Beaver Builder

March Update – This One’s for You

Robby McCullough - March 17, 2016

Hi there! Happy March and happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Welcome to our monthly update. The title of this month’s post is, “This One’s for You.” I’m sure you might be curious what that means. Let me first start with a quick story…

Many of your are likely familiar with Chris Lema. He writes a great blog and he’s taken on a bit of a coaching/mentoring role for us.

The coaching role started when Justin and I decided to attend an event called CaboPress.

cabopress

Here we are aboard a pirate ship, drinking, dancing, and pillaging our way through the Pacific Ocean.

Sometimes I refer to my experience at CaboPress as an MBA in a week. I can’t begin to express how much we learned there.

Long story short, we’re doing another coaching group with Chris and a few other WordPress companies.

What We’ve Been Doing Wrong…

During our last call, Chris brought up a very good point. He said (and I’m paraphrasing my interpretation), “most of your blog posts and communication is all about you. Your milestones. Podcasts you’ve been on. Cabo coaching vacations you’ve attended. And you’re doing it WRONG. You need to make it about your customers.”

I had an epiphany. He was totally right! Our monthly update posts are almost entirely about us.

So, this blog post isn’t going to be about us, it’s going to be about you. The things we’re working on to help you: our customers!

The Beaver Builder Ecosystem is Growing

As our team keeps growing (and I’ll have some big news on that next month), the Beaver Builder ecosystem is growing too.

Hopefully, this is no surprise, but there are several 3rd party shops selling Beaver Builder modules, themes, and templates! It’s really cool. Beaver Builder is transforming into a platform.

With several 3rd party stores and extensions, Beaver Builder is transforming into a platform. Share on X

Here’s a quick overview of some of the shops and offerings available. Hopefully, these might be able to save you some time on your next project (full disclosure: a few of these are affiliate links, so we’ll get a little kick back if you decide to sign up):

Beaver Lodge

Jon Mather of the Beaver Lodge has blazed the path for 3rd party shops. Jon’s been developing modules for Beaver Builder and, at the last count, he has over 30 modules available!

If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “Gee, I wish there was an X module I could use,” there’s a really good chance Jon’s already built it.

The Beaver Lodge plugin includes a Table Module, Hover Card Module, Tooltip Module, Facebook Module, Instagram Module, and many more. Along with those, he recently launched very popular property listing / real estate add-on for Beaver Builder. If you’re creating a website for a realtor or someone in the real estate business, be sure to have a look. Update: It appears the property listing add-on is no longer available.

beaver-videos-template

Beaver Builder Videos

Next up is Beaver Builder videos by yet another friend of the company named Jon! Ha!

This time, it’s Jon Perez of Sure Fire Web Services.

Along with a great collection of tutorial videos, Jon recently released several Beaver Builder Landing Page templates. Not only are these templates gorgeous, but they’re designed to increase conversions for things like newsletters, webinars, and online courses.

~~If you’re looking for conversion focused landing page templates, check out Beaver Builder Videos.~~ *Update 2022: Beaver Builder Videos is no longer active.

Beaver Child Themes

Similar to Beaver Builder Videos, Beaver Child Themes (as the name implies) is creating pre-styled child themes to go along with the Beaver Builder Theme. *Update 2022: Beaver Builder Child Themes is now called Beaver Brains.

They’ve created several stunning landing pages designs, too, like the restaurant-focused home page above.

Are You planning a Beaver Builder Shop?

If you are, please, get in touch with us. We’d love to get to know you and help you promote your products.

Also, be sure to check out this Facebook post in the Beaver Builders Facebook Group on some of the guidelines we’re asking 3rd parties to follow.

Beaver Builder Theme Update (v1.5)

If you’ve been around for a bit, you’ve hopefully noticed that we take user feedback very seriously. A big portion of the features we implement have come directly from your feedback.

I’m thrilled to announce that we just launched an update to the Beaver Builder Theme based on TONs of your suggestions.

WfJgHbpxLN

Quickly, we added several new header and navigation options including vertical navigation, a snazzy new fixed header animation, and an option to hide the header until the user scrolls down the page! We also added a mega menu option and some fancy new customizer controls.

Have a look at the Beaver Builder Theme v1.5 Blog Post for more information.

If you’ve only got the Standard Package, this would be an excellent time to upgrade.

You can do this from your My Account Page, and you’ll only pay a prorated rate based on how much time is left in your year of updates.

How is this all about me?

Okay, I get it. I said this blog post was going to be about you and here I am pitching our theme update.

Well, we’ve heard from a few different sources that we should slow down. We should be investing in growing our product and not adding new features for our existing customers. I guess I can understand that advice, but I don’t really believe in it.

I truly believe the reason Beaver Builder keeps growing is because we’re focusing on you and ways we can make your life easier. We’re glad to reinvest and double down on you, the community that’s making all this happen.

Thanks for telling people about Beaver Builder.

Thanks for participating in our community groups.

Thanks for leaving us reviews on WordPress.org.

Thanks for giving us a link back in your footer.

We’ll be able to continue “scratching your backs” if you continue scratching ours.

Let’s Talk Support

Have you used our support system?

I ask because we’re doing some behind the scenes work to overhaul our support. Support is an area that we’re also heavily reinvesting in because we know how important it is to you.

If you visit the reviews section on our newly revamped WordPress.org page, you’ll see that support is one area that many people give us praises on (and thanks for all those nice reviews, too. They’re immensely helpful).

Nothing feels worse than having a crummy customer support experience from a company after you’ve already given them your money. We never want you to feel that way.

We’re Thinking About Moving Away from bbPress

Right now, we use a modified bbPress forum for support. We also recently started doing email support using a system called HelpScout, and we’re thinking of phasing out the forums in favor of HelpScout.

bbPress has worked fairly well, but it’s not ideal.

While there is an inherent community vibe in the support forum, we’re hoping that the Beaver Builders Facebook Group and Slack Channel will be a better venue for community discussion.

I mention this because we don’t want to ruffle any feathers when we make the switch. If you’re a big fan of the forum, please let us know! Either leave a comment or shoot us an email.

What’s your least favorite thing about Beaver Builder?

In closing here, last month we asked, “What’s your favorite thing about Beaver Builder.” The goal of that question wasn’t to bask in our glory (okay, maybe just a little), but to learn more about how and why you’re using Beaver Builder. It was an effort to make the product better for you.

With hindsight, a better question might have been: “What’s your least favorite thing about Beaver Builder?”

We’d love to know what areas you think we can improve on. We’re not looking for feature requests, but for potential blind spots or areas that we might be overlooking.

Please, don’t be shy. Let us have it. Either in the comments or via our contact form, we’d love to hear about what your pain points are. This could be about our plugin, theme (here’s that upgrade link again for ya), our support system, our storefront.

As always, thanks for your support and we’ll see you next month.

57 Comments

Rafael Gama on March 17, 2016 at 2:59 pm

Fantastic Hobby! Beaver Builder will dominate the world you’ll see !. Note 10 to you, but could release an update with new native templates for Beaver Builder.
- Robby McCullough on March 17, 2016 at 3:47 pm
  
  Thanks Rafael! =)
  
  Our goal is to release new templates in the next plugin update!
  - rcgama on March 17, 2016 at 4:06 pm
    
    And what is the prediction for the next update?
    - Robby McCullough on March 18, 2016 at 7:14 am
      
      I’m afraid we don’t have an timeline for that yet. I’ll try to pop back in here and respond when we do, though!
George on March 17, 2016 at 4:13 pm

I would love to see meta data options built intothe theme, specifically Title and Description, (think Genesis).
Micah on March 17, 2016 at 4:19 pm

I’m getting a 404 on that Beaver Builder Videos link.
- Robby McCullough on March 17, 2016 at 4:45 pm
  
  Thanks Micah! That was my bad. It should be all fixed now.
Sean on March 17, 2016 at 5:24 pm

Least favourite thing? Having to click my way into settings to apply the same set of settings and styling options time and time again.

I probably could solve this in many cases by using classes more frequently, but it would be nice to set more default styling options. What I find myself doing a lot of the time is copying modules or rows, and then modifying the content, but this doesn’t help when I want the same styling options applied to different module types, or across different pages (without saving the row or module).

Not sure if the solution is here is to be able to define more default settings/options, be able to copy settings/options (like copying layer styles in Photoshop) or something else completely different.

Oh, and one other small one, let the modal windows be resizeable by the user. The text editor can be frustratingly small at times (better yet would be an option to enter the text editor without a modal window at all, and just let me edit directly).

Despite all this, love your work, including how much easier you make my work with BB!
- davidlab on March 18, 2016 at 3:59 am
  
  Hi Sean, I made a small plugin that might help you with the modal resizing. You can check it out here…http://beaver.press/downloads/resizer/
  - Nancy on March 18, 2016 at 1:36 pm
    
    Oh yay thank you!!!
  - Nancy on March 18, 2016 at 1:40 pm
    
    Would sure love some kind of undo capability, even if it’s only the very last thing I deleted, for starters. Sometimes user error just creeps in there.
    - Robby McCullough on March 21, 2016 at 11:33 am
      
      Thanks for the feedback, Nancy! This has come up a few times, and it’s a feature we’re definitely exploring. 🙂
- Robby McCullough on March 21, 2016 at 11:34 am
  
  Thanks, Sean! The “reusable styles” problem is a tricky one, but we’ll keep it in mind!
Erwin Francis on March 17, 2016 at 6:05 pm

First off, I love using BB A LOT! My least favorite thing is that it’s does not support Twitter Bootstrap or does it? Not sure I may be wrong. I would love to have better responsive display options. Also, I think having responsive support for paddings, margins and borders would be good and make these options available for all modules even just for text. Lastly, I love BB! Really, more power guys and keep up the great work!
- Robby McCullough on March 21, 2016 at 12:44 pm
  
  Hey Erwin! Good question. The Beaver Builder Theme uses Bootstrap, but the page builder does not. We based our grid system off of Bootstrap’s, but we made a few modifications and changed the namespace to avoid conflicts.
Stephanie on March 17, 2016 at 6:13 pm

Thanks BB Team for all the work you do! Your product has completely transformed my budding web development business and made it a joy for me to build sites and train my clients.

I feel so proud to reveal to clients how easy their new backends are to use and I’ve just started dabbling with making my own modules to enhance the overall user experience for them.

Currently I feel jazzed and excited to be along for the ride as you continue to develop the suite of tools you offer and I truly believe this is the best builder I’ve tried by far.

My least favorite thing at the moment is not having a way to integrate custom fields into the builder in an easier way. I use the WP-Toolset Types and Views plugins and I frequently create custom post types and fields. I wish I could easily build single custom post page templates by pulling custom fields onto the page and having their content display automatically. My ultimate dream would be to be able to edit the content of custom fields both in the backend editor and in BeaverBuilder and have the content stay in sync. At the moment, this would require building custom modules for each custom field and is too much work for me to do for my various clients.

I believe that things will only continue to get better and I am excited about what you and your partners have in store.

Glad to be on board!
Matt on March 17, 2016 at 7:14 pm

Love the forum. Please keep it. My only suggestion would be to upgrade to more robust forum software, e.g. IP Board, Discourse. Something with better search facilities.
Aithene on March 17, 2016 at 7:19 pm

First of all, LOVE Beaver Builder, but totally get the question about the thing I like least. You items look like buttons. There’s what appears to be a highlighted area on the page available. I open the content slider, choose a module I want, click it, and the whole thing closes on me. Sigh.

I’m a short-time user, and so I’m guessing that maybe I’m not the only one where the right way to handle this hasn’t been ingrained in me. I realize that the icon has changed to the 4 way arrows, but I’m wondering if perhaps:

a) the modules could have a ‘grip’ texture or graphic applied to it so that it appears to be draggable

and/or

b) an alternate behavior would have the modules ‘stick’ to the cursor on single-click, and release on a second click in place.

Anyway, that’s my thought. Thanks for the Beaver Lodge link. Heading over now to see if I can find more goodies.
Simon Kelly on March 17, 2016 at 8:06 pm

Great stuff as always! Loving the new marketplace vibe that’s going on, it’s great the others can contribute to the community and grow BB even further.

What I don’t like about BB is:
– Updates breaking things (more of a fear than a reality and you guys are super quick to fix things up)
– Getting so many features and modules that it’s hard to use, slow and bloated
– More page templates would be great
– Page template marketplace to download and import different templates (I’d LOVE to contribute to this!)
Morgan Tuttle on March 17, 2016 at 9:13 pm

Please keep your forums up on this site. I didn’t know about the Facebook group, so I just applied to join that, but I do enjoy coming onto this forum and reading up on problems/solutions, suggestions and showcase. I’m kind of afraid that if you close the forums and do ticket support only, there will be a bit of a disconnect. I’m reminded of a wonderful web app called Pancake Apps which is an invoicing/project management system which used to have a nice forums where people posted about problems and their own solutions and you can see the developers involvement in the growth of the software. But then they switched to ticket support only and closed the forums, and it feels like the software has lost it’s excitement and momentum. They of course still push out updates to fix bugs and bring small new features here and there, but that excitement for the product is completely lost.

Maybe I’m just a bit old school in that regard, but I like seeing all the involvement from the developers and their staff, as well as the people who use the software. If I have a small problem, I check the forums first to see if someone else had the same problem and fixed it before I will put in a support request.

My mind could totally be changed once I get accepted into the Facebook group and I see lots of involvement there. 🙂

I love Beaver Builder and have been working on several projects I hope to share here sometime in the near future!
Nick on March 17, 2016 at 10:07 pm

Yes, what Sean said about the text editor is my least favorite thing about BB. too small, and clunky scrolling make me very frustrated very often. Thanks!
DavidDavid on March 17, 2016 at 11:39 pm

Hi Guys,

(1) Please keep this Forum going. It’s exciting, friendly and a powerful support tool. Thanks

(2) Enable true WYSIWYG “live” edit on the screen/page in real-time – no more Modal windows! Woohoo…

(3) CSS/Formatting tabs (line height – font – margins – padding – colours – etc) along the bottom of the screen

Items (2) and (3) would elevate BB from “among the best” page builders to the “very best” page builder – no contest! Whoot!

Thanks Guys – You have a brilliant product (yes – I have tried many other page builders), outstanding customer support, and more important than anything else – the right attitude – as BB “Agency” user, I could not be happier.
- Robby McCullough on March 28, 2016 at 2:23 pm
  
  Thanks David. Great feedback. We really appreciate it. =)
deargeek on March 18, 2016 at 1:27 am

I haven’t really needed support, other than asking a couple of questions on Facebook. But…

Please keep the forum, always like being able to find answers rather than having to ask the same thing that half a dozen people have asked already.

And a final request – add SVG support in the Photo module 🙂
- Jonathan on March 18, 2016 at 1:30 am
  
  And just to prove the value of the forums, I’ve just found the answer to my SVG request!
  - Robby McCullough on March 28, 2016 at 2:08 pm
    
    Haha! Thanks for the message, Jonathan! Glad you found a solution. 🙂
pairfum on March 18, 2016 at 2:23 am

Dear Robby,
Many thanks for these updates.
We would prefer the forum support over email only support, as we use the forums to search for solutions before we post a question. We would have to contact support more often, than we post a question on the forums.
Kind regards,
http://www.Pairfum.com
Kathryn on March 18, 2016 at 3:58 am

Hey guys, thanks for this update and I’m lovin’ the new additions to the menu options really nice to have these choices! Personally I like hearing your updates about what’s happening at BB HQ and what you guys are doing to improve the software, as part of the BB community I would rather know this than you focusing on what other individuals are doing ! I think what you guys do is different to Chris Lema so a different approach to customer interaction is ok. I love the forums, I have found many solutions to issues simply by searching – so not having to bother you guy! As a useful resource I would be disappointed to see that go.

The one thing I would like to see more of with BB is the addition of modules that are on-trend and brilliantly responsive and that I can simply add, when needed, to the plugin in an easy manner. I fear some of the modules may become dated as web design develops, there is a big shift to animation, hover boxes with big bold colours, multiple sized boxes in rows and BB could be left behind in the rush to support new trends emerging. Just a thought that has been growing recently as I see these sites pop up – not a criticism, as I love the freedom I have from BB and will continue to use it. I just hope more design and dev support from people like Jon (who works relentlessly hard to stay on top of the latest trends and deliver solutions) will continue to help BB flourish and stay on top of the game. How about taking him on? That would be a win-win imho!! 😉
- Robby McCullough on March 28, 2016 at 2:04 pm
  
  Hey Kathryn. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. Much appreciated!
  
  You really hit the nail on the head regarding why we want to encourage a 3rd party ecosystem. Everyone has different tastes and web trends change quickly. We’re hoping that more people developing for Beaver Beaver will lead to more great options and choices for building sites. We’re still working on core modules, but we also love the idea of having niche modules available as add-ons so we can keep the core plugin from getting overcomplicated and bloated.
Joe on March 18, 2016 at 4:22 am

What’s my least favorite thing? The fact that in the text-editor you cannot stretch the window a bit bigger – why on earth would that be considered a good idea to stop this being resizable? It makes editing text a PITA. Looks like I’m not the only one! 🙂
- Robby McCullough on March 28, 2016 at 10:20 am
  
  Hey, Joe! I’m starting to feel like a broken record here, but thanks for the feedback. We appreciate it. Check out this link here, BeaverPress has a freebie add-on that will allow you to resize our modal windows:
  
  http://beaver.press/downloads/resizer/
  
  I think that should work for ya!
Robby McCullough on March 18, 2016 at 7:16 am

Hey everyone! Thanks so much for all the feedback. I am traveling today, but I will pop back in here and respond ASAP. There’s already some really helpful information here. Looking forward to going through it in more detail.
Pam BlizzardPam on March 18, 2016 at 7:43 am

New user here, but not new to Page Builders, I’ve been looking for the Holy Grail for quite some time, and BB is the closest to it!

What’s missing? One word: WooCommerce.

Yes, I know I can put WC short codes here and there to build my own product page template, but I’m selfish, I want more control. There’s a few product addons out there that allow you to (cough) visually compose a product page, but I want fine control over where every pixel goes, control over the size of the product pictures, and where every function is placed on a page.

It’s against my nature to just complain, so please accept my 😀 as well.
- Robby McCullough on March 28, 2016 at 10:13 am
  
  Hi Pam. Good feedback, thanks! I believe this suggestion is on our User Voice page here: https://wpbeaverbuilder.uservoice.com/forums/270594-general/suggestions/12268527-to-be-able-to-edit-woocommerce-product-pages
  
  If you have a sec, please do give it a few votes to help move it up the list. =) Thanks again.
Ed Stutzman on March 18, 2016 at 7:50 am

Puhleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze, SAVE THE FORUMS!

To me, ticketed email support is perfect for inclusion as a part of the licensing cost. Free and Paid Users would have access to the Forums while only Paid Users would have access to the additional ticketed email support.

The community that has already been created is fantastic and is paying many dividends for a lot of people. Most of which will always check a forum before submitting a private ticket.

I just read a post yesterday at UltimateMember that had a great comment from a gentleman named Charles Como. He sums up the entire forum vs. ticketed email support perfectly.

I hope you get a chance to read what he says: https://ultimatemember.com/2015-year-review/

Note: I’m not specifically endorsing their plugin, although it seems to be well liked. Personally, I’m much more excited about the community plugin available at peepso.com

In the end, my main wish is that service level expectations are clear for each support type(s) you offer and at what price(s), if any. From there, everyone would be able to select the level of access they need to support their businesses, even if it means paying for it.

BeaverBuilder is definitely a critical tool for success for anyone building sites with WordPress. Knowing you’re asking for feedback on an important topic, like support, so you can make an informed decision is yet another reason you all have been so successful.

Great work, everybody!

Ed
- Robby McCullough on March 28, 2016 at 10:11 am
  
  Ed, we really appreciate the detailed feedback and the kind words. Thanks so much for taking the time to write this out. I think that’s a great idea/approach. I believe I mentioned this before, but we’re definitely rethinking how we approach this after hearing everyone’s thoughts.
Rod Barbee on March 18, 2016 at 9:25 am

One more forum fan here. I learn a lot from browsing the forums and nearly always find any answers I need there.
And I enjoy the sense of community a forum can bring. So please keep it!
Bob on March 18, 2016 at 1:01 pm

I love the developer-friendly standard licensing price and terms. However, I’d like to know that if someday I leave the business my customers will be able to continue to receive updates for their sites at a price they consider reasonable. So I’d like to see a single-site price made available.
- Robby McCullough on March 28, 2016 at 2:21 pm
  
  Thanks, Bob. Agreed. This is a problem we’re actively looking for a good way to solve. Thanks!
Norm on March 18, 2016 at 5:13 pm

I can’t speak for the support system that you are thinking of going to, but FORUM, FORUM, FORUM!!! There are so many times that I need to look for anyone else having an issue the same as me. Case in point was the recent 1.5 theme update and the inability to register a site license. Quick search on the forum uncovered other people having the same problem so I just notched into one of those and waited for the solution.

Oh, and I absolutely HATE facebook for trying to search and find information. It’s absolutely terrible for that so pu-leeze do not do support there. Keep it for some social updates that we won’t care about in 10 days.
- Robby McCullough on March 26, 2016 at 11:29 am
  
  Good to know, Norm. Noted. Thanks for taking the time to let us know.
Terry Herbert on March 21, 2016 at 2:36 am

Every time that I try to use the Blog widget to put my blog into my page it just will not work? the line just keeps going all the time.. This was all working fine, but think that since updating the Tesseract theme the Blog went missing and now not able to put back…
- Robby McCullough on March 21, 2016 at 11:35 am
  
  Hi Terry. The blog module in the tesseract theme is not part of the our core plugin, so you’ll need to bring up any support requests with them. Sorry! Wish there was more we could help with there.
Tzaddi on March 21, 2016 at 11:29 am

+1 to some level of undo or version control within the Page Builder
+1 to keep forums for support because I often find the solution in other people’s threads

I’d also love the ability to use percentages for margins and padding of columns or modules (instead of px).
- Robby McCullough on March 26, 2016 at 11:28 am
  
  Thanks Tzaddi! We do leverage the WordPress revision system so you can roll back to previous versions of a page.
Mel on March 21, 2016 at 11:37 am

Lack of options for responsive headers. Why can I only pick an alternate image for content sliders. Would love that option for rows using background images too. Most of my website hero areas don’t use a slider.
- Robby McCullough on March 26, 2016 at 11:25 am
  
  Hey Mel! That’s a good one. Is that on user voice?
paul on March 21, 2016 at 12:46 pm

Please keep the forums or make an archive of them at least. There’s a feast of knowledge in there!
- Robby McCullough on March 26, 2016 at 9:24 am
  
  Thanks Paul. That’s the plan for sure. If we do make a change, we’ll slowly phase out the forums and be sure to keep them around.
Jason on March 28, 2016 at 3:55 am

+1 to keep the forums!!

Least favorite thing is having to move the modal window around a lot to see changes on the page (working on a small screen laptop)
- Robby McCullough on March 28, 2016 at 10:07 am
  
  Good to know, Jason! Thanks. =)
Mel Richards on March 28, 2016 at 8:22 pm

As much as I like the new features on the new theme, I can’t stand the sliders for selecting layout width or font sizes, etc. Wish I could just plugin the number straight into a field. Trying to get a round number for layout width is basically impossible!

Also wishing the individual headers allow to change fonts and colours too. I feel using the Easy Google Fonts plugin is a better option still.

I also tend to not use (de-register) the footer widgets area and create my own saved row because I don’t always want all the columns to be same width, and can’t even target each with css.
- Robby McCullough on March 31, 2016 at 9:09 am
  
  Thanks, Mel! Good feedback =) We appreciate it!
Mel Richards on March 28, 2016 at 8:23 pm

Oh and would love to have the option to choose % over px for size fields.
Thomas on March 30, 2016 at 9:01 am

Please keep the forums.
It´s a invaluable tool that give your costumers a chance to find a lot of the answers on their own.
Facebook is truly worthless as a support tool.
Jonathan on August 26, 2016 at 3:56 pm

What happened to the Properties add-on at Beaver Lodge? The link in the menu returns a 404. 🙁
- Robby McCullough on August 29, 2016 at 11:47 am
  
  Good question. It may have been bundled with one of the Beaver Lodge packages as opposed to being an add-on. I am afraid it may have been discontinued, though.