Sneak Peek to Toolset’s Upcoming Training Videos

   Amir

Announcements

May 1, 2020
82

We’re updating Toolset’s documentation to work better for visual design. Videos are going to be in the center of the new training material.

Here is one of the videos from the upcoming documentation:

The purpose of these videos is to teach. We want these videos to allow you to take full advantage of Toolset’s capabilities, so that you can build great sites yourself.

Can help help us get it right? Watch the video and tell us:

  • Would this sort of videos help you build custom sites?
  • With videos like this, would you be able to achieve results like we’re teaching?
  • Is there anything in the video that causes confusion? If so, please tell us where and what’s confusing.
  • How do you feel about this level of detail?

We have over 20 videos in our queue and we’re aiming to complete them during May. Your feedback would help us get you documentation that works best for you! Please leave your comments and we’ll get back to you.

 

Comments 82 Responses

  1. I’ve been using your video tutorials and this website is been made with your videos. Explanations are really good, it’s easy to follow and to apply. I had trouble integrating with Elementor but it’s not related with your videos. I also had some problems with relationships, the video explains really well but in reality I couldn’t apply it to my site (videos from Gyms and Trainers). Again, I think it’s not related with the videos.

    • Thanks for the feedback. Next week we are releasing Toolset Blocks 1.2, with new Slider and Gallery blocks, masonry, collage and other goodies. Following this, Toolset Blocks 1.3 will include a complete upgrade to display “related content”. What we have today is too “bare bones”. The GUI in Blocks doesn’t cover all the functionality that we have in the backend for post relationships. This will change with the next release.

      • Ohhh… really? Because after this experience I really felt like replacing Elementor with Toolset. With a new version that sounds that good, after this experience, I really need to do it ASAP.

      • Hi Amir – this is awesome news. So we soon can build entire Toolset based sites, using only the block editor.
        The Video Tutorials are great and professionally done, keep up the good work 🙂
        BTW – maybe you might add oxygenbuilder to recommended themes too. I just made some sites using oxygen + Toolset and they work really nice together.

        • would u share some experience on build archive page in oxygenbuilder with toolset?

          • Hi William

            This is fairly easy in oxgenbuilder – you have 4 options how to build them.

            You can use :

            1 The Easy Post Module in oxygen
            2 The Repeater Module in Oxygen
            3 Build it in Toolset Views and add it via shortcode

  2. Toolset tutorials are always thorough and this one does not disappoint that flow. Explanations are easy to follow and I love that you added the display formatting tips. Block integration is the best update Toolset added and bonus points for viewing in responsive modes.

    Hoping that Archive design is next on the list.

    • Thanks for your feedback. Yes, we’re already working on the Archive video.

  3. Great video Amir! Taking the time to demonstrate the different methods you can use to reach the desired outcome is appreciated.

  4. The video is very light and hard to see. Might be my monitor, so if I’m the only one bringing up this issue, please ignore my comment. I didn’t watch the entire video for that reason.

    • I think that it’s a monitor issue. There’s no editing on the brightness or contrast levels. We recorded the GUI “as is”. Want to try watching on a different device?

      • Later today I’ll turn on my laptop, watch it again and compare the two monitors.

  5. Looks like the template feature is much improved. I typically use the Divi theme and find that offers a similar ability given your nice integration with it. However, this is a great addition and the videos are essential in helping get up to speed.

    • Thanks Jeff. I’m very glad to hear that this style of videos works for you.

  6. A transcript of the text would be useful, to make it easier to work through the steps of the tutorial after watching it. Especially as a lot of detail is involved and it is important to take the correct steps in the right sequence.

    • Thanks for this feedback. These videos will come with text versions for sure. We’re recreating the entire documentation system to have modular lessons comprising of text and video.

  7. Since you’re asking for candid feedback here it is: this format you have been using for your videos i is old, repetitive and uninspiring. It doesn’t represent Toolset welll. No disrespect to Dario but the hushed toned narration isn’t working. It doesn’t make Toolset seem like an exciting product. You should get someone to give some straight talk about the product and demo and point out its benefits. Like you’re watching a reviewer on Youtube. It needs to come across more natural, not rehearsed and clinical

    • Thanks for your feedback. Yes, I was hoping to get candid feedback. Can you give me an example of a different training video (not marketing videos) that you like better? We’re at the beginning of this series of videos and we’re eager to improve.

        • Thanks John. This video certainly uses a completely different approach than we did. I suspect that it also requires resources that are a bit outside of our means for the number of videos that we’re going to produce.

          • It’s more about how natural the presenters are than the format. Even if you just take her presentation. Toolset videos have been too stiff. Try making them more conversational and natural. They should convey the energy of “we have the most amazing product and we can’t wait to show it to you.”. You want to excite a new generation of WordPress developers.

  8. Well done – Toolset Blocks looks still better and better. And the video explanation shows the handling good.

    Maybe you think about a way to define a custom set of colors wich could be use in toolset blocks for the different color chooser. So that the CD / CI colors are directly accessable for users?

    • Thanks for your feedback. I’m not an expert on color pallets, but I can get your idea to the right developer. Can you create a support ticket with more details and add the link to it here?

  11. I’ve been very excited to see the work you guys are doing towards the latest editor for WordPress. I would also love to see more integrations with Divi, Brizy, and Visual Page Builder.

    Is there somewhere we can go to see your future updates roadmap?

    Also, another suggested demo could be from start to finish, the whole flow of setting up a custom post type, adding it’s custom fields, adding data on the admin side for a custom post type. Then go to a few use cases of how and why to use templates vs. the block editor directly—followed up by adding block elements to a blog post, page, or another custom post type.

    Nice work, Toolset team!

    • Thanks for your feedback. We’re rebuilding our tutorials to form a modular set of lessons. Together, they will work to teach how to build different kinds of sites. We’ll cover directory sites, real estate sites, e-commerce sites, etc. Many of the lessons will repeat in different courses, but each course will cover everything from A to Z.

      Our mid-term roadmap includes:
      Blocks 1.2 (next week): the new image blocks, masonry and collage layouts for Views and Archives
      Blocks 1.3 (about 6 weeks): complete support for displaying related content with Blocks and no shortcodes, great new WPML integration

      After this, we’re not 100% sure. We have a number of major features that we want to push, but their priorities are still not set (calendar support, nested Views in blocks, reusable elements and the list goes on).

  12. I use Toolset because it offers non-programmers great tools to develop quite complex sites. Your reference documentation is pretty good and your support is absolutely great. What I think is missing are videos about explaining the Toolset LOGICS (shortcodes, nested views, parameters, relationships, etc. with examples) but it looks like you are still focussing on making videos about the interface. I understand that blocks are pretty new to the community, but the concept is almost the same in all editors (I use Avada, not much different). For a new user its much easier to self-learn about editing the interface just playing around and referring to docs when needed than learning the logics. Videos are very powerful when you show how to do something difficult with examples, you don’t need a video to show how to change a font color or a title ….

    • Actually, we’ll be making videos about the subjects that you’ve listed too. This is only the first video in this series. We posted it “out of context”, to get feedback on the speed, content and general usability of the video.

      • Pace and style to me are ok, can be a bit faster. I’d adjust speed depending on content complexity (the easier the faster).

    • I’d agree with this – and it’s not unique to Toolset. Too often instructional videos fail to explain the underlying structure. A simple slide is often all that is needed. New users often get confused about archive loops for example for the simple reason that no-one explains exactly what a loop is – a single example which you customise and then gets replicated.

      If you’re going to explain how to do something, talk about which building bricks you’ll be using and how they fit together.

      • Thanks for your feedback. When we create the videos on Archives and Views, we’ll make sure to explain the concept of the WordPress loop and how to design it with Toolset.

    • My thoughts exactly. I would like to see more intermediate to advanced level videos of the capabilities of Toolset. Like @Nicola said why do ‘basic’ videos that are so elementary that a person could / should learn them through documentation or just fiddling around in the setting.. especially now that most changes are viewed instantly. Toolset is not some basic plugin, it is a WOW product.. show some WOW capabilities / functionality.
      Even the narration of the video is a bit too somber (no offense). I do appreciate that he isn’t trying to be humorous like so many Youtube creators, but please don’t sound like my old 8th grade history teacher reading 3 pages from a text book. Here is an example of someone who has good pace, always gives pros & cons, etc.:
      https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiTDv6q1XYwZnAm2EYN8wKw
      Toolset specifically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj3oY4bsz2Y

  13. I only got about a third of the way through the video. The structure and look seemed fine but I had two major issues. One, I thought the pace was too quick. I had trouble keeping up at times. Two, and this might have contributed to my problem keeping up, I often had a hard time understanding the narrator. His accent constantly threw me off. I was struggling so much to understand what the words were that he had just said, that I would often lose the context. I final gave up.

    • Thanks for this feedback. We’ll have native English for most next videos.

  14. The video narration is slow, which is good in my opinion, to help especially beginners to understand the process. So thumbs up for Dario and I disagree with some comments about the lack of enthusiasm. These videos are here to teach a process we need a teacher not a YouTuber for this. Obviously my point of view changes dramatically if you make videos to market Toolset in this case I have to agree with John’s comment above. Amir, I use Oxygen and also trying Toolset Blocks, what I have discovered recently is a lack of support for Toolset Blocks to build WordPress archives in an Oxygen site, they get broken, I have contacted their support and they told me that they are looking at fix this issue. Views built with Toolset Blocks are working just fine with Oxygen. By the way, Toolset Blocks is getting really amazing, well-done guys!

    • Thanks for your feedback. We see that not everyone likes the same pace and style, but generally it looks like this format works for most of our clients.

  16. I like the flow and instruction. I have found toolset easy to use as a beginner. One thing that I would like to see in an instructional video is a comparison of the different functions and the strengths and weaknesses of each,both on the front end and the back end (ie what benefit does using a taxonomy have over checkbox fields, repeating fields vs forms, etc). I know everything has a use and I am afraid that some of the ways I am creating my data in the backend may not be the best for how I want to display it in the front end. I have a lot of backend data and the thought of having to go through and update everything because I chose the wrong structure is daunting. Great product and I love the sorting and relationship features!

    • Thanks for your feedback. We’ll have videos on the subjects of forms, repeating field groups, taxonomy and more.

  18. Good video.

    One point I find a little frustrating when applying your help video to tasks. From a teaching perspective, it would be much more helpful to scroll to the container block etc when first inserting. Subsequently, use the quick text search, but I like to know where it is when learning something new (eg grids etc) and am not overly familiar with its name.

    Toolset is selling as a visual approach to data driven design, so I suspect a majority of your clients favour visual metaphors ie show them, rather than typing as the first way to introduce design blocks.

    One final suggestion, the audio has a real problem with hissing “sss” sounds. Good article here to help reduce this issue – https://www.thebroadcastbridge.com/content/entry/7845/how-to-de-ess-voices-when-recording .

    Hope you don’t mind the long feedback. I really like toolset and think it is worth being of help if I can. Keep up the good work.

    • Thanks a lot for your feedback. I’m passing your suggestion on better “SSS” to Dario.

  19. Great explanation! Very easy to follow. Maybe zoom in on menu settings when you are adjusting them? Only suggestion.

    • Thanks. We tried zooming in, but it gave the whole video a feeling of disorientation. So we minimized the window size and kept it constant during the whole take.

  20. Hi Amir and Dario,

    As others have said, a text version to go with the video is essential. The video is well done in my opinion and shows the concepts and process to give context and understanding before one tries to re-create it themselves from the text version.

    I’ve been watching a couple video training courses on Scrimba’s platform recently. They add the ability to pause the video and actually copy and paste text from it. Very handy when learning something like agile.js. Toolset blocks being much more visual doesn’t need that as much but it might still be good for something like letting the viewer copy from what Dario puts in a Fields and Text block, especially if he’s doing something more complex such as Bootstrap cards. But that can also be done in the text version of the lesson so not sure it is worth the effort for Toolset to try to do videos the Scrimba way.

    The approach in this video is pretty similar to how I walk Meetup and other groups through Toolset blocks. I think it works well.

    • Thanks for the feedback and suggestion. The text version will include very specific steps. If we have text that people need to use, we’ll provide that to copy-paste.

  21. Excellent video tutorial! This was extremely easy to follow. After watching this video I feel more confident about using Toolset Blocks.

  22. Good job Dario! I watched it with 1.25x speed playback… I think it’s a good way for people to learn and sometimes Google search will directly take you to the exact spot in the video that you are looking for, which will save time.
    I agree with those that say, that having the text tutorial on the same page with screenshot is helpful for those people that like to follow the guide step by step and get everything 100% right (no clicking, pausing and playing needed)
    Toolset is an awesome product with great improvements. I’m looking forward to the post relationship videos for the front end forms!!

  23. I really like what you’re doing. I think you are the on right track with your plan to re-create the video instructions. The videos I’ve watched since the beginning of March 2020 have been good. In general you’re giving relevant info that is helping me get familiar with the blocks approach. They’ve been a little uninspiring, but the info is there and I’ appreciate the amount of work you’re doing to make Toolset more accessible. Thanks.

    Feedback
    Sometimes your presenters go a little fast and skip over things that they may think are self-evident. Or, perhaps the script is moving them along a path that doesn’t allow for more exploration. For instance at 7:40 of “How to design templates for custom content using Toolset Blocks” Dario inputs a raw value field and quickly explains raw values, but he doesn’t give other examples of fields that would also work, or explain in any detail why he used the raw data field.

    What if the post showed how to do 2 or 3 different versions of the template, so as to encourage more exploration of the features? Dario did a good job, but I’m sure he’d like to show us more of what he can do, and therefore what we can achieve with this amazing tool. In short I want to see more exploration. While I like that the videos set out to demonstrate a specific task, I’d like to see the presenters explore the features more and have more fun with it.

    I recognize you’re trying to reach everyone from beginner to long time users. So your task is pretty challenging.

    A few specific requests…

    1. Woocommerce – Do I use the Woo Blocks fields, or Toolset Blocks fields? When would I use one over the other. Do I put Woo Blocks inside a Toolset container? I hope you are planning an in depth series for Woo. Lots of detail, and examples of product templates would be appreciated.

    2 .Troubleshooting – Example; on the weekend I was experimenting with Toolset Blocks trying to create a 3 column section, but I couldn’t get the button and the text to center align. H2 and image worked, but not the text and button. Thought it was caching? Maybe a plugin conflict. Also tried changing my max_execution_time, max_input_vars, memory_limit on the server. Couldn’t get it to work, so I uninstalled Toolset. Sad, I know. Can you make a video, or video series, that shows how to troubleshoot various problems users run into?

    3. GeneratePress is coming out with GenerateBlocks. When using containers is it best use use the Toolset containers exclusively for Toolset blocks, and GB containers for GB blocks? Can they be mixed?

    If you want to see a video that demonstrates a different way of imparting information check out Mike Oliver explaining the new GenerateBlocks plugin. Mike takes a chatty approach, and he’s not for everyone, but I always come away with something specific.

    • Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. This is one video out of over 20 that we’re producing. We’ll cover different blocks, styling options and design ideas in different videos. This way, as you learn Toolset functionality, you’ll also get different ideas of how to use it. I hope that this will work well.

      We already had WooCommerce on our list, but we didn’t have a video on Troubleshooting. It’s a great idea and we’ll include that too.

      I’ve seen marketing material on GenerateBlocks, but haven’t used it. Generally speaking, Toolset Blocks works with everything that runs in Gutenberg. If you’re using both, give it a try and see how they work together?

      • Good to hear you are doing some Woo instruction.

        One thing I forgot to say is; it seems clear that exploring a variety of options will come through the whole video series. So I get that part of it. I’m still hopeful that the individual videos can explore a little more, or at least a few in the series can be a bit more experimental. However, please don’t get me wrong. I really like that integration with blocks, and the effort you’re making. I find I can re-watch and read the supporting docs, so it’s working for me in general.

  24. Still not impressed. Sorry but we dont like the Block editor or anything Guttenberg. We are probably stopping development with Toolset since your direction is clearly that way. That editor is way to slow and cumbersome.

    • Sure. Visual editing is a taste and I understand you have other preferences.

  25. I really like Dario’s presentation style and pacing.

    Someone said something above about moving too fast. If I encounter something that I want even more information on, I just pause the video, do a search, then hit play again. I’d really much rather stop and do a supplementary search than have a video go too slow. If you’re going to be doing transcripts, there could be breakouts or links for more information on specific topics.

    Someone suggested a transcript, which I would love. If you could add subtitles, that would be great, but might be asking too much 🙂

  26. I’ve been working with toolset blocks on a large project; lots of legacy data, lots of conditional output needed (i.e. only show a gallery if the post has at least 2 images, else, show a single static image). I’ve had difficulty making that sort of thing happen within the blocks editor. If there is a tutorial for this, please advise. After converting the block to HTML the conditional shortcodes can be used, but that sometimes breaks the HTML output after reopening the template, making a change, and resaving. .e.g. Doing this breaks the slider forward/backward navigation controls and causes “Unrecognized HTML” warnings in the block editor. I would use the block editor for more content templates if I had a better grasp on how to do the sort of conditional output wrapping block elements that I am describing. Overall, I’m really happy with Toolset. I plan on using it for future projects, particularly those with legacy data. It plays really nice with the Enfold premium theme too, and I was able to pull off a complicated migration from Drupal to WordPress using FG Drupal to WordPress plugin in conjunction with the Toolset suite. Saved me a ton of time!

    • Thanks for the feedback. If you need to use plain HTML for complex structures, I think that our Text and Fields block is the best option. You can set it to HTML editing mode and it will not try to convert your content back and forth.

  27. Hello Amir
    Thanks for letting me be involved. I am really impressed with what you are doing to add functionality to wordpress.

    You have added some new objects to the design of wordpress to think about so the process need some practice to understand in which order things needs to e done.
    I also have not started to work with blocks yet, so i need to make that change before i really can make any judgements.

    Still the video is very good example, and it looks very simple. But al fields has to be setup before trying to follow the video.

    Perhaps, not sure if its possible, if you could make a module with everything (all fields) prepared to be able to download and install as a training module to follow the video.

    I also think the module manager is very powerful and helpful to have a start package, and then adjust to your needs. I do ike it.

    Well som feedback from me, hope its helpful
    //lars

    • Yes, we’ll have this. In fact, already we offer “ready to use” training sites on https://discover-wp.com . Today, these are a mix of shortcode and Block sites. In the next couple of weeks we’re cleaning this up so that all examples will be with blocks. Then, you can download a complete reference site, with everything set-up and demo content and you can use that to learn Blocks faster.

  28. I have no doubt the video is outstanding, but personally, I didn’t watch it. PLEASE, also prepare written documentation with pictures; instructional videos are the plague of this era. I have no words to describe how much I hate having to learn watching videos. I know I represent a minority, and I know this comment might sound harsh. I am sorry, and I truly mean it.

    Still, my feedback wouldn’t be sincere if I didn’t state my strong opinion clearly.

    Yes, videos make even the smallest steps totally obvious. On the other hand, an advanced enough user is forced to wait for the video to get to the point where (s)he has doubts/something to learn. And has to move back and forth to replay concepts.

    Good videos sometimes can be a bless. But I strongly believe they will never be able to replace a well written documentation. Well, not decently at least.

    If you want to revamp your documentation pages, great! I agree there’s some room for improvement. But whilst videos are a necessary move (people seem to want them), I IMPLORE you to also write things down, the (relatively) good old way.

    Thanks, and sorry again for being a party pooper.

    • Yes. We’ll provide text documentation together with each of these videos.

      • Thanks for reassuring me.

        Yesterday I was in a bad mood and I might have come across as more bitter than intended, but I am extremely relieved to hear that.

        Keep on with the good work!

  30. It’s a good video tutorial with crisp video and sound.

    However, I think Toolset should focus on providing more text-based tutorial material.

    The poverty of textual tutorials was a barrier to my initial uptake of Toolset. And often when I assess tooling for a new project, the lack of accessible documentation is always a big mark against any particular tool. And video with text support isn’t accessible.

    Furthermore, video documentation without text support for a product slows down projects reliant on that product. It’s frustrating for users to have watch a handful of ten minute videos when they are looking for a specific answer that could be provided in a single sentence. Especially when a search engine could help find the critical piece of information.

    Toolset offers a great set of products for solving particular problems. But the focus on video for documentation is too narrow.

    • Thank you for this feedback. Yes, each tutorial will have both the text and video versions. We’re working on both now. The purpose of this post was to request feedback on the videos. The text versions are easier to edit. “Editing” videos practically means starting them from scratch, so we wanted to see if we’re on the right direction for the videos.

  31. I really like the new approach for making documentation videos. Evan is doing a great job. And I also like the Dario approach ( he is a really cool guy, we have chatted a few times – HI Dario 🙂 ) Keep the videos coming, the more the better.
    I’ve done one very complex project directory site with Toolset before Blocks appeared, and I must say it was very hard with all the shortcodes, relationships, inserted Views into Views, custom sliders, custom maps, and markers … etc. Toolset support helped me numerous times (kudos to great support). Now, I hope the Blocks will be capable of doing all those tasks smoothly and with less time-consuming.

    I have one suggestion: it will be awesome to have more webinars with Toolset, as for the beginners such as for the advanced users. Also, it will be cool to have Toolset online meetups (over Zoom), where we can have one or two speakers about Toolset, showcasing our projects, Q & A section … etc. Some kind of prizes (for instance One-year subscriptions of Toolset, some swags and other) … The sky is the limit. 🙂

    I hope you will take into consideration some of these ideas to make Toolset community even better.

  32. I would like to see some features for building header, footer, and sidebars within the toolset. So we do not have to rely on any third-party integration for basic theme functionality.

  33. Excellent video. Personally I prefer written tutorials like some other people above. For me it would be extra helpful if I could log in to the reference site to see how it is set up in the dashboard. Is this on your roadmap as well?

  36. That is very helpful yes! I was previously watching all of the other Toolset Views videos and trying to figure those out. Then I knew Blocks is the better, newer version of Views, so I was trying to rethink my Blocks, templates, and product loops.

    It took time and trial and error to figure out (it took my like an hour to figure out how to add the double column container haha after looking at a few forum screenshots)! I think I still have two partially finished templates I didn’t have time to work on as well with Blocks. These videos would be great!

  37. Love the videos! I am working on my first webpage and I do not have a background in web design. I decided to learn how to do this on my own and Toolset has been great. I enjoy watching the videos and then applying the new knowledge to my website. The only problem I ran into is watching videos on how to do something using view to find out later that I should have used blocks, but could not find a video on it. When I switched to Blocks I lost most of my work. Please keep making the videos and replace the old ones with the updated Toolset version. It would be a great idea to have all the tutorials in one place and organized with the video and written tutorial. Toolset is great for beginners and still allows customization for advance users.