Show HN: Free and open source page builder for WordPress | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Free and open source page builder for WordPress

gettailor.com

202 pointsandrewworsfold62 comments

There's a small bug when your screen isn't fully stretched open - the download for free falls behind the screenshot (see link below).

http://i.imgur.com/dtbCvDu.png

Do you have a sample site that was built using this plugin? And how does it handle css/styles? Does it create .css files or does it inject CSS directly in the DOM?

Looks really nice! Have you seen http://elementor.com/ and how does it compare to Tailor?

Thanks for pointing that out! Should've spent more time on the landing page ;) I like the idea of hosting a bunch of sample pages built using the plugin too. I'll get on that.

The plugin generates CSS based on the options end users select when configuring their elements. These rules are combined and added to the page in a separate stylesheet. When "Tailoring" a page, dynamic stylesheets are managed using JavaScript. It's also possible for developers to utilise media queries (thought that's probably a little off topic). I've got a little info about that on the Help Center: http://support.gettailor.com.

I know page builder plugins are a dime a dozen nowadays (both free and premium). The idea with this plugin is to simplify the process of creating layouts for users who want to use their favourite theme. It focusses more on usability rather than cramming as many "elements" in as possible. I'm also a big believer in WordPress' philosophy of "decisions not options" and the separation of concerns between plugins and themes; this plugin aims to try and strike the right balance between those things.

The result is (hopefully) something that does what it does and does it well out-of-the-box and can be easily extended by plugin and theme authors. I see this a key differentiator with Tailor.

To answer your question though: there are some obvious similarities between this and Elementor. A key difference is the role that content plays in Tailor (being the core element and something you can move around within the page in its own right). Elements typically contain and style content, with some (like carousels and tabs) utilising JavaScript to change the behaviour. You can pull content from a carousel, for example, into a hero section and have those style changes immediately take effect.

I hope that answers the question somewhat :)

Great, congrats!!!

Providentially, I was in the process of landing a WordPress dev + SEO/SMO job just around the time you were posting this. I am going to work on this over the weekend and will most certainly give Tailor a try and hopefully, have some feedback for you early next week.

Edit: Thus far, I've been a big fan of the SiteOrigin Page Builder so it would be interesting to see how Tailor stacks up.

Thanks! I look forward to hearing your feedback!

Congratulations on releasing - it looks very nice. Can you compare and contrast how it differs to others (e.g. Visual Composer) - how does it store the elements?

Thanks!

Element data (or models) are stored as meta data and the content generated by Tailor is saved as HTML within the post (with a few exceptions for dynamic elements that use shortcodes). The benefit to this ofcourse is that when you disable the plugin you're not left with shortcodes in the place of content. This is one way in which the plugin differs from something like Visual Composer.

Conceptually it's very similar to other plugins: drag and drop elements on the page, configure them to your liking. Differences I'm proud of are the way in which rows and columns work (drag elements to the left or right of an existing element), the primacy of content (see my other comment), the way templates are managed (saving, importing, exporting and adding to the page) and the revision history panel.

There's a lot more under the hood and a lot of time and effort has gone into it, so if you're interested I hope you'll check it out - it's free after all :D

> ...the content generated by Tailor is saved as HTML within the post (with a few exceptions for dynamic elements that use shortcodes)

So, does that means that if I don't use any of those shortcode-dependent elemensts, the pages/posts I build with Tailor will retain the full original design even when I disable (or altogether delete) the plug-in?

If so, you ARE my hero!!

(In case anyone is wondering why I would need to disable/delete the plug-in, the answer is speed/performance gain. With more and more people becoming aware of the site loading speed as one of the SEO factors and of tools like Google PageSpeed Insights/GTMetrix/Pingdom etc., I have been observing an increasing demand for loading speed optimization over the last year or so. IMO, the excessive importance people are attaching to the scores as reported by these services is blown a bit out of proportion, but that is possibly a topic for another thread.)

Content is maintained separate from the plugin, but Tailor does provide it's own set of minimal styles for elements. The main problem it solves it getting "locked in" to a plugin (i.e., being left with nothing but shortcodes when the plugin is disabled), but the element styles would no longer be applied when the plugin is disabled.

That's an interesting thought though and something I'll explore. If it can be achieved without hacking WordPress or introducing other issues then I will introduce it. One of the great things about Tailor at the moment is that it doesn't mess with WordPress and I haven't had to release a single maintenance release to support new versions of WordPress.

This looks really cool. A minor suggestion though. You might want to avoid a screenshot of the GH page on the site. This quickly becomes outdated. For example, the repo already has 4x more stars than the image shows :)

You can put a live widget for showing stars at https://buttons.github.io/

Thanks to both of you! I'll update the landing page based on your recommendations.

Hi all - given the timezone (I live in AU) my responses will probably slow down. Please go ahead and post any other questions or comments you have as it's been great to hear them and I will respond ASAP.

A little confused as to how this integrates with existing sites. Does it require usage of a new theme, or can you integrate it with your current theme? If integration is not possible, does it support plugins like WooCommerce?

Haven't installed it, but like similar plugins, it functions at the editor level for pages, posts, etc. So it should be compatible with most themes and WooCommerce.

Tailor works with any theme. Plugins like WooCommerce that do something specific (like ecommerce) can easily be supported. In fact, I have created a simple WooCommerce extension for Tailor (also free) for people who want to manage products.

Thank you for the information. A potential client of mine has an interest in WooCommerce and am looking at using Tailor, but I can not find any information on the Tailor-WooCommerce plugin. All I found was https://github.com/andrew-worsfold/tailor-woocommerce. Am I missing something on Wordpress's plugin directory?

That empty repo will be the WooCommerce extension, yes. It's simple at the moment, allowing products to be displayed using an element similar to the one that displays posts (i.e., all the usual options and ability to present them in a list, grid or carousel layout). I'll try and get that up on both GitHub and the WordPress plugin repository in the next day or two.

Also - if you have any ideas with respect to that WooCommerce plugin, drop me a line. Much like the plugin itself, the direction can be guided by those who are using it..

The initial version of the WooCommerce extension is now up in the GitHub repository. Shhhh!! It's still a secret and won't be in the WordPress plugin repository for a day or two ;)

Thank you! Looking forward to trying it out and hopefully will get a chance to contribute back to both projects!

That'd be awesome. Here's a (very) brief writeup of the element that this initial version of the extension provides if you're interested: https://medium.com/@tailorwp/drag-and-drop-your-way-to-an-on...

Is this simliar to Visual Composer? Seems like it takes it to the next step. I've been installing VC for customers for the past few months with much success, but would love to move to something OSS.

I've once done a bigger project with Visual Composer and hated every part of it. I bet the WP Community will rejoice if they get a better solution for this.

I'd love to know what the biggest issues you faced were. Easy of use (for both users and developers) is a key goal with this plugin. The decision to have portfolio and ecommerce (i.e., WooCommerce support) as separate free extensions is for this reason; not everyone needs or wants those things cluttering up the main plugin.

Sailing more or less in the same boat here. My weapon of choice has been the SiteOrigin Page Builder but I've found that in many/most cases, I end up doing at least some amount of css and/or even php/js/ajax level code customization, so eager to take Tailor for a test drive.

Please do. If you have any thoughts or suggestions, please let me know.

So a competitor for https://www.layerswp.com/ ?

I guess so. They both set out to achieve the same sort of goal, but obviously have slightly different approaches.

Looks nice, will probably try it out. (How) do you plan to monetize this? Looks very well rounded for an open source side project.

I might consider releasing a paid extension or two, depending on demand. Perhaps a theme that really makes the most of Tailor's feature set (though to be honest I'd probably just end up releasing that for free too :P). It's important to note though that Tailor itself is and always will be free and features will never be removed. In fact it will only get better with time.

I think it is odd that the title has the string "free and open source" prepended to it. It seems like that isn't the primary feature.

A lot of Wordpress stuff out there is premium and rather expensive, so to see quality Wordpress tools that are free is indeed an important feature. Most free Wordpress stuff is ugly and useless (except for Wordpress itself, of course).

In the WordPress world, it seems that "free" carries a lot more weight than "open source". While there are many who care, there's also a ton of folks making a living (or just running their own website) by connecting together plugins. I'd make "open source" a bullet point, not a title-level feature.

I agree. Given this particular forum I thought the free and open source aspect of it would be more interesting, but you're right: it's definitely not the drawcard of Tailor. That said, the benefits of it being free are obvious and being open source people can get involved and help shape it (like WordPress!).

The fact that "free and open source" was in the title was the primary reason I looked into this plugin.

I haven't dug into the wordpress world for a couple of years, but this sounds interesting! Kudos for rolling this out!

Thanks. Much appreciated!

I will give it a try in the next week or so. Always good to give customers a little help with creating pages...

Great! I'm definitely keen to receive any suggestions or feedback you have (hi@gettailor.com or the community forum at support.gettailor.com) and the project's up on GitHub too if you want to get involved (https://github.com/andrew-worsfold/tailor).

Is Tailor made to build wordpress themes or single page on an already existing wordpress website ?

It's used to build page layouts using an existing theme (any theme). Certain effects would depend on the theme used. For example, a full-width slider or hero section would require a page without a sidebar.

actually this is my question as well - what theme engine does this support ? or is this your own theme engine ?

seems to me you would ordinarily have a "supported theme engines" list.

It should support any theme engine, if my understanding of what a theme engine is is correct. Did you have an example of one?

Genesis http://my.studiopress.com/themes/genesis/

Yep. I've tested Genesis 2.3.0 using a few child themes are everything works fine!

One of the few projects that prompt me to stop my current task to tinker with it. Great job! :)

Awesome! If it does look like something you'd like to use then I'd love to get any feedback and suggestions you have. You can email (hi@tailor.com), jump on GitHub or leave a note in our forum which can be found at http://support.gettailor.com.

+1 for video demo. how is it better than VisualComposer?

First, it's free.

That's definitely an advantage. I'd recommend using it to see how it stacks up (you've got nothing to lose). Tailor aims to be easier to use, particularly for users who are already familiar with WordPress. I'm not personally a fan of builders that make you first select a "column structure"; with Tailor you just drag elements relative to one another and dragging to the left or right creates (or adds) a column. Of course you can then resize then using a simple drag action.

Looks beautiful, nice job!

Thanks! Glad you like it.

how hard would it be to use this without wordpress?

Quite, given that it plugs into Wordpress's hooks. In theory you could extract the code and repurpose, but alot of trouble.

thanks. do you know of anything similar (open source) which doesn't require WP?

This is a WordPress plugin and is therefore dependent on WordPress as the earlier poster mentioned. You're certainly welcome to port the code to some other platform, but there would be a lot of work involved in that. I'm afraid I'm not aware of similar products that don't use WordPress.

I would also be very interested to hear about similar solutions not requiring WP. If know any please share. Thank you.

will it support the new shortcode syntax in 4.7?

Yes, that's definitely going to be supported.

Ugh, really wish that weren't a GNU license in there.

Really glad there's a license that protects my freedom to use the software in there.

That's right. Given it's a WordPress plugin GPLv3 was the natural choice. I'm open to hearing arguments for and against though..

Of course, wasn't saying that there shouldn't be a license. This is an interesting cultural lens for me, having been heads-down in the Magento (OSL/AFL core) world for so long. Seems GNU is common for Wordpress, plugin authors can use MIT, but it seems not as common.

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