Autumn Update – Addressing all the Elephants

Hey all! It’s been a mild fall in our neck of the woods. Lots of sunshine and warm temperatures. In the States, we’re putting away the Halloween decorations, gorging ourselves on left-over candy, and getting prepared for the looming holiday season. There is a bunch of exciting news to discuss, including new features and updates to Page Builder and the Beaver Builder Theme, along with a spattering of plugs and footnotes. Let’s do it!

Beaver Builder Theme 1.7

Version 1.7 of the Beaver Builder Theme is live! This update rolled out a few weeks back and includes a long list of enhancements and fixes. Some highlights are:

• Improved Gutenberg support.
• Bootstrap 4 support.
• A toggle to select Bootstrap 3, 4, or no framework at all.
• Font Awesome 5 and Font Awesome Pro support.
• Several performance and load-time improvements.
• A whole lot more…

Many people ask why they should choose the Beaver Builder Theme and our answer always sounds a little like this: the WordPress theme market suffers from “shiny ball syndrome.” Theme authors compete to see who can add more features, bells, and whistles, and this leads to bugs, bloat, and stability issues.

Our approach has always been to keep and maintain a simple, yet powerful framework to customize and build on. You have proven there is a demand for this approach as the BB Theme is now active on over 160,000 websites. Yee-haw!

Beaver Builder 2.2

The big news of the day is Beaver Builder 2.2! In Beaver Builder 2.0 and 2.1, we overhauled and modernized the Beaver Builder interface and user experience. In 2.2, we’re working hard to modernize and improve on what can be built with Beaver Builder. As always, we’re implementing some of the most popular and highly-requested features directly from your feedback. Thanks for that!

Here are a few things you can look forward to in 2.2.

Unit Selection Additions

This was a hugely popular feature request and, frankly, a challenge to implement, but we did it. In 2.2, we’re moving beyond pixels and bringing percentages, vh, and vw values as options for padding, margins, and sizing.

Row Shapes and Gradients

Row shapes and gradients are coming in 2.2. This one is exciting because it opens a whole new world of design possibilities. Nothing screams “page builder” or “bootstrap” like boxy, row-after-row designs and these new features will let you break out of that box. To see these in action, check out this preview video from our buddy David Waumsley.

Border, Shadow, and improved Font Styling

Do you see the theme developing here? 🙂 Along with new design features for rows, we’re also adding box shadows, border options, and improved typography settings in 2.2.

Modular & Funnel-focused Row Templates

2.2 is bringing a new suite of pre-made designs to work with. In the past, we released full-page templates, but this time we chose a more modular approach. 2.2 will feature over 80 new row templates that can be mixed, matched, or used a la carte. The designs are a collaboration with our good friend, Paul Lacey, of Dickiebirds Studio.

The pre-made rows take advantage of some of the new features in 2.2 like gradients and row shapes, and they look HOT 🔥. Paul talks about the process of building said templates in this interview with another good friend, Kim Doyal, on her podcast.

A Whole Lot More

This is just scratching the surface of what’s to come in 2.2. You can check out the Page Builder changelog for more details or stay tuned for a future blog post where we will dig deeper into what’s coming.

2.2 is currently in beta status. We don’t recommend using it on live sites just yet. We’re planning to release 2.2 towards the end of this month, November 2018.

The Elephant in the Room

Regular readers of the blog have noticed and mentioned our publishing schedule has been sparse recently. Sorry about that. I take full responsibility. No one likes hearing excuses, but I can say we’ll be better about communicating in the future and would like to apologize for the radio silence. Rest assured, we’re still here. Beaver Builder is still very much in active development. Our community is still growing and thriving.

On that note, we’re looking to bring someone on the team to help with marketing and community building – a product evangelist if you will. Interested? Know someone who might be? Check out our job listing here.

What about Gutenberg?

Speaking of elephants and rooms, Gutenberg, WordPress’ new editor project, is on the cusp of launching. Here’s what you need to know. Beaver Builder and Gutenberg are totally compatible. Once you update to WordPress 5.0, you’ll be able to switch between Gutenberg and Beaver Builder easily. We’re excited to see what the WordPress user community does with Gutenberg once it becomes the standard. As we’ve said in the past, we’re firm supporters and optimistic about the future!

Not to worry. Gutenberg and Beaver Builder are and will remain totally compatible. #nofud Click To Tweet

Farewell to a Few Friends

Regrettfully, we learned that two members of our community passed recently. I struggle with what’s appropriate regarding “brands” offering condolences, but these were friends, and I feel like it’s important to mention. They’ll be missed, and our sincere condolences go out to their friends, families, and loved ones.

I grew up online, and one of my early programming mentors was someone I never met in person. I would sneak out of my bed at night, fire up AOL, and chat about coding and websites. I only ever knew him by his handle, Chip.

I discovered several years later that he passed away in a car accident. Despite never even knowing his real name, it was a profound—and confusing—moment of loss and sadness. The bonds that form from online relationships are real.

Also, I’d like to point out WP&UP, an organization that supports and promotes positive mental health within the WordPress community. If you’re looking for support right now or in the future, it’s a great place to start.

Footnotes and Plugs

WordCamp Seattle & WordCamp Dallas/Fortworth

The Beaver Builder team is hitting the road this weekend! Brent will be attending and speaking at WordCamp – Dallas / FortWorth doing a session called “CSS Jam Session.” Don’t miss it.

Robby McCullough will be at WordCamp Seattle–not speaking–but looking for hearty handshakes and fellow beer drinking enthusiasts. 🍻

We’ll both have stickers on hand. Find us and say hi!

Can it be done with Beaver Builder?

Tickyboom Design has been creating a fantastic video series called, “Can it be done with Beaver Builder?” Over the 19 episodes, Tim picks various well-known landing pages and design standards and answers whether they can be recreated with Beaver Builder. It’s a great series with lots of tips and tricks sprinkled over some genuinely entertaining content. Thanks, Tim!

Landing Pages with Beaver Builder by Chris Lema

Justin and I recently returned from our favorite business event of the year, CaboPress. It’s an intimate, business-focused conference hosted in Cabo by Mr. Chris Lema. We’ve been fortunate to attend several years in a row now, and each year, we leave feeling fresh and inspired. Chris, as part of his role at Liquid Web, recently published a fantastic video tutorial on building landing pages with Beaver Builder. Definitely worth a watch. Thanks, Chris!

WP Builds Interview with Matt Mullenweg

Many of you have likely heard of the WP Builds podcast. A few Beaver Builder regulars do it. By the time this is published, their interview with Matt Mullenweg should be live. I got a few insights into some questions and answers, and it sounds like it will be an excellent episode!

WPMU Dev Partnership

I wanted to give a tip of the hat to some friends over at WPMU DEV. We had the opportunity to talk shop with some of the crew when Justin and I were at WordCamp London. The result of all is a partnership where we’re offering reciprocal discounts to each other’s customers. They are real go-getters over there, so their discount is live already, but we’re planning to offer a similar discount to all of you soon. Stay tuned.

What’s your favorite new Beaver Builder content?

As mentioned before, the blog has been quiet, and I’m afraid we might have missed some great content. Please, please leave a comment with a link to anything Beaver Builder related that you’ve enjoyed or found helpful. Also, if you haven’t already, feel free to pop by the Beaver Builders’ Facebook Group and share it there as well.

With that, we’ll see you next time around. As always, thanks for your support and being part of the Beaver Builder community.