 Welcome everybody. Today we're going to be talking about page builders in the age of Gutenberg. So, um, page builders, when I talk about page builders, I talk about the stuff that was around before Gutenberg. Like, Beaver Builder, Old Grid, Elementor. Divi. Divi, thank you. Side origins. See? There's a lot of them. So, what we want to discuss is their place. Stop being around me. Sorry. You need to get these pages up here so we don't talk to each other. So, we're going to talk about what the, um, what the place of page builders are now that Gutenberg is essentially, um, a page builder. So, uh, I'll introduce myself, uh, then I'll let the panelists introduce themselves, and it'll go over a little bit of ground rules, and then we will be off to the races. Yes, there will be rules. There will be rules. So, we'll go to the front. There's four of them. Let's not go there. Okay, so, uh, my name is Matt Graham. I am a freelance web developer, um, for a little bit of background. I do use, uh, Beaver Builder. Don't hold that against me, um, for a lot of my work, although I do do a lot of, um, like, very heavy customization, even beyond what Beaver Builder can do. So, uh, kind of just speeds along development. Anyway, uh, I've been working with WordPress for six years as a developer, and I've been using it as a platform for about 10. I'm Nick Adams. I'm the COO at WP Buffs for WordPress Maintenance and Support Company. And, um, I've been using WordPress since 2009, and, uh, yeah, used page builders starting with, uh, Visual Composer, and then moved on to, um, Beaver Builder. And I've used all the other ones, including Gutenberg. And, uh, yeah, so I'm excited to have this discussion. Hi, Michelle Ames. I am the Head of Customer Success for Impress.org, which is, uh, you might not give WP, that's awesome. Uh, so we deal with our customer issues, and one of those is how to implement our plugin using Gutenberg and other page builders. My background is, and you can hold it against me if you want to, because I build beautiful sites. But I have, my background is in Divi, so I use Divi almost exclusively. But, um, I have used the others too. The only one I don't think I've ever used is Beaver Builder. Hey, uh, my name's Mike Demau. I am the Community Evangelist for BoldGrid, which we make a bunch of WordPress plugins, and we're probably most known for our page builder and our WordPress onboarding experience. And I like how everyone that has to, like, you know, is adding class pages. Well, I use page builders, but that customizes it, so it's okay. It's not a dirty word. You know, it's just tools are tools. Exactly. That's right. All right, so a little bit of ground rules. I have a bunch of questions that I took, basically pulled some people on the WordPress Canada Slack. So we pulled a bunch of questions together. I'm not sure how long those are going to take. I think there's seven or eight of them. But there is a link up there. If you go on there and you think of a question, it doesn't have to do with anything we've talked about already. It can. It doesn't have to put your questions. Oh, that sounds all right, put one in. Okay. I've never seen it work before. All right. Yeah, exactly. All right. And so, and if we get to a point where there's no more questions on the screen, I will ask if you want to talk and ask a question. Cool. Good. You good? All right, let's start. The first question is, if you already use a page builder on your site, would you consider switching to Gutenberg? As of right now, that's mostly a no. And that's only because of the ease of use right now. I think that Gutenberg has a ways to go with user interface. And so once they get there, I think it has definitely some potential. However, for a site that maybe doesn't need a full page builder with multi columns and some of the drag and drop, I think, yeah, for a page that doesn't need it. Yeah, I wouldn't convert anything that's currently in a page builder because that's just, particularly, I'm trying to move everything from one kind of builder to another. So I would, like Nick said, if I was doing a new build, I would, well, if I was doing a new build, then I didn't have to have it done by tomorrow. Because I haven't dug in enough to Gutenberg to have that learning curve where I can just, you know, move quickly within it. But if I was doing a new build where I had some time to work on it, I would definitely embrace it. Or I should say the block editor. I think that's actually what it's called. I would use the block editor and see how much I could do and how far I could go with it, especially with the plugins that I enjoy using to see how they integrate with the block system. No. It's funny because, yeah, I probably would if I was new to the WordPress community. I look at Gutenberg as I look when, you know, Jumo went from 1.5 to 2.5. Yes, I don't know if I'd like to see a message there. But here we are. Because that's how I look at Gutenberg. Because they had a plugin called the Legacy Plugin, which meant older plugins that were meant for the Jumo 1.5 series would work in Jumo 2.5. So all these plugin developers were like, oh, we worked with the Legacy Plugin. And stuff works with the Legacy Plugin. There was always this big battle. I had to convert it to the new framework or not. And you know who used the Legacy Plugin? People that were in the Jumo community ahead of time. You know who never used the Legacy Plugin? New users to the community. Because if you're a new user and you're looking at a theme and you're looking at one that is compatible with new stuff and not, why would you pick the not stuff if you just come in and guess the block editor is new. But it's the future. We might not agree with the future, but it's what the project has said we're going. So I would always encourage new people to learn to view standard. And what's nice is page builders can work inside of those editors in different ways depending on how you want them to track. When starting a new work, Michelle, you already touched on this, but we'll go over again. When starting a new WordPress site, what considerations would you take when choosing between a page builder or the classic editor alone? Which one would you choose? So really I look at that for my content architecture standpoint. If all they are wanting is just a page with just basic parts on it that aren't too complicated of a layout or they don't want a whole lot of content in general, I would go right with Gutenberg. If it's starting a new site, I wouldn't even install a page builder. It's as soon as they want something and really customize it. They have, you know, like specific design situations that they need to meet. That's when I would install virtually be a rebuilder, but the other ones are all fairly much the same. I would install my answer. So basically I was going to say the same thing. My answer to things usually is it depends. And it depends on what the site needs. It depends on what the user needs are. Sometimes it depends on the plugins and whether the plugins are compatible with which builder you're looking at, whether they're only compatible in Classic, which most of them shouldn't be now, right? Because we moved so far forward with WordPress. But also how they interact and how those things work. So I guess it really does depend on what the user needs. Is that really going to take care of you? Basically it is dependent. What the goal of the site is, I think the biggest issue with any CMS, WordPress 2.0 or whatever, is that people are too reliant on apps. Phones have ruined the website, the CMS experiences. We're installing plugins for everything. And people forget what the core does. The WordPress core does a heck of a lot. And a lot of people don't know half the stuff it does because they're always going to their favorite plugin. And that is security risk and weight in the overhead. If you don't need a plugin and a page build is a plugin, don't use one. Now, if it gives you efficiencies like you can only build so many hours, it's going to be taking 10 hours at a time. Well, that's the reason to use it. But the core is a lot of power and I think you forget what the core has. I would just kind of look to see what the purpose of the site is and then make the decisions from there. Because it's never one size fits all. I hate it when those themes that you buy pre-install 40 recommended plugins. Like I was reviewing for a newspaper and asked me to write up this business consulting theme and it came in full to WooCommerce and it had no theme. It didn't have any hooks in the WooCommerce at all. It was just part of the package. And it was like, why? It doesn't need to be there. So, be as lean as possible even for the reason. And look at the core because a lot of people forget the core is there for a reason and it does stuff. Alright, actually there's one question here that seems to kind of stem a little bit from that. So, a little bit of pre-amble. In my experience, it's been tough integrating Divi and Gutenberg. I ended up reverting back to the Divi editor due to spacing and overall user experience issues. I want to start using the benchmark. Oh, it meant to be the Berg. Oh, the Berg. Thanks. I'm correct for the Berg. Alright, this is the Berg. More on Gutenberg. However, which page builder would you recommend using in conjunction with Gutenberg? Well, let's start with... because I know he's got to answer that. Yeah, so Wolfberg's the favorite compatible with Gutenberg. Yay. That's where our other one's out there. Here's my stand on Wolfberg. Is Wolfberg had blocked before they were cool? We have over half a million blocked designs. We've had them for two and a half years. And what's nice about us is you can easily flip between the Goots, which that's a shorthand, not between the Goots. The Goots. You can switch between the Goots, the bold grid editor, which lays on top of that, or the classic editor, and you can make a default for post or pages or ad hoc. And some of the other page builders also have Gutenberg's compatibility, but the nice thing is most of them are free. So just to spin up a bunch of demo sites, and if you need a demo server, you can go to Wolfberg.com. No, no, seriously. This is true for anything. Regardless of what plugin you use, Wolfberg.com is free demo servers where you can install anything on and spin it up in less than five seconds. You don't even need to make an account. So if you want to test a theme or a plugin on the repo, you can just literally click the plugin on the theme and auto installs. So if you want to test all the page builders and you don't want to deal with local environments, and you don't want to spin up spade views on your post, just spin up the throwaway accounts that you don't care about. Find one that works for your workflow. For all your demo needs, go to Wolfberg.com. But yeah, seriously, I think most of the plugin ones, like Divi, they have their limitations as far as how they interact with Gutenberg, or with the Goose. That's what I thought when I cleaned it, by the way. The Goose? Yeah, the Goose. So it just depends on what you... I always say it depends. It depends on what you need to do and what that particular page needs to do. Because there really isn't any reason that you can't use both of them on the same site. Depending on page by page what needs to be you need to publish. All right. So what does Gutenberg solve that page builders don't work vice versa? Let's start ladies first. Well, it depends how much a page builder is. But I will say, if you don't have to... I was going to say you don't have to install a plugin for everything, right? So if you don't need to use a page builder then you have less float. So there's less to worry about working unless that can misfire and one less plugin that has to be updated that can break your site, et cetera, et cetera. So it kind of solves that problem with that habit of not needing to do that. I haven't played with it enough to know if, as it compares to Divi, if I can get the exact same layouts with Gutenberg then I could with Divi. So I really can't compare that way. But I would say, you know, it just depends. It depends. That's what I thought. I'm known for saying that I meet up too. Every question is like, oh, it depends. It really does. So I will say that the one thing it does solve is it brings hardcore JavaScript developers into the WordPress space in a more familiar way. Whereas a lot of page builders were very dependent on PHP still. And they definitely integrate JavaScript, but Gutenberg was built on the kind of cutting edge JavaScript library so that you're really there. And there's something to offer for JavaScript developers who may not have known WordPress but as it's continuing to take over the web. This is my chance to get into it. This is my chance to start developing. To me, it is the end of short codes. And that's the vision, right? And as a plugin developer, that's my dream. Because short codes are evil. No, seriously, think about it. How many times have you edited a client's site and you have 40 short codes and like three paragraphs of content and then if you try to might get away to something else, it's a lot of work to get away from that short code. Also, short codes slow down sites as they have to parse information every single time. Short codes were hacked the way around the tiny MCE limitation to get information inside tiny MCE when it loaded on the page load. And what's nice about the new editor in JavaScript, that's a lot of technical improvements that we can just look into this data through the Gutenberg block system but you can use it in other ways. You don't have to use the Gutenberg block if you're a plugin developer. And you have people in your clients and your users can see visually what might be in that spot because short codes are confusing for a lot of users. It's just like, yeah, don't touch that text. Just trust me. And that, and I've seen pages just, they have a place for certain situations but they're being abused right now as just a happy way to run the way the classic editor or tiny MCE did it. And I like from an architecture standpoint how Gutenberg is helping plugin developers that fully embrace it, and it's a slow process but in five years it's not going to be a thing anymore because this is going to be the end. I'm excited about that future because that would get out of more streamlined editing experience. It's also really good because I personally am not a fan of old function paid builders for blog posts. I think they're kind of overkill. It's the content you get a thing. That is not the layout. I think it is a good place for it to post as well. Oh, okay. Okay. Right, so the question that Sean proposed was that since it's based on what you said, what does having more developers mean for the average user? Hopefully it means more options and better options. Not that non-JavaScript developers aren't great, but it is, I will go on the record saying that Javascript is the future of WordPress and it's the future of the web. PHP had its time and it's still going to be used but PHP heavy code is kind of the older way and now that we've got things like JSON and React and all this beautiful stuff that we can do with Javascript we're going to start seeing faster more cross device options out there and really what it means for everyone is that if we have people who otherwise would have been off doing something on Django or something like that who are saying like, oh, you know what, I want to get into this they're going to start creating really awesome blogs and the code standards out there are sometimes better not always better than the WordPress base but we've also seen the spaghetti code of WordPress where we're seeing people with really strong, coming from rigid programs, software things out there who really understand modern software architecture who are bringing great new things into WordPress. I'm a narrative can't tell. Really? I'd love you to add to that. Javascript deeply. Three years ago. Deep leaves. Sorry, if no one got that joke that has already been said Zach Gordon is like one of the big guys in Javascript for WordPress. Anyone? Yeah, also what you said was learn Javascript deeply. That was a big saying that year and Zach Gordon is kind of the guy that's been training Guru. I'm pretty sure Mullen only said it once in that whole state. Someone just tweeted it and it went viral. Because he said if there's one thing you do it's learn Javascript deeply and thankfully people call on to that and it's true. It feels like a mature environment and you can add more to it as opposed to take more away as far as people and creativity. You know you can have chocolate chip cookies or you can have chocolate chip cookies with nuts and butterscotch and everything else. I'm not sure if you're hungry. Yes, you're over GDPR. You're over GDPR. You're over GDPR. Even raisins. Okay, anonymous posted since you touched on you touched on devices so that actually I think I'll be able to talk to that mobile at some point but what is I'm going to expand on the question a little bit I'm not sure. What importance what importance does do page builders or even Gutenberg have in terms of mobile? Because I'll give you a little bit of background for myself. I do a lot of web designs that are very intricate and they always design for desktop and then it gets shrunk down the mobile. It's like that doesn't look good. You've got to tell me what you want with it. So I have my opinion you know what I'm not supposed to be the MC but I'm going to let the Canadian talk for a minute. Sorry. So as I said I get a lot of designs that are very intricate and on mobile they just don't think about what that looks like and I mean nine times out of ten no matter whether you're using a page builder or any kind of display framework like Bootstrap or what's the other big one Foundation, thank you. They all work on a grid that when you go to mobile by default just gets stacked and that may be fine if it's just text content no problem but when you're talking about images that are supposed to mel together in some way like that it's like so when it comes to page builders it doesn't really matter because page builders are supposed to be a nice easy way of doing multiple columns and intricate layouts that don't work on mobile where Gutenberg I think really shines is the fact that it's just it's not by default it's not like a layout thing it's more of a different piece of content thing and stacking it makes sense so who wants to start? Yes, sure first off some page builders do have mobile-responsive views like in our version of the editor which is this program on AMC you can choose between the tablet, desktop and mobile and see that in your editor but I think it goes back to a different point is that a lot of people are stuck with that bootstrap of a green mentality where it goes to a single column where if you're designing you need to think about the user experience and how they're interacting with your content and who the user is I was talking to someone who was designing for third world mobile devices like screen not even smart phones just like old phones it was 50 megs and that would have lowered the 2G connection period so you need to think about not just visually but kind of what the user experience is and like we've all done the things like where we're trying to check the size if you only grab the corner of the browser we drag it and it breaks at a certain point and then developers like well that's not a real display size yes it is look it's here on my screen yeah but no device has that size yes it does right here on my screen so we have to just think about what the user experience is at the beginning and not try to shoehorn in mobile at the end when we were doing agency work we were focused on the experience and we did that by writing story points on what is the goal of this project and try to fulfill that goal and there's ways you can kind of cheat it like you can hide a display certain blocks on certain display sizes that make the content not completely big but I read that question to something different how does it change in my mind how does it change the editing experience is what I heard when that question was read and I don't think pageholder's work would be great for mobile editing period I think the WordPress the WordPress app that automatic puts out for mobile publishing is the best out there for just on the go editing the content because we're trying to add a block post on WordPress on your phone needily it's just pretty annoying so if you're trying to add content on the go I recommend the automatic app but for display you just kind of have to think about it because I don't think it matters what tool you use I think you just kind of have to have it in the forefront and service to the purpose of the site and not try to fulfill mobile at the end don't wait until the end to look and see what it looks like on your phone be mindful of it as you go on your phone that's not just my grandmother and not on wifi I'll say at this point the data has proven that overwhelmingly mobile is the future of the internet my 96 year old grandmother does not have a computer but her experience of websites is entirely mobile so it's not a generational thing anymore we're talking like my other grandmother everything for her is on her iPad she goes to websites all the time never on a computer and so at this point if you're not starting, if you're not mobile first in your design I would recommend that you check that out if you start considering that look at mobile because I would guess that probably in 5 to 10 years most, if not all of your traffic is probably going to come from somebody on an iPad or on a phone or a tablet or on a phone and you'll get the occasional desktop user but that's just kind of where things are headed especially as other parts of the world they're developing nations that were previously developing are now developed and so they've skipped the whole laptop or desktop thing entirely everybody's getting a cell phone so that's the way to go is really build things for the mobile web and then figure out what your desktop experience is going to be after that but really focus on the on the mobile because that's where everything is going to be headed and it's a great state of mind to learn mobile deeply and look at your navigation bar too because you can design on a desktop or you can design on your laptop and everything fits your navigation properly and as soon as somebody's looking at it on a laptop a little bit smaller than yours than your navigation racks and it's not breaking like it's supposed to and I'm seeing more and more sites that are using hamburger menus regardless of where they are so that mobile menu experience is something that's really going to take over as well and it happens on all sites I'm not going to call out a sort of camera this breaks on mobile on the menu breaks on the Hamilton website and you know maybe and it still kind of has a hamburger as a side menu on the side as well so it's just something you've got to think about and it's all user experience happens a lot because you know like my biggest pet peeve with workhamp websites because I go to a ton of workhamps is I hit the website on my phone and I would try to find the venue and the dates and half the time this is nice because the dates are at the top you know how many workhamps? don't have the date on the front page and you know how the majority of camps don't list the address of where the camp is and that is going back to user experience how are people going to interact with this content and they're interacting different because on the mobile phone they probably need the session information, the location of the time and that's what they need now which might be different than desktop which may want to be about the sponsor so you're building a site for I know we're getting on track a tiny bit but we're building a site for it to order like a restaurant or a store but having phone numbers and hours of operation on the home page is super important as well absolutely alright next question why would a user want to use both the page builder and Gutenberg on the same site? we've got to touch on this a little bit because it depends sadly it depends we're not talking about the diaper um sorry I didn't send it um no I mean I'll step in a little bit too when it I think it was Nick that you said when it comes to a blog post sorry I'm getting really confused no when it comes to a blog post you don't want to have really intricate designs it's a bit of a content um yeah the page a page is more static can have lots of different information on it but usually a post is kind of focused on one subject and it's focused on the content not about what it looks like you're not trying to wow people with with the design you're trying to wow people with what they're reading let's go Nick because he hasn't started actually even though we kind of already answered this the one thing I will say is I think it all depends on the individual the content of the individual page or post because I have seen great things where people have blog posts including like New York Times has done an amazing job with their long form blog posts that just have fantastic like CSS3 transitions and all sorts of stuff that really just kind of gets you drawn into the content and it almost get like an emotional response to what they're building to get excited as things kind of like ease in so really just look at what your goal is I always recommend planning things out Shanta will tell you post it note as you as you build it's all about the planning what's the right option because it's never going to be a one size fits all for anybody so look at your content and say does this need a page or does this need the blog editor and maybe the answer is it could use either one maybe the answer is this one just needs some text or maybe there's even a feature that's in a block with things like atomic blocks we're now seeing unique features in the WordPress blog editor that maybe you've got something that's in there that's not available in PagePoker just look at what your needs are look at what the needs of the content are and choose that way I would add that just because you can doesn't mean you have to so just because you have the ability to use Divi or Beaver Builder or whatever doesn't mean that you need to I've seen so much over design if you want to play and want to use the features that are offered to them that's great for fun just like to play on the background build yourself a sandbox app if you're building a customer client site or building a site for your own business make sure that you're designing for the end user insight not just because you want to play with sliders and different blocks and over designing it you want to keep it simple you want to keep it so that people yeah well it goes off the topic of the question but like Bank of Illinois you guys said but you're not building a site for you you're not building a site for your client building a site for your users and I guarantee it your client doesn't know your users as well as they think they do and I guarantee you don't know your users as well as they think they do and go back to the purpose of the site have in writing what the purpose of the site is I've met someone who said hey I have this client and sorry they want to change balance rate and come on site with the two KPIs so I thought oh you want to reduce the balance rate and increase the time on site they were like no we want to increase the balance rate and reduce the time on site because they were a government utility that value if we were designed well people can find the question and first google and get it and leave and so don't assume you think you know what the purpose of the site is just because they're a store and ask the question and the way I word it is is what will define success of the project in a binary fashion that we can live in a year from now and have everything to be focused on that goal and if it doesn't it's just to make it look nice a year from now that client's not going to care how many times have you had a honeymoon period where the client loves the site since this goes by and it's not doing enough it's because you didn't have those conversations ahead of time so I'm going to rephrase this question slightly but should page builders continue to be a separate entity or should they start integrating within the WordPress page builder or block editor and add their functionality to the block editor this one to start absolutely they should be separate right now once the block editor has a better UI I will 100% agree that it's time to move everyone into a single space but right now when I hand somebody a brand new site who's not fluent with WordPress or anything like that and I give them Gutenberg or I give them Beaver Builder they can figure out Beaver Builder in about 5 minutes it'll take them an hour before they say forget this because it's not an intuitive interface right now but so right now it's just easier to say okay just go right into Beaver Builder build this thing and they can figure it out because it's dragging and drop the setting up columns is an option aren't columns so really it's a matter of interface right now for me where I just find Beaver Builder is just so easy for no technical experience and hopefully Gutenberg will continue to improve on the UI and be more intuitive and then we'd love to see more of them move into having Beaver Builder in the block instead I agree with that I think that right now they do need to be separate but equal so to speak or at least somewhat balanced but maybe think of something that I forgot just as quickly but I think that it's important to remember to design what it's for and so you have to use the tools that you need to get adopted so it doesn't do it right now the other thing I remember I was going to say so I was on Reddit in the WordPress subreddit and I saw somebody ask a question about what were your thoughts on Gutenberg and I said I don't have a problem with Gutenberg I just wish that there were lines around the block so that you could visually see them better without hovering over them so you had a better visual outlay of what you're doing and someone in response was oh there's a plug-in for that and I thought there shouldn't be a plug-in to make sure that you can use your editor better and so until they are you know make it more intuitive and make it easier to use that way I don't want to be adding plug-ins so that people can use the editor so yeah so I still agree that they should stay separate No the thing I love about open source is that things can live separately and it's fine or together there's no you can't force page builders to be inside the editor even if it was like there was a hard stance rule like when the customizer first came out gotta use the customizer, blah blah there are still themes in the repo that don't use the customizer today and even if they take them out of the repo these products can exist because it's WordPress is an open ecosystem and the market is going to dictate where the direction should go and the invisible hand is going to become visible I think intuition and good design and good user experience is going to win out if that ends up in the Gutenberg and in the block editor grade if that ends up in something else great then I will say though is that third party plug-ins can always move faster on user experience than the core WordPress I mean we at bold grid three years ago had features that WordPress introduced you know a year and a half ago that we had in our core people are like oh these story features they were simple generalized user experience things like the customizer things like that so like for example one of the things bold grid does is we rename posts to block posts we install our plugin and it drives a lot of classic WordPress people crazy turn it off for the checkbox don't worry but here's the thing is what's the most common question we asked hundreds of posts what's the most common question you get and supports it what's the difference between posts and pages but so one word can make a difference that's our state and we think that's going to win out so I don't think it needs to be one or the other just let people innovate and the market's going to decide where it goes oh we are running out of time so I'm going to ask one more question what is the better component ketchup or salsa what am I putting it on depends okay let's let's back it up on a burger I'm a mayo chap person well thank you very much everyone before we wrap up I can take maybe one short question if anyone has anything one of the benefits I like to divvy is you can show clients to create layouts inside on their style and use that and save web time and fonts and all that but I haven't seen anything like that but I feel like it would be brilliant unless there is so that's where blocks are blocks are intended to be laid out so like right now blocks are very singular like a single thing but they can be full designs and they are in some cases and you can get good and real blocks that have like full web testimonials so I know people that use our block libraries for example and they can drag a full testimonial and three columns and they built a whole site with our pre-made layouts very similar to divvy and they do exist for river core the problem is you have to hunt around for them I think the biggest thing that we can do is have a block repo where you can search for blocks inside the editor instead of having to because now you have all these plugins that are like 5 by plug and I'll give you 5 by blocks and you don't want to wait for something that should be native so you can do it but you have to like search all of these things and that's the challenge are you talking about the templates though? yeah, but the templates there are like 10 or 10 templates as well okay they're all in one good spot they're all in one good spot they're all in one good spot they're all in one good spot they're all in one good spot like all the bars in one place that's how it'd be nice to have a block repo I heard anyone else? well thanks to the panelists thank you all