@flips I hear ya. MicroThemer is something else, entirely IMHO. LiveCanvas wants to build super-fast loading HTML-sites based on Bootstrap giving you acces to a built-in code-editor to tweak it anyway you like it. MicroThemer, on the other hand, is a plugin created to work with ANY theme or plugin to style your website the way you want. I strongly suggest you try their live demo or “MicroThemer Lite” to get a better idea of what I mean. MicroThemer allows for WYSWIG live-styling of your website (click anywhere, create a selector and style it the way you want, regardless whether your theme has that function or not). It, however, also allows you to edit the CSS code at any time making it a powerful too for both normal users but also coders who want to customize the site the way they want it.
Do you know the feeling of the Theme not offering “full-width” for that section? The Theme doesn’t support gradient as a background? The theme does not offer a “slide-in”-style effect, or does not have that font you wanted? Click on the respective area, create a selector, style it the way you want, or try some cool CSS code example from the internet like 10 modern layouts in 1 line of CSS - YouTube
Often, a client asks me “can we have that slide in? can we have that background like this? can we have some cool effect? can we mirror that?”. I think MicroThemer is a great tool to help with that and works with any theme your client may already be using
Edit: Apparently you can also import&export CSS styles/edits/pallets you have created before, so I will look for some cool color palettes and export them, so I can import them on new sites I create and see how the site looks like in say some 5 bright and some 5 dark-ish styles. Easy to mock-up that way
@404error also looks kinda cool! Thanks for the recommendation! Will have a look
Also wish this was self-hosted but, well. What I think is cool about LiveCanvas is, you can basically self-host it and use it to create bootstrap sites on WP with WYSWIG, then export HTML/CSS to proceed and use as a regular Bootstrap site disconnected from WordPress, OR use it with WordPress. Your call.
Kinda weird you only export sources, not HTML/CSS. Leaves a bit of a weird feeling. But they said they will add HTML export soo…
Also make sure to check out Pinegrow. You can grab it at a bargain and although with only 1 year of updates you get to use it for as long as you want. You can just re-sub for a year whenever you feel like you want some of the new features. There is also a version which let’s you build WP themes with it.
It’s on sale ever so often. Interesting that it shows 128€ rn. I renewed with WP addon for like 18€ some months back. Pinegrow has a steep learning curve but very powerful.
This post from a Bootstrap Studio VS Pinegrow and others thread sums up Pinegrow nicely:
Pinegrow
I have used Pinegrow extensively (since 2017) and built a few sites with it. It gets the job done. It’s probably the most open-ended website builder out there. It doesn’t restrict you in any way, but it is not very easy for a beginner to grok, and it definitely requires a good familiarity with code to really be able to do a lot of stuff. If you can hand code, you’ll probably have no trouble with it, but there is a bit of a learning curve to the interface. One big advantage of Pinegrow is that everything you do is live. What you see in the workspace is exactly what the site will look like. You can open multiple pages open at once, and multiple sizes of each page, so it can make building sites for different viewports pretty easy (especially since in now supports multiple monitors.) Pinegrow is the only one that will allow you to use third-party templates. You can buy a Bootstrap or Foundation or HTML5 template and open it directly. You can even open sites directly from URLs. In addition to various frameworks, Pinegrow has robust support for both flexbox and CSS grid. I would actually describe Pinegrow as more of a visual website editor as opposed to a builder. In terms of static sites, there’s really nothing you cannot do with Pinegrow. And It produces clean, semantic code.
As for CMS, Pinegrow has it’s own CMS-like features where you can make parts of pages “editable” by someone else who has Pinegrow, but it’s not a true CMS. On the other hand, Pinegrow has a Wordpress version which allows you to build Wordpress sites, so that solves your CMS problem. There are discussions on the Pinegrow forums of alternate ways to build third-party CMS managers into a Pinegrow built website. You should probably look there for more info.
Of the three, Pinegrow probably gives you the most bang for your buck. They have an annual subscription plan, but you own the software. You download it and install it on your machine, and you can use it forever. If you want to upgrade it after a year, you need to renew. It’s pretty fairly priced (I think it’s like $175 for the year.) The developers are pretty good about fixing bugs and releasing new features. In the three years I’ve owned PG, it’s had one major update (ver 4 to ver 5) and numerous smaller updates. The forums are fairly active, but newbies don’t get a lot of love because most PG users are advanced and don’t want to waste time explaining things like “what are media queries.”
I already have it. I’m more interested in other CSS frameworks. Also, most of the time I just need some simple layouts. After all, the most important thing is the backend.
Thanks for sharing! Looks like a good deal. Wonder if BF will be better cause I am looking to grab it.
Then again, I don’t even know now that Blocksy is just such a slick, performant theme. Astra has its’ own perks though.
Edit: Themeover BF Sale (CSS WYSWIG Editor for WP) for Microthemer is live:
Since I can upgrade my account from PRO to Agency Bundle, the upgrade will cost me $270 intead of $419
If someone is interested in a group buy the upgrade ($270), let me know.
Doesn’t look bad but they have a heavy focus on Elementor and unfortunately no Divi integration so I don’t really need anything aside from their regular plan. Portfolio, I don’t think I’d need an extra plugin for. Not using Beaver Builder either.
Still a powerful bundle For 270$ upgrade it’ll be a good deal if you use Elementor a lot, too.
Yeah, not sure I need it.
But if their popup plugin is good enough, I can probably skip Elementor Pro as soon as Astra launches their new Header and Footer builder.
Have you given Blocksy a try? Also has a header/footer builder apparently
Although, I am sure Astra has some extra perks but I am really amazed by the clean & simple Blocksy approach.
Havent tried it really.
But I already have Astra Pro and really like it. A better header/footer builder is missing but that’s about it if you ask me.
Some really nice perks are the adobe fonts and custom layouts.
That sounds great indeed. I also didn’t look at Elementor, Beaver etc much after getting Divi. Figured it’s best to know 1 theme/plugin better than many just a lil bit. Speeds up the workflow. Of course, knowing about alternatives doesn’t hurt but I try to minimize the amount of different plugins/themes I am using. Qubely is super intuitive so that is one of the other builders I am using.
and that becomes $419.40 after the 40% discount, which in my opinion is still quite some money, even if the package is quite complete.
Do you guys know if the Ultimate Addons for Elementor/Beaver Builder are enough so that the pro version of the builders are no more needed?
Because elementor pro is 199$/year and beaver builder pro is a minimum of 99$/year
I have had the Chance to use Astra Pro without any Agency bundle and I am not missing Elementor or Beaver. Never used them and I can do all I want with Gutenberg, Qubely and Ulitmate Addons.
