Beaver Builder

It’s Heating Up – July Update

Robby McCullough - July 13, 2016

Hi there! It’s been a little while. Hope you’re having a great summer. It’s time for our July update!

This month, there are a couple of introductions to make, some news to share, and we wanted to chat a bit about the 3rd party ecosystem that’s brewing around Beaver Builder. Grab a cool beverage, pull up a comfy chair, and let’s get into it!

What Happened to June?

First things first, I apologize. I skipped the June update again this year. I took my annual technology purge and spent a week camping in the mountains at a music festival. I didn’t have access to my phone or an internet connection and it was wonderfully refreshing! I never realize how compulsive I am about checking my email, fantasy baseball, Facebook, etc. until I turn them all off for a while.

While disconnecting was great, things are moving quick this year and I got a bit behind. Sorry about that. We’ll consider June the “cheat month.” 🙂

3rd Party Ecosystem

Back in March, we talked about a few of the fledgling 3rd party Beaver Builder add-ons that were popping up. Since then, there’s been an explosion of new products and extensions for Beaver Builder. We’re thrilled! It’s really exciting to see this ecosystem develop.

With all of the options out there, we thought it would be good to start thinking about some best practices both for 3rd party users and developers. We’re hoping to publish some guidelines for developers and work out a way to showcase and vet extensions and add-ons for users.

For now, considering the Beaver Builder ecosystem is less than 6 months old, we’re all early adopters. It’s not unlikely that some of these products and companies may have bugs or support hiccups. It should be expected. Because of this, it would be wise to take the same caution when picking add-ons that one would take when picking WordPress plugins.

The Team is Growing

nancy

Nancy Hildebrandt

I’m super excited to introduce Nancy Hildebrandt! In May, we mentioned some plans to rework our Knowledge Base and Nancy has been leading that charge. She has an extensive background in writing and in academia. Nancy currently resides in Oregon and runs Simple Storefronts, a boutique web agency for small businesses. After reading about our plan to improve the Knowledge Base, Nancy contacted us with some advice and offered a helping hand. We’re thrilled to have her and we’ll be unveiling the new Knowledge Base very soon!

brent

Brent Jett

This introduction is long overdue, Brent Jett is a long-time friend, Beaver Builder user, and active member of the community. Along with all that, he’s been doing various design and UI odd jobs here for several months now. Brent’s a very talented designer/developer and is currently working on some user interface concepts for Beaver Builder! His full-time gig is with Nehmedia, a digital marketing agency. Brent is a proud beagle owner and he lives in Austin, Texas.

A Look Into the Future

Now that 1.8 is out in the wild and things have settled down (a bit), it’s about time to talk about what’s next. One of our goals over the next several months is to grow and guide the developing ecosystem and possibly participate ourselves! We’ve been steadily adding more and more features for developers and folks who want to extend or integrate Beaver Builder. As we alluded to above with the introductions—along with the ongoing enhancements, bug fixes, etc.—we have a few fun projects brewing, too.

Theme Template Builder

All the time we hear folks ask if they can style all of their blog posts with Beaver Builder or all of their product pages. We’re excited to announce ground has been broken on a theme template builder! The idea is you’ll be able to build templates and apply them to any number of posts or custom post types.

UI Refresh

In exploring the template builder, we’ve also been exploring some UI changes. We’ll be approaching any changes to the Beaver Builder UI very delicately and our hope is to get feedback as early as possible. That said, we have some design comps and videos to share very soon!

Knowledge Base Update

Another project that we’re just about to roll out is the new Knowledge Base format. With Nancy’s help, we took all of the information from the old knowledge base and restructured it so it’s (hopefully) much easier to search and navigate. Next, we’re planning to dig through the old support forums and create help articles from the popular posts. Keep an eye peeled as we’ll be launching the new KB for feedback soon as well.

Footnotes

I am going try a new style, inspired by the Post Status Notes format, and rattle off a few plugs, mentions and news tidbits here…

WP Chick Podcast

Billy, Justin and I all joined Kim Doyal on the WP Chick Podcast for a follow-up chat. Our original podcast with Kim was one of the first ones we ever recorded, so it was a blast to talk with her again and catch up!

Imagely Podcast

Just last week I had the chance to chat with Scott and Rachel from Imagely’s WordPress Photograph Podcast. FastLine Media has a long history in the photography space and we got to explore a bit on that.Thanks Imagely!

Sacramento WordPress Meetup

On September 6th, Justin is going to be speaking at the Sacramento WordPress Meetup. I believe all three of us will be there, so if you’re in the area, be sure to come by and say hello!

GoDaddy Blog Post

I wrote up a little post for the GoDaddy Garage Blog. My first post there was about our transition from working in an office to working remotely. This time, I wrote a bit about how to perform a website analysis before doing a redesign. Thanks so much for the opportunity, GoDaddy! <3

Toolset Views & Beaver Builder Integration

The team over at Toolset has been working on integrating Beaver Builder with their Views plugin. The feature is now in beta and you can read about it on their update blog post.

A New Video from Dynamik Beaver

After a minor hiatus, the Dynamik Beaver published a new post and video reviewing the Ultimate Addons Extension.

CB Custom Modules

Last, but certainly not least, our friend Brian Coords released a free suite of Beaver Builder custom modules. It includes “an elegant suite of modules meant to highlight photography with smooth animations, subtle interactions, and hover effects.”

In Closing

Well, that about does it! We covered a lot of ground and we’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Thanks as always for your support. Until next time. 🖐🏼

28 Comments

andrewpeters on July 13, 2016 at 11:44 am

I got ridiculously excited about the ability to use templates applied to blogs. I’d love to see the ability to add the featured image to the background with the Title and other meta data on top of it as one of those options.

I hope the theme itself gets some love soon, especially with header options that don’t require code. 🙂
- Robby McCullough on July 20, 2016 at 9:47 am
  
  Thanks Andrew! We appreciate the feedback. I think the style you’re describing will be possible.
  - Jancy on December 6, 2016 at 5:55 am
    
    Superb!
Tyler on July 13, 2016 at 12:12 pm

Love 1.8! It’d be great to see a future version that brings all the basics to frontend (title, permalink, etc), like the Ultimate Add-on plugin.

Keep up the great work and I can’t wait for the theme template builder!
- Robby McCullough on July 20, 2016 at 9:55 am
  
  Thanks Tyler! 🙂
Chantal Edouard-Betsy on July 13, 2016 at 12:28 pm

SOOOOO excited about theme builder templates! Going to be a challenge in patience waiting for it 😊 Thrilled at the speed and direction BB is going in! Yay for us early adopters 😊
- Robby McCullough on July 20, 2016 at 9:56 am
  
  Hey Chantal! Thank you. 🙂 We’re really excited that the idea is turning into something tangible. We’re thrilled to share more soon!
Colin on July 13, 2016 at 3:05 pm

It’s great to hear from you, Robby. We missed you mate.

First of all, congratulations to Nancy and Brent for joining the team. I think you’ll both bring a ton of extra value to the Beaver Builder team.

Secondly, how frikkin’ exciting it is to hear about the Theme Template Builder? That’s going to add a whole new level to our BB Toolbox.

Speaking of new levels in the toolbox, the guys over at Beaver Addons and Brainstorm Force have really been rocking it while you’ve been away. Both teams have stepped up with some excellent new modules that bring some cool extra functionality to Beaver Builder. As you’ve noticed, I’ve started to introduce them over on my blog. I’ll be reviewing a lot more of those modules in the next few weeks.

And yes, I’m back blogging about Beaver Builder. It feels great to be back in the community. There are so many new faces and so much more going on, which is awesome to see. I know we talked about it, but with Beaver Builder so deeply planted in my heart and having you guys as awesome friends, I just had to get myself back:-)

You are really getting yourself around this year. I’m enjoying all of your guest posts and interviews eeverywhere, by the way. I remember how nervous and newbie you guys were on your first interview with Kim. Just finished listening to the latest and it’s great to hear you more comfortable and confident telling great stories.

Looking forward to lots more good things ahead, especially as we’ll be having a beer together in a couple of weeks!

Cheers for now,

Colin

P.S. Thanks very much for the mention by way:-)
- Robby McCullough on July 20, 2016 at 10:55 am
  
  Hey Colin! Thanks so much for the comment and the kind words. I vividly remember that first podcast with Kim, haha! Looking forward to seeing you, too!! 🙂
Athlone on July 14, 2016 at 12:15 am

Awesome to hear about the Theme Template Builder! Thank you Robby and the guys at BB!
- Robby McCullough on July 20, 2016 at 10:59 am
  
  Thanks for the comment! 🙂
Roy Randolph on July 14, 2016 at 10:10 am

Robby, the Theme Template Builder sounds very intriguing. Will certainly stay on top of that as news is releases.

And it is very exciting to here how the ecosystem is building for BeaverBuilder.

You guys are doing good work, keep it going.
- Robby McCullough on July 20, 2016 at 11:12 am
  
  We’ll have more to share very soon!
JJ on July 14, 2016 at 10:48 am

BB has been a true asset to my digital toolbox! The flexibility of all the new design features make it fun to designs sites again and it now allows me to free up billing time for consulting projects. Best investment in my business by far!
- Robby McCullough on July 20, 2016 at 10:59 am
  
  Great to hear! Thank you!
Jon on July 14, 2016 at 11:09 am

Robby,
Great stuff!
When will the 3rd party add-ons be available (Is this the Eco-system?)
Thanks
J
- Robby McCullough on July 20, 2016 at 11:01 am
  
  Hey Jon. This is in reference to the several Beaver Builder extensions and add-ons available now. You can see them on the bottom of our Recommended Resources page.
Nick Currie on July 14, 2016 at 3:43 pm

Hey Robby & co,

Thanks for the update – all good stuff 🙂

Just a thought re managing the 3rd party eco system… from my POV (agency subscriber), obtaining plugins/add ons etc with minimum fuss and risk is a high priority. I would love to see a BB (or certified community??) moderated ‘market place’ for module add ons. Personally I would pay a subscription to have access!! Or perhaps it could just be bundled in the Agency package. We can already see this eco system is going to grow fast, so whilst providing support with best practice documentation etc will be invaluable to the developers, a rigidly screened market place will be equally invaluable to agencies IMHO 😀

I’m a happy Beaver boys… love your work!!
Nick
- Robby McCullough on July 20, 2016 at 11:16 am
  
  Nick, yes, totally agree. We’re figuring out the “how” but some sort of moderated resource is exactly what we’d like to have. Thanks for the feedback. It’s much appreciated!
David Waumsley on July 14, 2016 at 9:22 pm

It’s never a waste of time coming to this blog. Andrew Peters said it all for me on the Theme Template Builder (Wow!) and headers. Great to see Nancy and Brent joining. Both recognizable faces.

I feel like a normal year of WP advancements are getting squashed in to a typical BB week at the moment. My head is spinning.

Of course, I love the shout out to Dynamik Beaver… and heck just about everything else. Better go now before I start sounding like 12 year Justin Bieber fan.
- Robby McCullough on July 20, 2016 at 11:17 am
  
  Hehe. Appreciate the comment, David. Good to see you.
Paul on July 15, 2016 at 1:38 am

I really dig what you guys are doing and I love Beaver Builder, you’ve mentioned additional addons, I wondered if there was any intention but yourselves or others that you know of to integrate better with WooCommerce?
- Robby McCullough on July 20, 2016 at 11:24 am
  
  The Theme Builder will hopefully make the Beaver Builder + WooCommerce combo much more powerful!
Geoffrey Gordon on July 15, 2016 at 3:48 am

Excited about the template builder. I just want to say you guys are awesome, your product makes my job so much easier, it has cut project times in half and impressed my clients hugely. I am a fan for life. 🙂
- Robby McCullough on July 20, 2016 at 11:24 am
  
  So glad to hear it! Thanks for the message. We really appreciate it! 🙂
marlonlamancio on July 15, 2016 at 8:13 am

It’s exciting to be part of this movement and growing ecosystem! Love to hear about the three main focus areas, I think this the way to go. Theme Template Builder will make BB a more complete design system! UI refresh would be awesome for our clients and users, I love what David did (https://www.facebook.com/100010857823991/videos/259446521093940/) a much better UI/UX. Knowledge Base update will be really helpful since ecosystem and third party addons are growing, and for us, developers, to understand BB better.

But I miss news and more discussions about a feature that many desire, and that will put BB on the edge of near perfection. Ta-da! Columns inside columns!

I understand the problem with this as you said in https://wpbeaverbuilder.uservoice.com/forums/270594-general/suggestions/6694111-columns-inside-columns

“Being able to nest columns and modules deeper than currently possible creates a lot of tricky UI problems.”

I just like to know where we stand with this issue, if you want to implement this in the future, any prediction, any news regarding is welcome.

Maybe Theme Template Builder will replace this feature?

Best regards!
Murray on July 17, 2016 at 4:19 pm

Just wanted to drop a note to say that you guys are awesome! Keep up the good work.
- Robby McCullough on July 20, 2016 at 11:18 am
  
  Thanks, Murray! Will do. 🙂