Comments 78 Responses

1. Hi
   -How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
   BB + PowerPack, Custom BB Theme

   What other major plugins are you using?
   -WPML, WPRocket on some

   -What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
   CPT&Tax, Maps

   -Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
   Nope

   A suggestion
   Want to be able to do areas in maps, like a country or area of a country. There are great databases with coordinate to get raw data from.

   • Thanks, Kristian!

2. A few years ago there were some serious issues with ToolSet that caused our site to stop working. Unfortunately as a result I had to switch to ACF and CPT UI. We have been on that platform ever since. I wish ToolSet would do a better job of checking errors in the code before releasing, including warnings. I wish ToolSet would use NameSpaces in their code to avoid plugin conflicts. You can trap errors effectively with Fatal Error Notify, and remove errors and warnings easily.

   These things may be fixed by now, but unfortunately it may be too late for us to move back. I wish ToolSet was highly integrated with Elementor as well. I also wish, ToolSet would not load “all of it’s code” on every page request. In other words: I wish it would load Admin code when on the admin side, and load front-end code on the front-end side. There is no need to load ALL the code for every page request – this makes it slower overall, and with a heavier foot print.

   Hope this helps,
   Dan

   • I use the Asset CleanUp plugin for the very issue you are highlighting. It also comes in handy for a lot of other plugins that do the same thing. One word of warning, the settings with AssetCleanUp are quite extensive and you can trip your self off by using it overzealously. Best for users who know what they are doing.

     • Thanks for the thoughts, Dan and Stephen!

3. I don’t use Gutenberg, or very scarcely, but I am in no way a Gutenberg hater. It just hasn’t ended up in my workflow.

   I’m likely to be an outlier here, but the way we are building sites is using Beaver Builder, we’ve then created a custom integration between Toolset Views and Beaver Builder.

   This allows templates and views to be created with dynamic content in replaced with a wpv-attribute shortcode that takes extra args, e.g. [wpv-attribut name=’my-field’ label=’My Field’ type=’text’].

   Each Content Template and View effectively automatically becomes a Beaver Builder content module with a form generated from the wpv-attribute shortcodes.

   It can handle quite advanced stuff, including repeating fields and BB form fields.

   The bonus for me of this approach is that I can easily code whatever my client has designed with HTML, CSS and JavaScript in Toolset in and (dare I say) Angular-ish way, and still allows my client to easily edit any content they like without fear of them breaking the site.

   Ideas I have to move this forward include:
   – Moving away from using Toolset Views for this (since it’s deprecated anyway) and creating the same process via files in the child theme to allow use of tools and version control.
   – Using Toolset Views, or not, to create a similar method of creating custom blocks for Gutenberg.

   • Hi, Dominic! Thanks for your feedback. Just a quick note that Toolset Views is not deprecated in any way. We’re still fully supporting it and you can feel free and confident to keep using it for existing and new projects.

     • Hello, thanks for that. I was just referring to the fact that it’s been labelled as “Legacy” in various places. I have been conscious that it may not be a good idea to use it in new projects, if this is the case, is there really a reason for it to be separated and labelled “Legacy”, kind of gives the impression that it’s got a limited shelf life.

4. I don’t normally do this type of thing and provide feedback etc. But I feel passionate about this and have been using Toolset for 10 years or more…. (basically right from the very early days !)

   I have loved your plugins from day 1 and seen them go from the number 1 tool we use for development now down to; How can we work around this……

   My biggest gripe was when Toolset went down the blocks path as it inevitably made writing code within templates and loops and absolute nightmare.

   I understand the whole visual design / drag and drop thing, but I believe there are many of us that can and do code and from the early days of Toolset, it was just fantastic to build loops quickly and code in our own custom functionality whilst having access in the basic code editor to manipulate what’s going on. Replacing this with a block or the Gutenberg template editor felt like a crime against humanity 😊 No syntax highlighting, stuff would revert on save it’s just not code friendly in the slightest.

   I find myself still installing Views (despite constantly being pushed to blocks) and additionally the whole way that Toolset Maps has been converted over to blocks too is hideous. I’m constantly fighting my way to find how to revert to the old editor for templates and views so I can customise output as well as fighting to revert maps back to how it used to work too. The “Try the new flavour” that went early on with the blocks just did not work out for us as a small agency. Blocks are more limiting; we didn’t have the access we needed.

   Trying to implement advanced functionality with your own custom code is virtually impossible. Essentially, it feels like “Take what we have given you in this block and that’s your lot”. We have built some incredibly complex systems over the years using types and views and the swap to blocks has really knocked that.

   Plugins we use alongside Toolset, generally Gravity Forms and since the introduction of blocks we have started introducing ACF, PODS and WPFacet as these allow us to still work in code and replace a fair portion of the functionality offered by toolset.

   2 things I would love to see (and I know I speak on behalf of the team) would be an option on installation of “Guys do you want blocks or the code version?”

   And finally, a return to developer centred plugins would be incredible and a more advanced code editor / views page would be the icing on the cake.

5. Hi, i love your plugin, i think I’ve only used a 30% of its capabilities for my first listing property project.

   The first issue i had to deal with was a simple price display using “.” where i used a function found on your support documentation inside “field and text” that does not work with ajax search refresh (it works only with full page refresh)

   the second was to create a simple slider between 2 numbers… i was totally lost there..

   I could really use some help on the above, but even with out these the plugin works fine, its a five star work thnx

6. Hello,
   M’y biggest issue with Toolset currently is that Toolset does not cover the whole needs of Woocommerce. Let me give 2 examples :
   – it is not possible with Toolset to manage all Woocommerce data like variable products
   – concerning Cred WC, the issue there is that it manages only one product in the cart, meaning that if you have several products,only the last one is kept !!!

   Of course, there are some turn around that could help but I’m sure Toolset user Will be happy to have these functionalities as standard Toolset !
   Regards
   Pat

7. Hi!

   I’m still a fan of the legacy views. 🙂

   How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?

   RE: A mix of several tools. I still don’t go 100% with blocks. UX of FSE and Gutenberg still doesn’t get me. Many times I rather go with straight html, css and js (that’s why views is awesome)

   What other major plugins are you using?

   RE: wpml, oxygen builder, formidable forms

   What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?

   RE: CPTs and custom fields, legacy views

   Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?

   RE: Documentation search. I go straight to google “toolset site” + problem. I find it hard to find answers on native toolset searching features.

   • Thanks, Antonio! I understand about the documentation search and it’s hard to beat Google there. An alternative I use most often is our archive page for all lessons, here:
     – https://toolset.com/course-lesson/

     It features a list of all categories arranged by topics and plugins, and a search.

8. Hi, thanks for the opportunity to feedback on Toolset and blocks.

   My preference is to not use Blocks. It is still far too clunky and confusing. Maybe one day it will be refined to something useable, but for now in my opinion it is a long way from being useable for me as a developer or my clients as users.

   I chose Toolset for a Directory Listing website I was commissioned to build. The main reason I chose Toolset was because it was the only plugin I could find to give the distance radius search filter I needed.

   I prefer not to use custom code where possible, but can do when necessary. However, I found I had to use so many custom codes when trying to create the site, with a lot of assistance from Toolset tech support. They include custom codes needed for:

   – Changing the text message after login
   – Creating a post on user registration
   – Filtering: Hiding results until search filters are set
   – Hiding the WP admin bar for non admins
   – Notify the user of a change in their role
   – Order results by distance
   – Require the first and last name when user is registering
   – Registering generic fields for use in email notifications

   I found all the custom codes and reliance on Toolset support frustrating which discourages me from turning to Toolset in the future.

   I hope this feedback if helpful. please feel free to contact me if needed.

   Best regards,

   Simon.

9. Hi Dario,
   Thank you for asking.

   How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?

   Absolutely with Gutenberg. Lately I’ve even started using FSE. FSE is still a bit bulky, but having the ability to edit every aspect of the page, header, body, footer in the same visual way is something I really appreciate.

   What other major plugins are you using?

   Because I usually create dynamic websites, ACF, JetEngine or Toolset are the basis for my pages in terms of data technology. Premium block suites like Kadence, Greenshift, Stackable or Spectra allow me to implement practically any design.

   What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?

   Toolset is by far the most powerful and cleanest, most reliable and trustworthy for me when it comes to preparing data, including related ones, from the database.
   Next to “Types”, “Views” is therefore the most important toolset plugin for me.
   Forms is also important because it allows guests to create content. In connection with “Access”, which in my opinion is unrivaled and indispensable in its field.

   Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?

   While “Forms” and “Access” still work well, the approach of integrating “Views” into the Gutenberg editor didn’t feel quite mature to me. Too confusing and a bit laggy. That’s why I switched to integrating views again via shortcode. The ability to pass parameters to the query engine via the shortcode, paired with the loop template system, where I can freely design the design using Gutenberg blocks, currently works best for me.

   I can very well imagine that bringing the entire toolset suite into the Gutenberg universe is a daunting task. If I could decide what you put the most focus on, it would be a clean integration of “Views”.

   Thank you for all your efforts!

10. I don’t use Gutenberg, although I tried several times, about a year ago I committed myself to work with Blocks for at least two weeks, in the end I was glad to install disable Gutenberg.

    I’m using Toolset for creating:
    -Websites selling training and retreats
    -Community websites
    -Index websites where people can search for a trainer/therapeut in the area

    I use code when needed. I have quite a view customer sites using weaver Xtreme theme but now I’m switching to Generate Press.

    Other plugin’s I use:
    Gravity Forms because of integration with payment provider (e.g. Mollie)
    Code Snippets
    Disable Gutenberg
    Nav Menu Roles

    What works best for me with Toolset? Everything not depending on Blocks (e.g. Maps), I really like the possibility of manually coding toolset (views) templates.

    It would be great to have NOT to have to use Block Editor for using maps functionality. And more tweaking (and translation) options with maps filtering. Now it’s kind of one standard block with very little editing option.

    Also, very important, can I guarantee support and updates for the next 5 years on Toolset without Gutenberg, to my customers?

    • Hi, Ferdinand! Thank you for your helpful thoughts. I just wanted to let you know that you can still use Toolset Maps without resorting to the Block Editor. You can use them with the legacy Views and WP editors. You can find the documentation about this, here:
      – https://toolset.com/documentation/legacy-features/maps-plugin/

11. I am using Toolset for two websites of mine. The main reason is for the custom post types. This gives a lot of flexibility to add search functions. To edit the layout of my website I use Astra Pro and Gutenberg. Thusfar, I think these work fine with Toolset.

    Creating custom layouts per post type and making it easy to search between them is the biggest benefit of Toolset and is the reason why I will continue to use it for the foreseeable future.

    My points of improvement:

    – The biggest limitation I am experiencing with Toolset is with the Maps addon. If you add a lot of markers on a map, the website takes a long time to load. I am not having these issues with another plugin I frequently use called Maps Marker Pro. But the search function of Toolset is way more powerfull, which is why I prefer Toolset. If the performance of the maps could be improved, I wouldn’t need to use Maps Marker Pro next to Toolset.

    – Another issue I am experiencing a lot is with the template builder. Sometimes the elements on the page do not load properly, or take a long time to load. But since I only modify the template every once in a while, it’s not a big deal.

    – My final suggestion would be to make the combination between views and maps more flexible. Right now you need to have a view to display multiple markers on the map. Sometimes I don’t need the view which means that I have to remove it with CSS, which is not ideal. Also, sometimes I would like to have a view, but paginated, but then it will only show the markers of the first page on the map. I believe this makes no sense.

    Even though I have a lot of suggestions, I think Toolset is a very helpful tool. I am just hoping that the development of this tool will continue as I see a lot of potential for creating dynamic sites.

12. Still the best CPT plugin in my opinion. My biggest gripe is that you pretty much decided not to continue with your own plugin to some extent. I don’t and haven’t used Gutenberg or Toolset blocks. It work well with Templates, Views and shortcodes in a Bricks Builder page for me. I wish it were easier to figure out the shortcode of a field, template or view as this seems a cumbersome process for me. Displaying the shortcode at the top of a view, field etc would be much easier or even including some examples in the settings page or somewhere else. Integration with a popular calendar would be nice if you aren’t going to have your own. I’m just glad it’s still here!

13. i use gutenberg, but not much

    iam using corner stone from themeco as a builder but considering an oxygen a try.

    iam considering toolset one of the key plugins for wordpress, managing CPT taxonomies and CFs are very important.
    Iam using code in views but guttenberg is usable too.

    ive run into problems lately with filtering feature as it seems imposible to filter CPT in view based on children (related) CPT data overall the filtering could be better, from documentation there are very few parameters customizable.

    but overall, toolset is a new level for wordpress and in my opinion its essential. wordpress should have these tools native long time ago

14. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    Blocks. I started with Toolset when Gutenberg starts to run smoothly, so the Toolset blocks were a perfect addon for me.

    What other major plugins are you using?
    WPML, Kadence Pro, Astra Pro, EWWW Image Optimizer, Devowl Real Cookie Banner

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    Everthing runs pretty well, I love the low code/no code approach.

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    Some stability issues while using toolset blocks within hooked elements.

15. 1: I manage many website so I have different solutions in place. Gutenberg (and blocks) up today are the least used because:
    a. I don’t like it
    b. clients don’t like it
    c. there are no themes ready out of the box you can show the client and ask if he like it or not
    But we are fully aware Gutenberg is the future so we will force ourselves to use it in the next projects
    2: with different website we have different solutions, among them there are woocommerce, acf, wpbakery, elementor, wpml…. Toolset type is not yet used in any live project (but I hope it will be… soon)
    3: the way Toolset manages fields, create a manages relations is intuitive and easy
    4: what I really don’t understand (but it could be me!) is that with so many amazing features I didn’t find a way to publish and item and all of its fields in 10 seconds. From my point it should be great to have a default view, simple and complete. I would eventually edit it later but while I am working with 100 problems I really hate to spend time only to have a simple, pain view and check if everything is working

16. Thank you for asking. Fan of Toolset, have used since 2014.

    How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    I currently am converting all older sites to utilize the features that have matured in blocks world themes and options. I use Types + Views and hope views is not going away anytime soon.
    I use use Genesis and Kadence Pro Themes.

    What other major plugins are you using?
    Kadence Blocks Pro, The Seo Framework, WPForms

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    Long ago, when there was a major error in Toolset during a major release, I started investigating other options – most recently, investigated ACF and CPT UI again, given many tutorials showing how to custom display in blocks using Kadence Block and Theme Tools.

    That said, I still come away each time feeling the tools in Types and Views, with option to use Types + Kadence Elements to showcase CPTs are still more robust, refined and give me many options to create pages for advanced filtering/searching.

    I love most the ability to plan out relationships and CPTs, Taxonomies, to streamline data entry and the ability of Views to quickly show CPTs in various ways throughout the website, with only one view to update, should needs or data change.

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    There have been some ‘oops!’ in releases regarding checkboxes, the prior mentioned major release etc., but mostly, in subsequent releases, issues were fixed and/or I was able to find a work around I was competent to do (not a full blown coder!) until fix released.

    Recent releases have not seemed to have caused the churn that a span of 12-18 months a few years back did.

    I have tried on a few sites to switch to Blocks but to me Views is just more robust, and gives the end-user so many options on displaying information. I would like to see Views stick around, personally.

    One little thing that, given my expertise label ( a bit better than newbie, but not much!) It is frustrating to have to use one license key on the staging/dev site and another on the production site. For major releases of anything, I fire up staging, test the update then push it to the live site. Having to change the key on each side is not a huge issue, but I do find myself rankling a little bit each time at the extra steps. I do not know how time intensive it is to change how license keys are tracked, etc. within, so this may be a little annoyance with huge work costs to change – but, thought I would mention while here.

    Thanks, and full disclosure, I invested early in a lifetime license because I use Types and views on most of the sites I build for ease of content entry, time savings and robust display options. That said, besides the loss of productivity due to learning/mastering a different tool to achieve same results, I still believe Unlimited Sites, license if purchased today would be more cost effective and efficient for my needs than any of the competitors other’s have listed here that I have tested/tried out off and on during the years.

    I feel a little bit of hesitancy to continue building with views not knowing for sure it’s future, however, it seems that Types is still best option for me and integration with other tools to display CPTs should Views be discontinued, blocks not quite as robust as I need.

    Thank you for the opportunity to give feedback.

    • Hi and thanks for your detailed comment, I’m taking notes. I just wanted to tell you that we have no plans of “retiring” or removing legacy Views features. We still fully support them and will keep do that. 🙂

      • Thanks Dario!
        You have indicated so in the past, and not your fault I’m once burned, twice shy in plug-in land (from another cherished plugin that just went deadly quiet, then got highjacked, years ago!)
        I am enjoying reading the other comments/replies to learn more from others who use your suite of tools. So all in all – Thanks for this article, the comments and to the Toolset community for me to browse, be inspired or find solutions on ‘how to use’ or ‘we use it this way’ – 🙂 in one space that isn’t forum or social media based! 😀 (i’m not savvy or quick in either of those arenas, either!)

17. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    For newer projects – with Blocks

    What other major plugins are you using?
    Kadence Blocks Pro, Formidable Form, WP Codebox …

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    Handling and displaying of CPTs

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    – A further development of the Toolset Blocks in the area of design
    – Implement the broader possibilities of Toolset Views in the Toolset Blocks.
    Performance improvements

18. I have been using Toolset for a VERY long time, and almost the 100% of the websites I built have the suite installed, although I feel I have only barely scratched the surface of its capabilities (still learning to code in php). I have tried ACF, PODS, METABOX but every single time I go back to Toolset, because for me it has it all. This being said I hate BLOCKS with a passion. I find it counterintuitive, cumbersome, difficult to manage and get the results I want (expecially with table formatting) and hope with all my heart that VIEWS LEGACY won’t ever be discontinued. The flexibility that Toolset offers out of the box is unparalleled, but I wish there were more video tutorials on specific arguments, I wish documentation was more thorough and easy to find and navigate and most of all, I wish there was a way to EXPORT views data in csv or excel, or even better PDF. There are zero plugins out there (at least that I know of) that offer a decent formatted PDF export feature. Having the possibility to export cpt data without having to install other plugins for me would be absolutely TOP.

    • Thanks for your feedback, Silvia! Just wanted to assure you that there are no plans whatsoever to discontinue legacy Views and we’re still fully supporting them.

      About the legacy documentation, we needed to move it to a separate section, here:
      – https://toolset.com/documentation/legacy-features/

19. I have been a Toolset user for 11 years. I first started because of the “Views” functionality and the desire for a visual interface for creating WordPress post queries, (similar to Drupal Views).

    I stopped using Toolset on new projects after Toolset’s announcement about pausing any new development for several years and I then switched over to using ACF, which now supports creating post types and taxonomies in addition to adding custom fields. I do feel that the interface, functionality, third-party integration, and feature-set of ACF is far superior to Toolset in this area of creating post types and custom fields.

    I continue to support many existing sites running Toolset and so I hope that your plugin’s new feature development starts back up again soon. I may switch back to using Toolset in the future if it starts creating a roadmap for moving forward again. In the ever-speedily evolving world of web tools and technologies and devices, I think that not moving forward is the same as quickly moving backwards.

    I have embraced page builders (e.g. Divi, Elementor) on most current projects to provide my customers with the ability to edit their own pages and learn and explore as much as they want without needing to learn coding. I anticipate these tools will continue improving in speed, functionality, and ease-of-use as time goes on. Any integration between them and Toolset is really helpful.

    I haven’t yet found another plugin out there quite yet that can match the power and flexibility of Toolset’s Views (Blocks), and Maps. I actually supported your overall idea of moving away from Toolset Layouts or shortcodes and into direct Gutenberg block implementations. You were the first to create a functional Gutenberg query block. It’s just that the current state of things with the Toolset plugin is clunky and buggy and very limiting. And it has not improved at all since new feature development stopped. I don’t think it’s too late for Toolset get back in the game now that the Gutenberg WordPress block editor has matured so much. Block packages such as Kadence Blocks, Spectra, or Stackable are showing us that the WordPress block editor will one day provide all of the necessary tools for website design right inside of the WordPress editor. And Toolset would have a clear niche as the developer-friendly all-in-one toolkit for providing advanced directories, listings, multi-pin maps, and advanced post queries.

    Thank you for your excellent development work and support for the WordPress community!

20. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    — Most with Avada; not using blocks
    What other major plugins are you using?
    — iThemes Security, Gravity Forms
    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    — Using relationships (legacy)
    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    — No but I pray you won’t abandon the legacy functions as I couldn’t do the same with your new blocks.

21. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    With and without blocks. Mostly with blocks these days. However, even if I build a page with blocks I strongly prefer to not use blocks for Toolset. My use of Toolset is principally for the things that blocks do not work as well for. I still write a lot of code and use legacy edited Views and Content Templates a lot more than block based.

    What other major plugins are you using?
    Gravity Forms, The SEO Framework or Yoast, Relevanssi, ACF, Max Mega Menu, Responsive Lightbox and Gallery, ManageWP, Members, WooCommerce, Wordfence.

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    Legacy edited Views, Bootstrap, Maps, Conditionals, Legacy edited Content Templates, WooCommerce archives, views and content templates.

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    Would like to have easy Bootstrap Card support in Content Templates or support for other grid and card frameworks more completely integrated.

    I end up writing a lot of custom code to get what I need from Maps. I’d like it if Maps had an easy way to add dynamic lines and areas (boundary shapes, trails, etc.) without custom code.

    I’d really, really like it if Maps added support for Open Street Maps as Google’s Maps API has gotten less and less desireable.

    It seems like I end up writing custom shortcodes to enable conditionals I need more often than I should have to. Exposing more things to use as conditions would be helpful.

    It’d be great if Toolset fully supported variable products in WooCommerce. I know this isn’t simple to do and I also wish WooCommerce implemented these differently so it’d be easier for all of us to customize.

    Clean up all the little things. Sometimes trying to pick an existing View in the Views Block is so difficult due to UI issues that I end up using Fields and Text block as a workaround, for example. And every once in a while, a site will lose its connection to Toolset and stop getting updates until I notice it is out of date and unregister then register it.

22. Hi. First off Toolset is on almost all of my sites in some fashion. I have grown accustom to it and generally avoid coding whenever possible. Several of my sites just wouldn’t have made their deadlines without Toolset. It has also saved me when other plugins have failed and I used Toolset to create a similar effect on the site. All my membership sites also are built around Toolset. I don’t currently build commerce sites so I haven’t used any of those plugins.

    How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?

    I have a mix of blocks and views sites. Generally speaking I find doing complicated loops almost impossible in blocks. For example views inside views just doesn’t work in Blocks. I like using blocks for quickly defining elements appearance, but otherwise really find your views plugin more efficient. I really wish Blocks was still actively developed because I feel it still has a long way to go before it does everything views does easily.

    What other major plugins are you using?

    Plugins: WPML, Admin Colums Pro, Gravity Forms, GravityPerks and other related Gravity Forms addons. PublishPress suite.
    Themes: I’m generally on GeneratePress or Astra.
    Toolset: Types, blocks, views, access, maps

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?

    I still find your main Types plugin is my favorite for building CPTs. I find it easier that POD or any of the other ones I have tried. Especially with your admin columns support. Also your map system still work pretty good for me. One of the commentators mentioned they build their own integration with their page builder of choice to make that smoother. I would love to see you all go in that direction.

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?

    I don’t use your form builder plugin at all. In my opinion it is junk. I build all my forms in Gravity Forms and use their addons to feed into my Toolset CPTs. The linking process is painful, but the forms are so much nicer. If you all could build a better way to link to Gravity Forms it would be really nice.

    I kind of already mentioned this but the Blocks plugin is still really clunky to use. It doesn’t make doing anything remotely complicated easy. For example needing to put a view inside of a view just breaks everything. Generally I can rarely reuse a block view or even go back in and edit them after they have been built.

    I also don’t feel like you have kept up with other page builders integration.

    I also agree with someone else statement about documentation being hard to use. I also generally have to start with a google search because I can never find what I want in your support system.

    Not asked, but I’m going to say it anyway
    I still am building sites that include the Toolset plugin because almost every site I build needs CPTs, but because you all have taken a break on development to “see what happens” I have begun looking for alternatives (sadly with difficulty). So I’m still hopefully that you all find your direction soon and get back to development.

23. – How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    No blocks at all. I disable Gutenberg on all websites I build. I use the classic views. Some code, but not that much.

    – What other major plugins are you using?
    Mostly Oxygen builder.

    – What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    The ability to create CPT, search functions and relationships.

    – Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    Worried that in the future I may no longer be able to bypass Gutenberg. I’ve tried a few times using Gutenberg and Toolset Blocks and don’t like it at all.

24. 1. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?

    No blocks.
    Code, if the client can afford it.
    Toolset if it’s asked for by the client or a legacy site.

    2. What other major plugins are you using?
    The few “unavoidable” ones like. WooCommerce, user switching, wp Mail logger, postmark…

    3. What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    An example is the insanely quick way to set up a query, an access control, a form or a template. As long it’s legacy it mostly rocks.

    4. Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?

    There are several but all in the “legacy” feature area, to which mostly the approach seems to be “it’s not anymore a priority”

25. Hi, thank you, I really appreciate you opening this discussion. 

    How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)? 
    I vote for code. For me, as a developer, the most important thing is productivity. Blocks could be ok if I spend less time building something like a Gallery, Tabs, Accordions or if I don’t want to write plain CSS (so my client can change styles easily). 

    I try to use blocks only in content templates, but not Toolset blocks, I prefer Kadence Blocks or plain HTML and shortcodes.

    I use Kadence blocks to build the responsive grid layout, but then, most of the time, I use the HTML block to display the content inside the grid. 

    I try to use blocks only on content templates, but not Toolset blocks, I prefer Kadence Blocks or plain HTML and shortcodes. 

    Views blocks are very slow to develop and many times I had to rebuild them because they stopped working. Legacy View is easier, faster and safer. 

      What other major plugins are you using?
    Astra PRO, Kadence Blocks, Yoast, Contact Form 7, EWWW Image Optimizer, WPML

      What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    With CPTs, Taxonomies, custom fields and View loops  it’s possible to build almost everything. I built many directories and membership websites, so I work a lot with Forms and Relationships. I’ve also built complex databases for company’s extranets. 
    Toolset support is always great!

      Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    Current Toolset bloks have many bugs and limitations, I try to not use them. They should be much more solid, or you should work on compatibility with other block libraries (Kadence, Ultimate…).

    Optimization. This sould be your main goal and your marketing. Toolset should be lighter and faster. It should load everything only when it is needed. It should also offer a way to efficently load CSS and JS.

    Powerful conditionals but not Conditionals Blocks, they are a nightmare, I prefere shortcodes.

    An easy way to build very efficient, lightweight and responsive grids with a CSS library available also for coding. Could be Bootstrap or an integration with most used themes like Astra.

    Improved gallery, lightbox and modal blocks.

    Display all posts on the map with pagination. I only use Maps legacy shortcodes.

    Use OpenStreetMap or other free map for the maps plugin. 

    Private images and documents directories for membership websites. 

    Print to PDF feature and templates.

26. I’m a Toolset user since 2012 and made countless toolset implementations. Toolset can make almost everything you want and it’s very powerful. I’m talking about the legacy plugins -> types & views. I tried the Gutenberg way but it’s only a fraction of the legacy plugin power. Also, I worked with all the other dynamic plugins (acf, metabox, pods, carbon fields, ..), these works good for specific dynamic parts -> Toolset legacy can do all of it with no problem. I just hope the team finally see the true power of the plugin and refocus to the legacy plugins and make them the prime plugin again. It needs a little bit of UI updates and new (modern features) and it will be on top of them all.

    For your question:

    How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    Breakdance + Toolset -> no blocks!
    Toolset = legacy -> Types & Views

    What other major plugins are you using?
    ACF , WPGridbuilder , Breakdance (plugin as framework)

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    Making a CTP and Custom taxo’s for complex relations with views

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    Needs modern features out of the box in the legacy plugins -> gallery modules , more flexible relations, beter ui , …

    Cheers
    Gille

27. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    I use the Divi Theme page builder.

    What other major plugins are you using?
    iThemes Security
    WP Rocket
    WP Forms
    WP Mail SMTP

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    Custom Fields and Relationships
    Shortcodes

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    No

28. 1. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?

    I followed Toolset’s let and shifted to the blocks editor (but I had occasion, as recently as yesterday, to use non-blocks Views on a website). My preference is to use the block editor but I will shift as needed.

    2. What other major plugins are you using?

    WooCommerce, The Events Calendar, WP Spectra, WP Fusion, and more.

    3. What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?

    Toolset makes it possible to do some really amazing things. Post relationships really take things to another level.

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?

    Lately, it seems like some of the styling options aren’t working (padding with the container block, columns with grid block). So I have to add my own CSS to make things display the way they would be expected to disply.

    • 1. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?

      I followed Toolset’s “lead” not let 🙂

29. 1. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?

    As one of those completely embracing the new content and site editors (which used to be called Gutenberg), and after having adopted Toolset a few years ago when that was new precisely because Toolset, with its dynamic block which let me use dynamic content and custom post types and fields practically anywhere with blocks it began to provide, I felt completely abandoned by Toolset due to its horrible decision to pause development of new features in this regard. Blocks of course, that’s WordPress now.

    For reference, I built the faceted search on my poetry and short fiction website https://victorkane.com/ completely using Toolset and loving it. Was deeply affected by the Toolset decision to paralyze development after a couple months of intense practice to be able to use it well. So will never go back to Toolset again. Will use ACF and Grennshift.

    2. What other major plugins are you using?

    ACF of course, the free version, and then Greenshift to do what I did before with Toolset, but much better than Toolset, much more useful in many Block theme ways. Others are Create Blank Theme and the WP Engine Pattern Manager. And many more custom blocks than I’d like, that I would have preferred Toolset to develop

    3. What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?

    Unfortunately none of it, since I cannot build sites dependent upon a paralyzed code base.

    4. Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?

    None, ever.

30. Thanks Dario for the question! This gives me hope that there is a long-term future for Toolset.

    First of all, Toolset is the most fascinating tool I know. I’m always amazed at how complexly the individual functions work together, and although I’ve been working with Toolset for a few years now, I’m always surprised at the individual requirements that can still be solved with Toolset.

    How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?

    After initially trying to work completely with blocks, I switched to the legacy editor for templates and views on my 4th toolset project. Please don’t misunderstand, I really like Gutenberg and think it’s a good thing for content where I and my clients use it.
    But the templates and views I build in legacy editor are just way too complex or not possible at all in block editor. An example for the possibilities of the legacy editor are the nested views, but also the nesting of my conditionals would not be possible in the block editor.

    What other major plugins are you using?

    I use the Kadence Theme (LTE), however I could work with a simple Custom Theme by now, as I replace almost all post templates with Custom Templates.

    CF7, Math Ranks, WPML (just some projects), Newsletter – Send great emails with WordPress, Relevanssi, Duplicator, Enable Media Replace, Kadence Blocks (Initial support of dynamic content is unfortunately no longer supported, so I recently had to convert a site that worked with Block Templates to legacy).

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?

    CTPs, Custom Fields, Views, Filters and Templates work greatly together. I started using Toolset Access only a year ago, and I think I’ll have to get to grips with Toolset Forms in the days to come.

    One of my greatest moments was when I realized that with Toolset I could also dynamically process SVG graphics. Example: see map colored based on the categories of the page. https://promperu.de/departamento/loreto/

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?

    There are always compatibility issues (currently with Firefox), but basically Toolset is a very mature product.

    It would be great if Open Street Map was supported. Google Maps has simply become too expensive and too problematic in terms of GDPR in Germany.

    My biggest request: Keep up the good work! You have a gem that offers me so many possibilities.

    • Hi Torsten,

      If you are open to sharing, can you point me in the direction of the tools/tutorial of how the map is made on https://promperu.de/departamento/loreto/

      Much appreciated.

      • Hi Stephen Vaughan, I allway planed to do a tutorial but never did 😛 If you want I can give you a personal introduction if you contact me https://reinecke.design

        • Thanks Torsten for the run through on how you put together the interactive SVG map. It demonstrates the powerful things that can be done with Toolset. If anything the Toolset website should have a power user tutorials area to showcase what can be achieved with Toolset.

31. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?

    I rarely use blocks because I’m building for clients, and blocks is too complicated for them to use. I VERY MUCH want you to continue to support Views and using code to create custom PHP files. I can be way more accurate in what I’m doing when I can work with Views and code (including short codes).

    What other major plugins are you using?

    WP Bakery Page Builder (please maintain support), Posts Table,

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?

    Views with Classic Editor and WP Bakery Page Builder

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?

    Not that I can think of right now

32. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    -Blocks 99% of the time

    What other major plugins are you using?
    -ACF and Generate Blocks

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    – Ajax Filtering , map plugin

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    – I used to use the blocks because the container block filled a big void in Gutenberg, however the lack of updates caused Generate blocks to far pass what toolset blocks provided especially in the responsive controls.
    – for filtering toolset was always my go to because it’s developer friendly and I don’t have to style my results with a builder if I don’t want to, however sticking to the old wp-ajax and not upgrading to the rest API has also made other tools faster and better options for this. so now I’ll use facetsWP or piotnet grid even though their UX is not as nice

    What do I think toolset should focus on? (I’m adding my own topic)
    I think toolset would have been the perfect company to build a custom block creator tool, I think that the other options out there such as ACF blocks leave a lot to be desired and that toolset could really make a solid run at this market even if it was another tool outside of the toolset suite.

33. I’m a heavy Gutenberg user.

    However seeing more and more instances on Toolset failing to load custom fields content while editing in Gutenberg in page templates that have to load tens of custom fields I am starting to overwhelmingly feel annoyed. Complex views with relationships that have to load a ton of data are another sad story. Broken blocks that fail to load.. another issue. I wish there is a way to turn off Toolset loading stuff from the database and using placeholders instead si we can design and prototype without hitting resource limits. I wish there was a fail-safe editing mode.

34. Interesting that you ask this question at this time. I’ve built several websites with Toolset set over the the last ten years, all of which that were built with a handful of unique custom Post types each, Custom Fields and with code generated Views. I got very comfortable with it and was able to make changes or additions as needed without much difficulty as the sites evolved over time. The detailed documentation helped me to do that.

    Then along came Blocks. Starting about a year and a half or so ago, I forced myself to dig into Blocks (not talking Toolset Blocks yet). It wasn’t easy at first. OK, it was frustrating! The more they evolved as part of the standard WordPress.org version, the more I “worked at it”, the more I grew to like designing new pages/posts with WordPress blocks. I finally reached the point where I now prefer to use Blocks. New blocks are making it even easier (like the new “Row” block!). However, I had still not been successful at my initial attempts to work with Toolset Blocks. I had tried it a couple of times but was left frustrated even as I tried to follow the documentation and examples.

    Well, about three months ago, I felt like I really needed to make another push to embrace and start using Toolset Blocks. Views just didn’t seem like the way I should be designing new or modified Toolset custom Post type content … just not enough flexibility and too much HTML coding. This time, by keeping with it, I had a few initial successes … get over the hump … and was able build on what I had learned to do even more. Now, I look forward to creating new content with Toolset Blocks. That stated, I still see the learning curve as significant and challenging … even with the great effort I think Toolset has and is putting into trying to make it as easy as possible to switch to Toolset Blocks from the legacy Toolset Views. I think it is just the challenge of trying to “fit things into” the flow/setup of WordPress blocks that sometime makes things harder to find and figure out. I can’t even IMAGINE trying to teach any of this to one of my clients … including just basic WordPress Blocks. Yikes!

    Other major plugins? Probably a good time to mention Gravity Forms, another “go to” plugin for me. Similar to Toolset … when Gravity Forms moved all of the field add/editing content into the Block Editor, it initially was frustrating in many of the same ways as Toolset Blocks was for me. It just seemed that things were “harder” and more “awkward” to find from a UI perspective. But as with Toolset Blocks, the more I worked at it, the easier it became. I’m fairly good with it now, but it did take work! And to be honest, it is questionable if the new interface saves me time or consumes more time.

    Two items to point out that still seem to be more difficult/confusing to me than I think they ought to be in Toolset Blocks:
    1) After having added a new filter to a new view that I’m creating directly in a page/post … figuring out how to find the filter to edit it further or to add additional filter criteria was driving me nuts! I think I’ve finally learned that you’ll only see a filter that you have already added if you follow the steps to add yet another filter. Right? That wasn’t intuitive to me.
    2) The other odd thing I’m still trying to wrap my head around is how a Toolset Blocks View that is created in a page/post can only be edited in that page/post … or it can be added/duplicated in another page/post to be edited there or in the original page/post unless you choose to make them stand alone? I’m not sure I’ve got a good handle on that yet.
    2a) And if you end up deleting a page/post in which you created a View … that’s it! I don’t seem to see a way to ever use that View again. I then have to manually delete it to even reuse the name. Not 100% clear on that yet either.

    I hope the above is helpful.
    Scott

35. Looking at the feedback so far, it looks like serious developers just want to code the way they are used to. Although I do a lot of custom frontend work in my projects, I’m a designer at heart. So I’ve made the switch to Gutenberg early on and have built several sites using the new editor. Things are moving to low-code or no-code direction. Gutenberg ecosystem has flourished many folds since its inception a few years ago and it only gets better despite the issues developers don’t care for. Full Site Editing is coming. If I were to keep my coding skills sharp, creating custom FSE themes would be the playground.

    For simple sites, Kadence Blocks is my essential Gutenberg design tool. With more complex and highly customized sites, GeneratePress is a great plugin that allow great design flexibility based on just a few essential blocks. Since the announcement of Toolset in wait-and-see mode, I started using JetEngine and am liking it.

    What ACF and similar plugins don’t offer are creating view templates and search with filtering functions. I find Toolsets useful for this capability.

36. I tried using blocks, but they are not as intuitive to use and WP thinks they are. And having every paragraph be a block-level element is not a good idea for text editing. In order to maintain the most versatility and fine-tuning, I’ve been using WP Bakery, which is not perfect, but it’s better than blocks.

    This means I continue to use the legacy version of Views in Toolset. It works for 70% of what I need, but sometimes I have to end up coding my own shortcode for certain kinds of code that Views just doesn’t offer. I also often have to manually code post templates and Toolset’s info on using PHP to display fields and taxonomies is hard to find, buried in the legacy section of your website. Unfortunately, when it comes to complicated sites, doing everything in blocks and user interfaces just isn’t possible.

37. Hi,

    1. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    Coding is out of the question, as I left it behind years ago and switched to the WYSIWYG (visual builder) concept.

    Now coming over to blocks or not, earlier, I was not at all in favour of Gutenberg blocks, as they were very tightly spaced and difficult to use.

    But at the same time, page builders were getting out of the budget with heavy yearly recurring charges. At that point, I had to take a decision whether to stick with these costly page builders or switch to Gutenberg blocks.

    After doing an extensive research, I decided it was best to go with the Gutenberg blocks as it is WordPress’s inbuilt core feature, it is fast, and it is, of course, the future. Yes, it is somewhat difficult to use as compared to page builders, but I am taking my time to overcome this hurdle.

    The next decision was to decide which user-friendly blocks theme & plugin was best for visually designing websites. As a sidenote, I found the FSE (full site editing) to be very complex and not at all user-friendly, so FSE compatible WordPress themes were out of the question. Again, I did an extensive research and settled down with Blocksy Premium and Stackable – Gutenberg Blocks Premium. They both blend perfectly with each other.

    2. What other major plugins are you using?
    Core plugins – Blocksy Companion (Premium) & Stackable – Gutenberg Blocks (Premium), Toolset Blocks & Toolset Types.

    Essential plugins – Code Snippets, Cookie Yes, Fluent SMTP, hCpatcha, Limit Login Attempts Reloaded, SpinupWP (part of the SpinupWP service), Temporary Login Without Password & wp_head() Cleaner.

    3. What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    I use Toolset blocks only where I need to build a custom archive or singular page, which otherwise is not possible using the theme.

    4. Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    There are some basic issues that I have experienced, for example, Toolset Blocks become very slow and sometimes react very strangely. Other issues I have encountered is the caching, as the previews don’t work as expected.

    Further, I believe that Views legacy should be integrated in Toolset Blocks such that it is easier to build custom, complex & nested archives and singular pages without having to write a single line of code. At the present, it is not possible to do it entirely in Toolset Blocks without creating Views to accomplish the desired layout.

38. 1. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    I use code for design-led sites where fidelity to visual mockups is most important, blocks for more generic sites where its more important to just get a site live. I haven’t really got into Toolset Blocks yet. I took some of the intro courses, but I still find it hard to get the precision and visual control I’m looking for. I often use frameworks like Foundation or Bulma to create my sites, and it is harder (for me anyway) to integrate those into WordPress using blocks.

    2. What other major plugins are you using?
    For code projects I tend to use a starter theme like Underscores and use that to build a custom theme based on my own HTML mockups. For the more generic projects I use Elementor or Astra page builders. I still install Classic Editor and Classic Widgets, as it’s a simpler interface for my clients to edit their sites.

    3. What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    Types & Views combo. I’ve been using them for years and I really enjoy how easy it is to create new Custom Fields, Taxonomies and Relationships. I have just completed a directory site using Toolset and I made much use of the legacy Views documentation and support forum – especially code samples, so please don’t remove that anytime soon!

    4. Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    Not for me.

39. – How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    I use Elementor I don’t like block editor at all, I continue to use View legacy plugin

    – What other major plugins are you using?
    Toolset and WPML are almost always present in my works,

    – What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    Maps

    – Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    calendar search system (done right) for date fields created with Toolset. I’ve seen support posts that are 3 years old that said the feature was in the works.

    A suggestion
    Want to be able to do areas in maps, like a country or area of a country. There are great databases with coordinate to get raw data from.

40. Hi,
    1. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    Toolset + Kadence Blocks Pro + Kadence (free) theme. I use a mix of blocks and legacy views when needed
    2. What other major plugins are you using?
    LiteSpeed Cache (suggested by the hosting provider), Wordfence, Duplicator, Adminimize, WP Ultimate CSV Importer Pro, IfMenu
    3. What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    views, conditionals, filters, forms, relationships. And your support is amazing !
    4. Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    a. Only one that you are “working on”: if you create a view using distance without showing a map, the popup window asking the user to activate his position tracking doesn’t trigger, until you show any map, then it works (see my bug report)
    b. login form customization (add recaptcha ! or other fields)
    c. missing calculated fields shortcodes (eg. CPT “sales” and “units” -> show revenues = sales*units)
    d. need to use a snippet to convert $ to €, c’mon !

41. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?

    I am using the legacy views. I used the blocks version of Views for a few projects about three years ago, just to see how it worked. I concur with what many have said already about the flexibility of the coding approach. I see a place for the blocks variant in the plugins tool box, but a platform/framework that doesn’t allow under the hood access to raw html/css/js isn’t a serious tool for professionals.

    What other major plugins are you using?

    Divi theme, WooCommerce, Asset CleanUp, Advanced Access Manager, Rank Math SE.

    I have my own custom plugin with an array of various functions, depending on the project. I don’t use child themes anymore.

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?

    I use most of the features in Toolset. The most powerful aspect of the integration between types and views is the Relationships setup. Everything sophisticated grows from this.

    Conditionals are also very powerful and so is the maps implementation.

    I used the Forms plugin years ago and, while I don’t use it currently, see a lot of value that it brings to the suite of plugins.

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?

    Some of the following are long-standing and not so long standing.

    In the overall view of things, Toolset needs to really put a bit of love back into the legacy aspect of Views and, in my mind, there is a lot of scope to really add value with new features , based on all the feedback that support should be collecting over the years.

    With the Blocks implementation there are some issues, some of which I will list here.

    I’ll start with reliability and performance. As I haven’t used it in a wile I’ll support what others have said above.

    My own observation on block views:

    • You can’t nest views within views
    • Views are tied to a page.
    • Why can’t you just make block views in the Views interface?
    • I had issues with trying to work with more than one view on the same page. loading then in from the page of origin was cumbersome enough but, I also found that they started to interfere with each other. I just reverted to old style views at this point, less of a headache.
    • If you delete the page of origin where a block view is made, that’s it, it’s gone!

    That said, there is potential for block views to improve. I will add that I use the Toolset Blocks plugin and just set it to legacy views. Not sure why there has to be both the View plugin and the Block plugin?

    One little surprise, a number of years ago, was the appearance of the Divi Views Module. Nice touch. I would like to see a Divi module fro Templates.

    Some tweaks:

    I was recently working on project and used WooCommerce Blocks to add the Add to Cart shortcode to a view of products. This works well but one observation: It would be good, if when clicked, that the view would detect if the stock was at zero and then disable the button on the item and mark it accordingly.

    When a relationship is set up, and when editing one of the post in the relationship, I see some issues in the design of the interface for connecting to parent/child posts. Two buttons in particular. A the top of the list is an option to add a new post from the opposite side of the relationship. Then, within each listing, there is an option to Trash that instance. This is bad design in terms of database integrity. There should be an option to disable these destructive actions. I have to resort to styling them out.

    Focusing on tweaks like the above would bring real improvements and value to Toolset.

42. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    I prefer to use Gutenberg – pure and simple – with Astra. Some CSS coding for details.

    What other major plugins are you using?
    The Events Calendar with several extensions. (The Events Calendar is also on the road to Gutenberg.) I suspect that Toolset and The Events Calendar don’t get on very well with each other.

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    Custom types with their custom taxonomies are at the CORE of my major project, a large textile database. The website wouldn’t exist without Toolset.

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    At the moment, if I use maps with pagination (lets say: 10 results per page), then the map only shows the first ten results, and then the 10 next, and so on. I would love a map view, where ALL the relevant results are shown on the map, and the list and map adjust according to the chosen map section: If I click a place in the list, it is higlighted on the map and vice versa. Like Airbnb? Or like when I make a custom google map. I found a workaround, for the time being, but my solution feels clumsy.

43. 1. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    Blocks always

    2. What other major plugins are you using?
    Kadence blocks (and theme), also when needed some calendar plugin

    3. What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    Very easy to create custom db and present them

    4. Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    The promised and still missing calendar feature

    Mostly only good things to say!

44. This is a poorly designed survey. No way to see or aggregate data. I stopped using toolset years ago when I moved to a builder. At that time Toolset was not compatible with Divi and was overkill for my needs but as a lifetime holder I may one day need it again and hope there is better integration.

    My blog posts are written in Gutenburg. My page design is done with Divi.

45. 1)How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    – Gutenberg is horrible and I don’t see it’s getting better even with new features coming. The core things of the plugin makes is very annoying. Therefore after several attempts, we do not use Toolset blocks anymore.
    Other builders + Toolset is a way to go for now.

    2)What other major plugins are you using?
    Elementor, WP Bakery, Divi etc + Toolset legacy plugins.

    3)What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    – The flexibility of Toolset to build almost anything and its exceptional support team are the best things in Toolset.
    Toolset is not a site builder for us but a functionality builder. We found that it’s the best way of using it and that’s where the Toolset is shining. Toolset as a super tool for skilled users and developers.
    For us, it’s often better to build necessary functionally having Toolset only rather than installing multiple plugins.
    More particularly we use all legacy plugins of Toolset, except Toolset layouts.

    4)Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    There are a few global things that hold us from using Toolset more often in some cases:
    a) Easy ability to create calendar filters in order to build Events pages and booking pages
    b) Work with WooCommerce orders and customer’s post type like with any other custom post type.
    c) Lagging Data/Time field (takes a long time to show entered value)
    d) Eaiser usage of child/parent posts as filter options
    e) Usage of nested views is impossible at some points
    f) Autoadjusting of editor screens of Toolset is often lagging. Also it we often have to set custom CSS to increase its height to make it more comfortable to work with.

46. I have tried to get into Gutenberg, and I just hate using it. I know a lot of people like it, I know it is well optimized, but it makes me feel limited in building beautiful sites, so I have stuck with Elementor. The functionality has been good, though I would love to see more integration with Elementor’s dynamic fields.

    The main thing that sets Toolset apart for me is Views, and I prefer the Legacy version for the customization options, so as long as that is always available, I’ll always be a Toolset customer.

47. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    A mix. mostly blocks because I feel almost forced to, and then having to drill down into code for some things. the problem with blocks is the interface. (we disable guterberg – just use toolset blocks.) – it’s hard to grab and move things around. my wrist hurts just thinking about it. also difficult to move seamlessly between blocks and codes as necessary.

    What other major plugins are you using? divi theme

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    I used to feel like I had gotten the hang of toolset and could create advanced and impressive functionality and design. then came blocks and now it’s like a jumble in my head – I don’t feel a real mastery over it. In the beginning I thought toolset would be a way to manage data and integrate it with wordpress to ease the pain of trying to keep css up to date for integration of php that we used for data manipulation, but there are functions in the realm of data that i expected but didn’t find – for example a built in export (back and front end), and a lot of things that can be done in toolset using code I expected to be available in a UI. but I love the front end output of filtering functions and love using views and there are a lot of things I love about toolset and i’m sticking with it. I would like to see more of a focus on providing easy functionality for some of the tasks many of us have to do – those are the longstanding tickets that provide pages of instrux for things that one might expect to be simple and turnkey with toolest. another thing I thought would be easier in toolset was accessing child/parent data. much more difficult than just coding php. thanks for listening.

48. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?

    Primarily Divi or LiveCanvas. The move to WordPress blocks and taking Views into legacy has actually really hurt my confidence in using Toolset on professional websites. Blocks might be great for personal site owners who want to go that direction, but I personally don’t know any agencies using blocks for client work.

    What other major plugins are you using?

    Formidable Forms or Gravity Forms, WooCommerce, WP All Import/Export, and Yoast.

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?

    We use Toolset to quickly scaffold post types for our clients to manage different formats of content like locations, staff, events, etc. The views plugin is really the reason we use Toolset allowing us to write complex logic into the loops.

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?

    We would really love a way to create groups within a loop. An example could be a heading inserted for alphabetically sorted views. This would of course need some thought on how to implement it but we often get requests to group content which results in us creating multiple instances of a view and shortcode filters.

    A time field would be brilliant. Anyone configuring hours of operation has been hurt with the lack of support for time fields. Date/time doesn’t work when you’re just configuring simple time fields and we’ve had to create number fields and then use a shortcode to convert a number field into a date/time format. This would be such a win and probably easy to implement.

49. 1. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    Blocks. That does not preclude using a child theme for some css or php where required.
    I progressively switched sites to the new editor from day one of its release, and have been able to manage the transition. It has taken that full time frame for the editor and site editor to mature and still needs some polish, but find it functional/usable, good to use.

    2. What other major plugins are you using?
    As an example, five year old sites using heavily modified child themes of 2017 theme function well using gutenburg. Rebuilding those sites at the moment using the pro versions of Generate Press and Generate Blocks, while still a hybrid system, fully implements the new editor system.
    I have found that this enables a faster build and faster sites.
    I still need an organised system to organise/input and display data which is where Toolset comes in.
    In no particular order I find Asset Cleanup Pro, Fluent Forms, BBQ Pro, Members, Relevanssi, Maps Marker Pro, Stackable, Grid Builder for faceted search, Mailpoet, Woocommerce, The SEO framwork, WP Sweep, & Meta Box AIO in regular use.

    3. What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    The organised process of data input, retrieval and control.

    4. Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    I hope that renewed development of Toolset will remove the need to supplement it so much with other plugins.
    I have had to use Meta Box to build complex forms, Maps Marker pro for better mapping (please provide integration of trail plotting and Open Street mapping), Asset Cleanup Pro, and Pie Register where I need to fully control registration, as examples.

    It would be a good thing if The Toolset plugins were unified and presented as modules rather than separate plugins.
    It would be good to move away from bootstrap.

    While CPT usage will wane under the new system, I see custom fields and dynamic data and the basis that provides for all types of work, and an understandable (for clients) workflow integral to ongoing usage of WP.

    Whether Toolset can provide that will depend on whether development recommences. The longer this does not happen, the greater the technical debt.

50. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    Combination of blocks and and sometimes code. Just depends on what I am trying to do. Blocks does have some limitations and issues. I rarely can go in an edit filters on a view without having to recreate it. Sometimes it doesn’t seem to save settings but for the most part, it has potential to be even more amazing. I do think it can make things easier especially when I have simple data to display. It would be nice if it was a little more stable when working with more complex content.

    What other major plugins are you using?
    Gravity Forms, mainwp, woocommerce, memberpress

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    Creating custom post type, custom field, relationships between custom post types, being able to create loops of custom data based on a clients needs.

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    Some issues with filters as stated above. I would love a better option like Open Street Maps for the maps. Trying to find a solutions to a problem in the support forum is next to impossible. However, the support team is very good. An event calendar solution would be amazing as many of the calendar systems for WordPress are clunky or over the top. The legacy maps filters and distance filters need to make their way into blocks.

    Toolset is still very powerful. I use this tool on many sites and would hate to see development stop. It is by far the best option for building custom post types and displaying that content within WordPress. I was excited when blocks came out because it seems to have great potential but was disappointed when new features stopped. I think it was headed in the right direction and I don’t believe there is a better tool to use with WordPress for creating and displaying custom post types. So… let’s get back to work and take it to the next level. Please!

51. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    I prefer using blocks but also use code for custom functionality

    What other major plugins are you using?
    Kadence, PostX and recently ACF

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    With a recent website I ran into a major short coming and went looking for other approaches and settles on ACF. I mention this because when I picked toolset I felt it was a better choice. But after trying ACF, it has more field types and a much cleaner UI. And at this point I am leaning toward using ACF for future project. This is to say at this point I am not sure toolset is my best choice.

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    I have never liked views since you made it block based. The legacy version is
    more flexible
    Could use blocks or html for templating
    Allowed nesting views to any depth. (I have a couple of sites that rely on this)
    Could handle users and taxonomys as well as posts

    On top of that the block based version preview is slow and painful. It is also “dumb” enough if you disable paging to try and display a large dataset.

52. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    I still use legacy Views rather than blocks. I really, really don’t like the Gutenberg and Blocks interface. It’s painful to use compared to the classic WordPress interface, and Toolset Blocks is similarly unwieldy compared to Views.

    What other major plugins are you using?
    It depends on the site of course, but almost always Divi, Yoast, various forms plugins, WP All Import/Export (which work well with Toolset), Woocommerce, Popup Maker.

    I also use facetWP as it provides some great functionality that Toolset doesn’t currently have, but probably could have. What’s great is that I can use a facet, but when their builder doesn’t allow the structure I need I can embed a Toolset content template into the facetWP output — kind of a mix and match.

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    Views is essential for me. It’s a magnificent tool for nearly every website I write and Blocks doesn’t allow anywhere near as much flexibility.

    The relationships part solved a lot of problems when it was implemented.

    It works really well with Divi – I can use Divi structures within my views code to utilise all of the existing Divi modules with manual code. I’d love it to be fully integrated but prefer to write manual Divi code into my Views rather than using Blocks or any partial integrations.

    Your support has always been brilliant. Support operatives always seem to have a deep knowledge of the system.

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    One thing missing in the past has been calculations within forms, but it hasn’t been an issue lately.

    I’ve looked back through my support tickets and there were a lot submitted 3, 4, 5 years ago. Either Toolset has got better or I’ve got better.

    One other thing – I have a lifetime unlimited Toolset account and have had so much use out of it. I totally understand why you removed this as an option as it’s not financially viable to do that long term. If you had a “Donate” option I’d happily drop a few more dollars your way each year to help secure the future of Toolset.

53. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    Types, Views (no Toolset blocks…ever), Elementor or Breakdance

    What other major plugins are you using?
    GravityForms
    WooCommerce

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    Code, Types, Views, Maps

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    None

54. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?

    Using blocks to build sites in general but not for creating views. Yes, the blocks editor for content templates is great but creating views within a page block isn’t well implemented and it stops me using the same view on multiple pages (with different attributes or not).

    Personally, although I can see why there is a views block, it really is only useful for the most basic of views used once on one page. So generally I use the native create view capability and then use the block editor for the content template.

    Also the views block doesn’t allow the display of user views, only post views. Why?

    What other major plugins are you using?

    Updraft Plus, Wordfence, Media Cloud. Gave up on page speed/cache plugins as they all came with side effects. Seriously Simple Podcasting, Generateblocks

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?

    Forms and notifications, content templates

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?

    Yes. No ability to make relationships between users and posts (only the native one to many author relationship). Also, inserting fields in paragraphs doesn’t work well often and won’t allow bold or italic.

    My thoughts

    It seems like the team has decided not to progress with development and to focus just on bug fixes and compatibility. I guess that’s OK (but please at least fix broken stuff) but it gives me the sense that I ought to be looking for Toolset replacements.

    Maybe this is because the development effort is not worth it. Maybe that’s because too many of us bought lifetime licences and now there’s a limited revenue stream.

    In that case, consider developing a premium (annual fee) add on; add in user views to the views block, allow many to many relationships between CPTs and users, and partner with one or more themes to make sure that your CPT fields can be shown in their dynamic data capabilities. Perhaps develop more complex workflows for notifications (conditional notifications for example) with forms. There are probably other things in requests from users over time which could be bundled together.

    • Hi Nick! Thanks for your thoughts! I just wanted to explain that relationships between CPTs and users are not possible on the WordPress architecture level. To pull this off, Toolset would need to automatically create an intermediary CPT for all the users on your site. Then, it would connect that “users CPT” to your other CPTs and work that way. So, it’s not a bug, and it’s not something we can “fix” but rather a feature request. 🙂

      • Thanks for the reply. I didn’t suggest this was a bug, I suggested it was a feature you could add to a premium version. Perhaps read my comments again and it will be clear. I was asked for “any longstanding issues”. It’s not a bug, it is an issue (for me because I need a solution for the websites I build).

        Honestly it feels to me like you are there trying to get user feedback but the feedback is in actual fact useless to you because there is no plan for ANY development of Toolset beyond possible bug fixes.

        Is there a plan? If so, can we all know about it please?

        • Hi, Nick! Thanks for clarifying. Actually, the feedback here is anything but useless to us. However, please note that I’m running the Content Team, and as I explained in this post, I’m trying to understand all these things directly from you so that my team can prepare better tutorials for everyone instead of coming up with stuff we think might be useful. To answer your last question, we stand committed to keeping Toolset fully supported, working, and compatible with WordPress and all major tools our clients need and resolving any issues. At this point, there are no plans for adding new features.

    • Conditional Notifications would be such a huge upgrade!

55. First of all I really appreciate your products (Toolset & WPML).

    How are you building your sites today:
    – 80% is built with Toolset (blocs, view, CPTs …) and the rest is PHP, Javascript and CSS and a bit of utility plugins

    What other major plugins are you using:
    – WPML, Simple Custom CSS and JS PRO, SupportCandy, UpdraftPlus – Backup/Restore, WP Media folder, Kaya QR Code Generator

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin:
    – CPTs, Views, templates, forms, custom PHP (snippets)

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset:
    – I really miss a clean solution for the development load cycle (do and validate on a test platform and push to the prod (BTW supporting the WPML content and configuration promotion as well)
    – I would really appreciate more debugging features (trace / debbuging mode ?) to investigate issues (with both Toolset and WPML … some times it’s really a pain and it takes ages to figure-out the problem)
    – the geolocalization on mobile is poorly implemented (it is figured-out only once and then cached with a cookie … not really useful to provide distances to a user walking or on trip
    – It would be great to add JS and CSS custom files to the “Custom code” tab – I would use one plugin less 😉

56. > How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?

    I guess I’m doing a hybrid. I’ve stopped creating Views in the block editor. I create everything using legacy, then insert using existing Views/Templates.
    I don’t need a visual loop builder and it just gets in the way. I really wanted to go all-in with blocks but it doesn’t make sense.

    > What other major plugins are you using?

    BuddyBoss, The Events Calendar, SEOPress

    > What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?

    TBH, I went back to doing most things in legacy and my life is happier. I use blocks to drop in my pre-made legacy stuff and all is good.

    > Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?

    1) Not being able to “or” filters is killing me. If I use a CPT for events, there’s no way to properly display current events.

    https://p119.p3.n0.cdn.getcloudapp.com/items/OAulKe2Y/5c69e4af-bcff-4fcb-abc6-1d531026878d.jpeg?v=45e099210888a82a76d9de226430ee52

    2) Not being able to add a taxonomy View to a View Block is mildly annoying (but easily worked around)

    BONUS: Things I’d like to see….
    – More field types
    – Integration with Stripe for memberships (expire, etc) that doesn’t require WooCommerce
    – Go hard on membership features
    – Refresh of Toolset Forms

57. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    I never use blocks for anything. WordPress gained major traction with the invent of builders. That said I use Elementor w/ GeneratePress and Views to accomplish my needs.

    I thought from the start that Toolset missed an opportunity when blocks were introduced. I feel like if Toolset were to have had focused on the integrating it’s own Elementor style builder into WordPress, with all the toolset functions built in, that not only would that have been amazing for us but would have made your company a crap load of money (opinion of course). New folks coming into WordPress; I seriously doubt most are going to learn blocks and therefore I wouldn’t think are going to be interested in doing so because of Toolset. I feel like they’ll find another option. Then there’s the time aspect of Blocks. For me it’s soo much faster to build with Elementor and then just inject views where I need them.

    I’m not against anyone who wants to use blocks but I do.. I find them to be a cluster.

    Now that it appears that you have the blocks aspect of Toolset pretty much integrated, I would love to see you actually create a Toolset builder that rivals Elementor, or is at least in the ball park. That and I personally would at least ‘un-legacy’ views and focus on making that much more appealing. More on that down below.

    What other major plugins are you using?
    Elementor Pro, Wordfence, Classic Editor, and Relevanssi. That’s really about it.

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin? CPT’s, Views, and Forms.

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    *There’s still no easy straight forward way for galleries in views. This has been an issue for over 10 years.

    *Like another person touched on: A lot of your documentation now is about Blocks. I do the same as they mentioned.. I search “Toolset + issue” on Google and look around from there. I also jump back into some of my old sites to see how I’d accomplished things in the past and have been creating my own little unorganized wiki. 🙂

    *I don’t know how many tickets you get about conditional logic but there’s no straightforward section (that I know of) on your site with tons of various examples. Typically when I want to create conditional logic, that’s when I have to go look at how I’ve done it in the past and a notable amount of the time I had to have Toolset support help me create it. If there was a wiki of all these different ways to do CL, people would likely get inspiration from just looking at all the scenarios we’ve come up with along the way. Some will even be like “Oh, shit.. I never even thought about that. One example is that I have one Elementor ‘single’ template with an Edit or Delete section above it. I use this same single post template for 5 different CPTs. I use conditional logic to check the CPT to figure out which Edit form ‘template’ to use to edit the post. 🙂

    *Inserting views into Elementor is easy. Styling said views within Elementor (for me) not so easy. I’m not exactly sure but it feels like I’m always in a fight with the system css, or something. I truly am the epitome of “Build Advanced Sites Without Programming”.

    I would also love to see an option to where when I duplicated a CPT that it gave me the option to create the corresponding view, content template, fields, and forms all in one shot and renamed (connected) accordingly. Even if I have to edit the lot, it would all be created and same me the time of creating it myself. Maybe, since this whole spiel is about views and if I’m dreaming, Just creating a new CPT would have the option to create all of everything I’d said, to go along with it, or be able to select which to create that I want to go along with that CPT.

    tl;dr: (Opinion) Focus on getting back to views and making it more friendly to use. Views, (imo) again, should not be Legacy at all. It should be turned into a powerhouse with easy of use all conjoined with all Toolset elements.

    Last thought. Even if the Content Template section was more of a wysiwyg builder Elementor style setup… that would be incredible. I think that’s my answer in whole. 🙂

    I love Toolset!!! but yeah, legacy views is where I live. I just wish it was more powerful and easier to style with it. 🙂

58. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    – Still primarily using code, no blocks
    What other major plugins are you using?
    – Depends on the site, but your legacy tools are installed on most of my projects
    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    – legacy tools, custom built searches and forms
    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    – not really broken per se, but it’s always a PITA to do calculations. I would love to see the addition of calculated field values as standard.

59. How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?
    FSE Theme with custom blocks. I think most people struggle with FSE/Blocks because they are trying to use the blocks that come with WP. The only WP blocks that are usable are the paragraph, header, and image blocks. All other blocks seem to be trash, so it’s really important to be able to build your own fully custom blocks to get FSE to work well.

    What other major plugins are you using?
    ACF, Defender, Imagify, WProcket

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?
    The best part was the old views style of working with loops/filters. Ever since Toolset moved away from being able to truly customize the loops/filters I started to learn ACF and now I prefer that much more than Toolset.

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?
    -The website that hosts the docs and user forum loads really slow, and it’s hard to find content with its search feature.
    -From time to time Toolset will add a content template to a page/post on its own
    -Toolset adds some kind of data tag to all the blocks on a page which has caused issues

60. I’ve been using Toolset Types and Views for pretty much every client website for the last 11 years. I was pretty nervous when it was announced that Views was not being developed further (even though it was going to continue being supported). From my point of view, Views is as essential as Types for anyone wanting more granular control over output, or anyone wanting to integrate code to enhance the functionality. I echo to sentiments of anyone commenting here who is requesting that it is brought back into development and removed from the ‘legacy’ section of the website. Views has to be the developers choice – surely?

    I have made a concerted effort to try Gutenberg a couple of times, but I absolutely despise it, as do our clients. I find it clunky, unwieldy and inflexible for anyone who wants to do even a little more than the functionality allows. I can understand how anyone not wanting to dig into code or customisation might find it of use, but I am baffled as to how this became the default WP editor.

    To answer your questions:

    How are you building your sites today (blocks or not, code or not)?

    I use a responsive framework (Foundation or Bootstrap) as the backbone for a skeleton theme. I then style and build functionality for the theme that is entirely dependent on the client’s requirements. This means that there’s less ‘bloat’ comprising unnecessary pre-installed plugins and other functionality of off-the-peg themes.

    I immediately install Classic Editor and Classic Widgets in order to remove Gutenberg. I then build the site up using default and custom fields for content. Types creates most of these although I occasionally use ACF for functionality unavailable in types (such as tabs separating fields, gallery fields etc).

    I manually code the pages and theme files – again, only using what is required for the site and no more.

    What other major plugins are you using?

    Classic Editor, Classic Widgets, Advanced Custom Fields, WPML, Woocommerce, Rocket Cache, Wordfence, Duplicator Pro, Gravity Forms, Slider Revolution and others

    What works best for you in the Toolset plugin?

    Types and Views. Please start developing Views again.

    Any long-standing issues or persistently broken things for you in Toolset?

    There are undoubtedly limitations and glitches in both plugins that I’ve found over the years, although more often than not Toolset support helps me find fixes or workarounds. There aren’t that many support threads of mine that haven’t been resolved

    In conclusion, Types and Views are absolutely essential to me – please start developing Views again.