Beaver Builder 2.4 “O’Shaughnessy” – Free Version Update, New Modules, Assistant Integration
Assistant Integration
Over the last year, we've been working on a new project called Assistant. It's a free plugin to help navigate your WordPress site and handle quick tasks without needing to go to the WordPress Admin area.
With this update, when both plugins are installed, a new Assistant icon will appear in Beaver Builder's top bar giving access to all of Assistant's functionality! Reversely, a new option to toggle Beaver Builder is available on applicable pages in Assistant.
This addition has already removed countless page refreshes from my workflow. Now you can finally update a page's title and slug from the frontend. You can use any of Assistant's features like the labeling system, search, and media manager right alongside Beaver Builder. Learn more about Assistant here.
New Modules
Modules are the building blocks of any page. In O'Shaughnessy, we are adding 4 new modules; List, Button Group, Search, and Login. The Search and Login Modules are particularly useful when building site-wide headers and footers with Beaver Themer.
List Module
Lists in Beaver Builder have been available by entering markup in an HTML module. In 2.4, the new List Module makes it easy to create and style lists without dealing with any code. You can create regular, ordered, and unordered lists. List items can be styled and contain any combination of headings, icons, and rich text.
Button Group Module
Buttons on webpages like to come in twos. Yes/No. Enter/Exit. Previously, one could create multiple buttons in Beaver Builder and arrange them side by side using columns. The Button Group Module simplifies this design by allowing multiple buttons to be created using a single module. The buttons can then be arranged and styled as a group!
Search Module
The Search Module generates a search form that can be placed anywhere on a page. It uses WordPress' search functionality by default but can be customized or set to display search results in a pop-up window using AJAX (i.e. no page refresh).
Login Module
The Login Module generates a dynamic customizable login form anywhere on your page. When published, the form will change to a log out button if the user is already logged in. The form styling and redirect path are customizable as well.
Free Version Update
Users of Beaver Builder Lite, the free version of Beaver Builder that is available on the WordPress repo, are getting some new goodies in this update too. We're making more modules available in the free version and, for the first time, adding several pre-made page designs.
BB Lite Modules
The goal of this update is to make the free version of Beaver Builder a bit more usable and make it easier for anyone to publish a webpage. When we sat down to design templates for the free version, adding these three modules made the world of difference for creating practical pages.
- Button
- Heading
- Icon
These are the same modules available in premium versions of Beaver Builder. The Icon Module includes the Foundation and Font Awesome icon sets – it does not include the ability to upload custom icon sets.
BB Lite Templates
In another collaboration with our good friends at Dickiebirds Studios, we have about a dozen new templates for Beaver Builder Lite! We all know the struggle of starting from a blank page. These templates are designed to be functional, aesthetic, and versatile. They can be a jumping-off point for a custom design or they can be lightly modified and used as-is.
Because the free version of Beaver Builder has a limited number of modules available, some of the designs feature placeholders where you can use other free plugins to fill in the gaps. All of the new templates will also be available in the premium versions of Beaver Builder.
Other Notable Changes
We started predominately using our community forum as an ongoing changelog and discussion thread during alpha and beta testing. As always, we'll publish a complete changelog here when 2.4 goes live.
- Link field searches now include attachments. Previously, if you wanted to link to a PDF, you had to copy the URL from the media library and paste it into a button link field. Now you can search for that PDF right in the link field.
- Row backgrounds can now use embed codes. Use HTML to embed videos from other sources or show sliders from other plugins using shortcodes.
- Added <main> as an option to row/column/module container tag options.
- When using layout shortcodes, we moved the CSS needed to the head instead of the body to avoid validation errors.
- The editor used for code editing has been updated.
Module Changes
- WooCommerce Module: Added ability to include specific category IDs and sort them.
- Video Module: The embed option now renders shortcodes. We added new options to show video in a lightbox, hide player settings, and sticky positioning along with various minor fixes.
- Subscribe Module: Added GroundHogg integration. GroundHogg WP Plugin required to use.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed form fields not showing correct responsive editing device
- Fixed row background custom position fields not toggling properly
- Fixed callout module links not properly showing as nofollow when selected
- Fixed callout link text alignment
- Fixed issues with responsive editing modals going full screen (Multisite and Autoptimize).
- Fixed MultiSite domain mapping causing responsive settings to go fullscreen
- Fixed Autoptimize aggregate CSS causing responsive settings to go fullscreen
- Fixed notice for alt tag displaying when using SlideShow module
- Fixed Import/Export not working with custom modules with _ in slug
Thanks a ton for all your help and inspiration for this release. From everyone on our team, we hope it finds you well and in good health.
Really great work you are doing! The integration of Assistant and also the new modules make the daily workflow with beaver Builder even better.
Now a decent slider or a carousel like Slick or Owl is the only thing i miss.
Awesome! Thanks for your continued work to keep Beaver Builder up to date while adding more functionality.
Glad to see the free version getting new modules. Should help in spreading the beaverness. Keep rocking!
With the new modules on the free version I think i can start building sites with just the free versions for clients that have quick projects. This is awesome.