Visual Composer: Page Builder for WordPress

[diegocerezo]

Visual Composer: Page Builder for WordPress

What do you guys think about it, do you think it will work fine with genesis, should I buy it ? thanks in advance for your opinions on the matter!

[sdbroker]

It works fine... the only way I found to force full screen width rows and use cool image or video backgrounds on individual genesis pages, using the ultimate add-ons along with it.

[emasai]

I installed it for a client who found it too complicated to use. There is another similar plugin called SympleShortcodes which is easier to manage and free.

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[sdbroker]

Hi Lynne,

I thought that Symple Shortcodes besides being used by itself, is a free add-on for the Visual Composer. Symple Shortcodes just adds elements to a page like any other VC add-on does, it doesn't actually build pages like VC does, so it's not a replacement.

[BobH]

Does Visual Composer play nice with schema.org?

[Tom]

For page builders, you might also look at: http://siteorigin.com/page-builder/

For shortcodes, there's a flock of plugins.
A few, in a subjective order of preference, best at top:

WP Canvas: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wc-shortcodes/
Cr3ative: http://pixelatedminds.com/creativ-shortcodes-a-wordpress-plugin
Symple: http://www.wpexplorer.com/symple-shortcodes/ 
Synved: http://wordpress.org/plugins/synved-shortcodes/
Ultimate: http://gndev.info/shortcodes-ultimate/ 

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[BobH]

Thanks Tom!
I'm going to take a look at SiteOrigin's Page Builder.

[sdbroker]

@BobH Visual Composer does not alter any schema.org markup that is already there.

@Tom Thanks for the suggestion of SiteOrigin's Page Builder. I just gave it a quick try and it's really lite which I love along with the ability to use all your existing widgets on the page.

However it won't allow for extended row widths (see support forum under 100% full width row) which is the only reason I like VC coupled with Ultimate VC add-ons for building an individual page.

[Tom]

@sdbroker While it's not perfect, I've stumbled across a Genesis plugin that does this very task:
Genesis Simple Page Sections.

Combined with the right page template, this could work nicely, I think.

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[sdbroker]

Hi @Tom, thank you for another suggestion. After playing with it for a few minutes I don't really see a use for it. IMO all it does is adding flat color background in a boxed section that it's width is limited by the page's content wrap width. You can do exactly the same, plus you can add gradient color backgrounds with just a couple lines of css...

I think that there are no free plugins out there to get the full browser's width and so far I've only found the ultimate addons for visual composer that can do it. Everything else I've seen is some customized version of that addon that is included with quite a few themes.

[BobH]

Tom,

Could you send me a link or links to sites that you or anyone else used VC along with Genesis to develop?
VC is awesome, create whole sites in a day but it seems to create a whole lot of CSS and inline styles which I'm not a big fan of.
I haven't used it with Genesis yet but I may check it out.

Thanks

Bob

[Tom]

Hi Bob,

I'm not sure what you would leverage from that*. While there's no apparent VC 'community forum', what I've browsed says, simply, it works. There is an increasing number of design-helper plugins for Genesis but there is no integrated composer plugin. Perhaps because, as @sdbroker has noted, VC is what other theme authors include with their themes.

For some, that may leave a feature 'hole' in Genesis compared to some other themes or frameworks, and make it appear that StudioPress is somehow lacking. I don't think so. Having had a brief look at Elegant Themes Divi, I wan't really impressed. There's iThemes Builder, Pageline, Headway and others. Do I need to learn them all? Having a pagebuilder/composer isn't what attracted me to Genesis. If I have a client that needs a familiar drag-n-drop interface (or build things quickly, as sdb said) I can use VC.

But I wouldn't mind seeing some of the ideas and execution 🙂

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[BobH]

Tom,

I was just curious to look at the page source of a website built with Genesis and VC.

For now I'll stick with Genesis coding, very clean and streamlined which is why I love it.

Thanks

Bob

[diegocerezo]

Thank you all for your opinions, very interesting! hope you guys have a nice day!

[Author]

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