… but as a developer that sometime need to debug even easy HTML/CSS code I much prefer Layouts.

  15. I agree with you. But I meant another thought.
    Toolset. in my opinion, it has too much “integration”, trying to please everyone

    • Max I know what you mean… To please anyone can be a very difficult task each time a new theme or plugin update is due. But I am sure that the Toolset devs know what they want and are aware of the potential issues that can arise when you have so many dependencies on somebody else products but still they are also phasing out integration when -US- do not make many requests, see Cornerstone integration…

  16. Thanks for all the hard work. Amazing update to an already fantastic suite of tools for those of us that need them to build complex sites.

  17. Great news Amir.
    When you say Layouts can be used with any theme, does that include themes based on other frameworks like Foundation? What happens if I try to use Layouts with a custom theme based on that framework? Will it load bootstrap anyway?
    Also, what if a theme already has another version of bootstrap?

    • Right. If the theme is not integrated with Layouts, then Layout plugin will load Bootstrap 3 itself. Then, you’ll be able to design “the content” area with Layouts, including create templates and archives in it. So yes, it will work with other themes, including if they load other CSS frameworks. There’s very little chance of conflicts. Different CSS frameworks use selectors with different names.

      If the theme already loads Bootstrap, go to Toolset->Settings and scroll down to “Bootstrap Layouts”. There, select that your theme already loads Bootstrap and its version.

      The only real problem is if your theme uses a heavily modified version of Bootstrap. This will cause conflicts, because the same selectors will be defined twice and differently.

  18. Finished updating/testing and no issues so far. Quick question: Is there an easy way to change all of my single page layouts over to the Content Layout Editor for the page? I have quite a few layouts made for individual pages.
    It’s not something that I need to do. Just a fan of keeping things clean and up-to-date. Thanks.

    • Great to hear that it’s going well.

      We’re working on the layouts migration plugin that you asked about. It will allow you to assign template layouts to pages, move the design to the new Content Templates, do the adjustments that you need and save.

      This should be ready next week.

  19. I’m looking for Avada on the ‘Layouts theme integrations’ list and it is currently missing? Is there a reason? Thanks!

  20. Congrats on this huge update. Makes me want to give Layouts another look. On another note, just curious how it is coming with many-to-many relationships (my personal most anticipated feature)? I didn’t see that on your upcoming roadmap.

    • Coming great. We’ve been working on it on low flames for a couple of months. Now the entire development team is switching to post relationship.

  21. I kinda bought this to integrate with Divi, but as yet have not. The integration has proven cumbersome particularly using bootstrap components with Divi as Divi seems to over-rule or add it’s own padding or margins which end up squeezing Toolset Bootstrap components (Bootstrap cards as an example) on mobile devices, so the content looks terrible in a Divi theme site. Has anyone tested bootstrap layouts with Toolset using the various page builders to see the results and potential fixes that might be required please? I can send some images if you’d like….

  22. I am using toolset with beaver builder and created a content template for my products, the template is still being applied, but since updating, when I click to edit with the page builder the template I had built is not appearing….I cannot make any changes to my existing content template built with beaver builder, only an empty page with a sidebar previously not there is displayed in the page builder editor.

    • We will need to check what you’re seeing. Did you update all of Toolset plugins and cleared the browser cache? If you did that and still are having this problem, please create a new thread in our support:
      https://toolset.com/forums/forum/support-2

      Paste the link to this thread here and I’ll make sure it’s assigned to the right person.

  23. Toolset Layout has a big issue form version 1.8
    Class of cell not showing after refresh the edit page.
    Please fix this issue.

    • There was a bug that caused it in Layouts 1.8. This should have been completely fixed in Layouts 1.9. After you’ve updated all of Toolset plugins, is the problem continuing?

      • The problem is still continuing, I have updated everything
        WP 4.7.3, Toolset Layouts 1.9.1

        • It shouldn’t happen. Riccardo, the lead developer of Layouts will contact you right away, to get full details so he can check what happening and fix it.

        • I find out the actual problem, This problem is happening inside the cells of Grid of cells.
          If i use Grid of cells layout then the class of child cells not appears after page refresh.

          • Dear SourovR,

            I am Riccardo, Layouts developer, we started to have problems related to the CSS Classes field as soon as we upgraded to the new Select2 library version (Javascript Library), this is because in the new version of the library the support for multi-selection changed completely and was also pretty rigid in the way data types of data to be passed as values to the component is handled.

            To solve the problem once and forever, we’ve decided to swap to a new specific library only for this field, something specifically written to handle this particular cases.

            We are on it exactly now, and we are confident of being able to provide a new Layout version addressing this problem in a matter of days.

            We are collecting all your reported issues, such as this one to use them as tests cases.

            Thanks a lot for reporting this problem, best regards
            Riccardo

    • Them major upcoming development for Toolset is the new many-to-many support. We’re also working on smaller projects, but which also have a big impact on Toolset. We’re improving the scaffold output in CRED and for Views filters, so that CRED forms and Views filters will loop great without any styling work. This should be ready in about 2 weeks. There are stability releases for all Toolset plugins planned for next week.

      Next week we’re also aiming to release the Toolset-based themes system.