My August presentation on Drag-and-Drop WordPress themes, revised and expanded for the Wine Country WordPress meetup, with a focus on the Themify Builder and its front-end editing capabilities

1. Drag & Drop
WordPress Themes
Sallie Goetsch
September 7, 2013

2. FREE OPTIONS

3. MiniMax Page Layout Builder
http://wordpress.org/plugins/page-layout-builder/

4. Page Layout Builder Settings

5. MiniMax Layout Tab: Columns

6. MiniMax Add Modules

7. MiniMax Page with Modules

8. MiniMax Page: Front End

9. MiniMax Layout Builder:
Conclusion
• Reasonably intuitive
• Limited selection of modules in free
version
• Some conflicts with normal WordPress
functions, e.g. media library
• Could still be useful, but I wasn’t that
impressed.

10. iFeature (CyberChimps)

11. iFeature Options

12. iFeature Header Layout

13. iFeature Blog Layout

14. iFeature +Portfolio -Slider

15. iFeature: Conclusion
• Partly drag-and-drop
• Easy to use
• Can create a home page without posts
• Minimal control over styling
• Limited layout options
• Suitable for beginners

16. PageLines Lite

17. PageLines Site Options

18. PageLines Layout Editor

19. PageLines Layout Editor 2

20. PageLines Drag and Drop

21. Applying a PageLines Template

22. PageLines: Conclusion
• Fairly flexible even in free version
• Not immediately intuitive—lots of
different settings pages
• Combination of drag-and-drop and
other selectors
• Modify templates on a per-page basis
• Can be used by beginners, but there’s a
learning curve

23. Snapshot (SiteOrigin)

24. SiteOrigin Page Builder

25. SiteOrigin Page Builder Settings

26. Site Origin Widgets

27. SiteOrigin Home Page Builder

28. PageBuilder Tab

29. SiteOrigin: Conclusion
• Widget-based
• More click-and-add than drag-and-drop
• Allows page-based and post-based
layouts
• Assumes you already have site content
(post categories, etc.)
• Designed to work within the styling of
the SiteOrigin themes

30. PREMIUM OPTIONS

31. iThemes Builder

32. Builder Layouts and Views

33. Add New Builder Layout

34. New Layout Applied
Error message due to
lack of posts to feature

35. Custom Builder Layout Metabox
Select a Builder Layout
instead of a page
template when creating a
new page.

36. Builder Style Manager

37. iThemes Builder: Conclusion
• Not really drag-and-drop
• Very well-documented
• Page-by-page layout options
• Modules for restaurants, churches,
events, audio
• Style manager plugin
• Many child themes available

38. Themify Builder

39. Themify Themes

40. Themify Default Layouts

41. Themify Page Builder Settings

42. Themify Styling

43. Themify Skins

44. Themify Widgets

45. Themify Custom Panel:
Page Options

46. Themify Custom Panel: Post Query

47. Themify Custom Panel: Builder

48. Themify Page Modules

49. Themify Module Options

50. Themify: Slider, Highlights, Box

51. Themify: Portfolio, Posts

52. Themify Footer
Note to self: make 1-
level menu for footer

53. Themify Front-end Editing
Drag to
move
Drag to
adjust
width
Click to
collapse
Hover to
edit

54. Themify Post Meta

55. Themify Options

56. Themify Builder: Conclusion
• Good number of modules
• Most modules are custom post types
• Fairly intuitive to use
• Front-end editing is cool
• Themes are resource-intensive
• Can add custom CSS classes
• Builder info stored in _postmeta and
_options tables