What needs to be improved?

[Andrew 207]

Hey guys, 

We are always looking for ways to improve the functionality of the product and the experience with PageLines in general.

Right now, we're doing some prioritization and could use your thoughts and suggestions... 

What are your largest frustrations with using PageLines? 

What would make your life easier and your sites better?

[MrFent+ 28]

There are a lot of people who would like to see more functionality with the Templates plugin, namely the ability to bind a page/post to a specific template, and then the ability to update a template so that whatever page/post is bound to it will receive that update. (Same functionality that we had in DMS) Here's a few screenshots to give you ideas of how this might look to the user:

https://screencast.com/t/KWFY74mw

https://screencast.com/t/mgLliajN6

[robwahl+ 2]

I used to love Salebar in DMS and was so disappointed when I upgraded to PL5 and Salebar didn't work anymore.  For service businesses that need to make service-related announcements, something like Salebar is critical. I have tried several plugins that do the same thing, but they were all buggy, ugly, or didn't seem to work quite right with PL5.  Salebar was simple, looked clean and worked properly.  Please bring it back for PL5!

[Andrew 207]

@robwahl solid, we can make another one to work in PL5.. will put that up next as far as extensions... 

@MrFentyep, i'll work on that soon

[lbhansen+ 8]

I'm inclined to think more strategically than about specific features. And since I don't know PL's market reach, I'm shooting in the dark. Please take my comments purely as constructive.

PL is promoted as allowing creation of sophisticated websites with zero code. (I think I read zero somewhere and "sophisticated" is my interpretation of something I read.) In my mind that means no CSS, LESS, or any other code anywhere. It means that sections line up exactly as expected without a lot of tinkering with unclear options like padding, margins, etc. If that is truly a goal of PL, it suggests your target market is amateurs and business people who are not professional website developers. They don't know code and probably don't know what good graphic design is, but they want a website that gets their message out and minimally doesn't embarrass them. They've seen a website they want to use as a model and build theirs to look like it in a weekend, with zero code and understandable results.

So, you're competing against Wix, Weebly, Hotdoodle and a slew of other easy "drag and drop" website builders. It begs the question, why is someone attracted to the PL marketing pitch? WordPress is in your headline. That must be the key.

But why does any amateur want to build a website with WordPress? What's the attraction when there are much simpler website builders? What is compelling about WP for the same person who is attracted to and believes there is such a thing as website development "without coding"?

Am I, Laurence Hansen, confused about the PL target market? Is PL confused?

If amateur website developers are a market for PL, are you doing everything possible to attract people from that market and keep them?

If PL's real market is professional website developers, what is the attraction of "without coding" to them? Is your target a graphic designer who wants to get into the website development business without learning code? Is it a relatively new website professional who wants to develop more sites for more clients to generate cash flow sooner and learn the gritty details as needed along the way?

Who, really, is PL's perfect market?

Take a serious look at all of the clients you currently have. Are they professionals? Is PL their only WP "framework"? (I don't even know if that's the right term.) At what rate are they developing new sites? One a month? One a week? How sophisticated are those sites? Are they ecommerce sites? Simple brochure sites? Sophisticated product/service presentation sites? Are your best clients using code on all of their sites? Is "without coding" even meaningful to your best clients? How many are learners who will become serious professionals? Does PL address their needs? Really dig into what problem(s) PL solves for your best clients and how it does so. And ask if PL does so better than your competitors.

Then ask if your best clients now are your ideal clients in the future. Are there enough "best" clients to sustain your business? Are there enough "ideal" future clients to grow the company?

Is PL clearly differentiated from Genesis, and other competing frameworks? How? Who knows the differentiators? Why are these important? Is there a sufficient market that cares about those differentiators?

I could go on for a long time, but I've scratched the surface on where I think you should look before getting back into the weeds of "what needs to be improved" in terms of functionality.

What needs to be improved is clarity about market, marketing message and how you satisfy that market.

Personally, I could make a lot of suggestions for improvement with PL functionality, the website, extension descriptions, tutorials, documentation and on and on. But none of it is useful to you if I do not represent your ideal market.

If PL's biggest challenge is keeping up with demand of new clients and you know exactly who they are, and increasing and improving functionality is your only obstacle to growth, keep at it. If not, my briefest suggestion is to get out of the weeds. Take a serous look at the overall market and develop a strategic plan for drawing in your ideal clients from that market. Features and functionality are critical but don't mean enough if there aren't enough clients who understand them.

Respectfully,

Laurence Hansen

 

Edited February 11, 2017 by lbhansen (see edit history)

[reklov79+ 0]

HIghly second MrFent+ - there needs to be a way to bind a page to a template. Highly important!!

Some smaller, but still important, things I figured out while moving from DMS to Platform5:

• MegaNav
  • Add possibility to change the breakpoints (currently menu flips into mobile version at 786px. For long menus that can be not optimal. Yes, you can customize through overuling CSS - but I think it would be good having that as option.
     
• Make sure that in every plugin, in every text field shortcodes work. It seems not to work in SitemapFooter plugin i.e. - this is cruical for example if you want to have one template that works for different languages. In my case I have defined shortcodes [textblock id=""] that hold strings which are loaded accordingly to the language. I simply rebuilt SitemapFooter by using Containers and Text sections - worked fine but wouldn't have been necessary if shortcodes would work in the footer field.
   
• I changed the sublevel domain from https://new.xy to https://staging.xy. By doing so I lost all Platform5 settings - not sure why they were lost?
   
• I am not sure if that is just a issue I have: WP front end editor does not work with Platform 5 areas. Would be great though.
   
• Adding more design options in the settings menu:
  • Many of your plugins use heavy space and large fonts. Yes, you can define at least the fonts in a CSS field in the settings and spacing through CSS. But having some more general options in the settings menu would be highly appriciated by less technical users I believe.

So far so good, I am sure I will have further ideas while finishing the transfer from DMS to PF5.

Cheers,

Volker

[Jason+ 0]

an easy way to resize or undock the  .pl-workarea .pl-workarea-sidebar-container.

Currently doing this with Styler chrome extension.

When I'm on the road with my laptop the workarea is pretty tough to read and I like using the built in custom less as I can show the clients changes on the fly.

[reklov79+ 0]

So, I am a little further in my project, and got some further optimizations needed:

• The Button section is not SEO friendly, the button is solely driven through jquery data-bind method and doesn't work without JS. The href="" field and the Button text must show up - I think that should be a standard!
   
• I did not check out other sections for the same as I used plenty of text boxes with own HTML. But I think it is a must beeing SEO friendly - so all sections need to be checked against SEO optimization!
   
• As mentioned above from MrFent+ some type of binding pages to a template should be possible. Though after working a bit with it I am not sure if it is really needed - instead a simple method adding further scopes would work fine. It think instead of binding templates then to pages you should work with different scopes and if you want to change one scope, you still can load the template and save the scope.

@Andrew would be great if you comment on it, maybe I am just getting sth wrong (ie. with the Buttons area)

Edited February 18, 2017 by reklov79
cc Andrew (see edit history)

[Audun MB+ 17]

Fix the sections with issues before you make new ones. Not as fun, but I can't use several of the sections that I'd like to because of the issues with them. Lots of unanswered issues here in the forums.

[claudedagenais+ 20]

Hi again,

In the backend, in the Pagelines Meta Settings, we have Title (Overrides) & Sub Title. The title part work nicely to output a H1 in the page. But the Sub Title section of this form never worked for me in any of my sites. Even if I fill it it doesn't output anything. Could you check it out?

Tx

[Audun MB+ 17]

15 hours ago, claudedagenais said:

Hi again,

In the backend, in the Pagelines Meta Settings, we have Title (Overrides) & Sub Title. The title part work nicely to output a H1 in the page. But the Sub Title section of this form never worked for me in any of my sites. Even if I fill it it doesn't output anything. Could you check it out?

Tx

Doesn't work for me either

[oseehys+ 1]

Pageline Section #FlickSliderSection and #FlickyPostSection these are one of the two most amazin sections to display contents, but the need an urgent upgrade.

 

#FlickSlider should have 1-4 options for views, right now it has just a single image view at a time, there should also be an option to display videos.

#FlickyPost, Should have a carousel slider that moves with timing, right now it has the carousel without the slider, thats not cool, also options for youtube videos if those features becomes available on it, they will become the most beloved content display section ever.

 

Tanks

[claudedagenais+ 20]

1- It would be real cool if you could make the pl-sn-pad justification be centred on top middle or bottom instead of just the centring setting as it is. It can be done with the following CSS but it still would be great to achieve this in Pagelines.

.pl-sn-pad {
  justify-content:flex-start; or justify-content: center; (default) or justify-content: flex-end;
}

2- It would also be great that when we create a section such as a container and that we define it to be window height, we could instead be defined in vh to compensate for a menu bar that would be outside the section and that could have have a setting for height in vh. It can be done in CSS but it still would be great to achieve this in Pagelines.

.pl-effect-window-height > .pl-sn-pad {
    min-height: XXvh;
}

[BeeTcore 3]

StarBars - The loading isn't smoth. It breaks. (On Mobile and web)

[BeeTcore 3]

Option to auto hide the Meganav Menu after pressing a Menu option on mobile.

[wendygordon 6]

I have small things to suggest: 

1.  put a text box  and a title in the image module, so we can either overlay text or caption the photo.  And while you are at it.  A title in the text section would be nice.

2  shortcode functionality in Elements and Heroes

3. A bunch of stuff on boxes:  1. ability to reorder box items, 2. Ability to name box items instead of seeing just item 1 , item 2, etc. 3. ability to hover over image to view text

4.  A setting to set all the Hs H1 H2 etc for size, weight, font family

[claudedagenais+ 20]

I've tried to change the reading width in the settings and it does nothing - so I guess it need to be improved?

 

[chrisayers+ 105]

Here is a quick modified image plugin. wendygordon+

 

<?php
/*

  Plugin Name:   PageLines Section Image Pro
  Description:   Simple image section with H2 header and captions.

  Author:       PageLines Code modified and adapted by: Chris Ayers
  Author URI:   https://www.pagelines.com

  PageLines:     PL_ImagePro_Section
  Filter:       component
  Tags:         formats, component, gallery

  Category:     framework, sections, free

*/
if ( ! defined( 'ABSPATH' ) ) { exit; // Exit if accessed directly
}
class PL_ImagePro_Section extends PL_Section {

  function section_opts() {
    $opts = array(
      array(
        'type'      => 'image_upload',
        'key'       => 'image',
        'label'     => __( 'Image', 'pl-section-imagepro' ),
        'default'   => pl_fallback_image(),
      ),
		array(
         'key'      => 'title',
         'default'    => 'Image Title',
         'type'       => 'text',
         'label'     => __( 'Title', 'pl-section-imagepro' ),
          ),
		pl_std_opt('background_color', array(
            'key'     => 'title_background',
            'default' => '',
            'label'   => 'Title Background Color',
            
          )),
          pl_std_opt('scheme', array(
            'key'     => 'title_scheme',
            'default' => 'pl-scheme-default',
            'label'   => __( 'Title Color Scheme', 'pl-section-imagepro' ),
            
          )),
         array(
         'key'      => 'caption',
		'default'    => 'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec fermentum eros mi, non commodo est tincidunt et. Vivamus pretium nulla vel dui suscipit, id lacinia mauris blandit. Sed tristique augue nec nibh porta, in consectetur ipsum ultrices. Sed aliquet aliquet sem nec placerat. Sed venenatis eget dui nec gravida. Cras gravida, purus a egestas consequat, nunc enim viverra massa, eu semper quam eros a tellus. Maecenas laoreet tristique purus eu gravida. Phasellus nisl odio, commodo sit amet dictum vitae, sollicitudin pharetra libero.',
         'type'       => 'richtext',
         'label'     => __( 'Caption', 'pl-section-imagepro' ),
       
          ), 
		pl_std_opt('background_color', array(
            'key'     => 'caption_background',
            'default' => '#ccc',
            'label'   => 'Caption Background Color',
            
          )),
          pl_std_opt('scheme', array(
            'key'     => 'caption_scheme',
            'default' => 'pl-scheme-default',
            'label'   => __( 'Caption Color Scheme', 'pl-section-imagepro' ),
            
          )),

      array(
        'type'      => 'text',
        'key'       => 'alt',
        'label'     => __( 'Alt Text', 'pl-section-imagepro' ),
      ),
      array(
        'type'      => 'dragger',
        'label'     => __( 'Image Width / Height', 'pl-section-imagepro' ),
        'opts'      => array(
          array(
            'key'     => 'height',
            'min'     => 0,
            'max'     => 100,
            'default' => 30,
            'unit'    => __( 'Height (vw)', 'pl-section-imagepro' ),
          ),
          array(
            'key'     => 'width',
            'min'     => 0,
            'max'     => 100,
		    'default' => 100,
            'unit'    => __( 'Width (vw)', 'pl-section-imagepro' ),
          ),
        ),
      ),
      array(
        'type'      => 'text',
        'key'       => 'link',
        'label'     => __( 'Link URL', 'pl-section-imagepro' ),
      ),
      array(
        'type'      => 'check',
        'key'       => 'newwindow',
        'label'     => __( 'Open in new window?', 'pl-section-imagepro' ),
      ),
    );

    return $opts;
  }

  function section_template() {
    $image = $this->opt( 'image', pl_fallback_image() );
    $class = ( ! $this->opt( 'link' ) ) ? 'pl-img' : '';
    ?>
    <div class="pl-row">
    <div class="pl-col-lg-12">
    <div class="pl-alignment-default-center" data-bind="style: { 'background-color': title_background }, plclassname: [title_scheme() ]">
   
    <h2 style="padding-left:25px; Padding-right:25px; padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px;" data-bind="plshortcode: title"><?php echo $this->opt('title'); ?></h2>
		
		</div>
</div>
</div> 
  <div class="pl-img-wrap pl-alignment-default-center">
    <a class="<?php echo $class; ?>" data-bind="plhref: link, plattr: {'target': ( newwindow() == 1 ) ? '_blank' : ''}">
      <img src="<?php echo $image; ?>" alt="" data-bind="plimg: image, attr: {alt: alt, title: alt}, style: {'height': height() ? height() + 'vw' : '', 'width': width() ? width() + 'vw' : ''}" />
    </a>
  </div>
  <div class="pl-row">
 <div class="pl-alignment-default-center">
   <div style="margin-left:2em; margin-right:2em; border-radius:5px;" data-bind="style: { 'background-color': caption_background }, plclassname: [caption_scheme() ]">
  
   <p style="padding-left:25px; Padding-right:25px; padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px;" data-bind="plshortcode: caption"><?php echo $this->opt('caption'); ?></p>
	   
</div>
	  </div>
</div>
<?php
  }
}

 

 

 

Edited June 29, 2017 by chrisayers
Code Flaw (see edit history)

[claudedagenais+ 20]

In TeamWork it would be great if you could add a few information including the email of the user and his phone number. It is a perfect section but without this information it is not as useful in my projects.

[Aires 265]

I would love to see the framework theme improved upon. I use it alot and at time I wish there was more. 

Suggestions:

Merge the mega nav menu with the theme to give more options such as side header or split with logo in the center. Of course then you would need to give the option to use default header or not.

I miss the hooker plugin from DMS1/2 maybe you could make that a core feature in the framework theme.

~Aires

[BeeTcore 3]

PageLines Section FullNav

It's great but: On a one-page website, when you press a menu item, FullNav should AUTO CLOSE after scrolling to the section on that page. 

What it currently does is: It scrolls to the section of the page but does not close, i have to press X, a user might not figure that out easily. 

[claudedagenais+ 20]

Once more...

In Settings : Layout / Nav : Reading Width doesn't do anything. The change the read width we have to do it manually in CSS by doing:

.read-width{
    max-width: XXem;
  }

Thanks for correcting this.

[itrix+ 1]

Your support for problems (f.i. responstime on the forum) with the framework needs improvement.

Regards,

Mark

[petere21+ 6]

At first much better and helpfull support, most of my problems at the end  must resolve coders outside pagelines support and forum. Some years ago was forum much quick and helpfull.

Last year I found only a few new section or entities more frequently I found just hard themes like agency, onepage, adventure, journey, material, .... 

What I definitelly miss is good responsive photo gallery with options, accordions, timeline, testimonials (good is in agency but I need it solo, the same clients carrousel,) etc several years ago I found the pagelines like serious top product but today I am afraid that marketing wins and offer of new entities is deathly sleeping.:-(

[petere21+ 6]

Other problem is google optimisation using of a lot off css and js seriously slow website. Module which could optimize javascrits and css across web PL modules  (or optimization on the settings level) would be very helpfull.