After the awesome release of our latest and lightning fast Builder, we’ve been keeping busy working on more new and exciting features. Our new global style feature is here to make your designing days faster than before, by allowing you to save and load your style settings as a pre-set style template, or ‘global style’, on any module.
Previously, you may have duplicated a text or image module in its entirety, then modified its contents. Or perhaps you would create your modules from scratch every time. Well it might work just as soundly as creating and labelling each of your global styles but the main issue still remains. What happens when you want to refresh your site in the future or make style adjustments?
We’ve got a new feature to improve upon our Shoppe and Ultra themes! The new sticky sidebar feature is here to provide all your customers a better shopping experience. You can now have your product filter stick on the sidebar so that users can select, filter, and accurately narrow their product search on the fly.
We’re always looking to improve, so we’ve added some more features to our Themify Updater plugin, some of which have been highly requested. The new features will allow you to keep your Themify username private, disable those pesky notification symbols on the admin dashboard, and easily reinstall your themes and plugins using the Themes/Plugins tab.
We’re excited to announce that the Themify Builder 4.5 has officially launched! Our entire Builder has basically been recoded to now use Javascript, so everyone will now experience a new lightning fast Builder! Thank you for all of your feedback on the beta version of the Builder and for your support. We’ve been able to incorporate your recommendations and polish our latest update to a high shine. We’ve even added some new additions to this update, not yet seen on the Beta version – you can see these new features and more below!
Please update your theme to the latest version, with the Themify Updater plugin, to start using the new and improved Builder. If you're new to Themify or need to renew your membership, read below for details about our most popular Master Club!
New UX/UI Features
Faster Performance
The Builder now uses Javascript to load/open the options lightbox, resulting in a major speed improvement. The lightbox only loads when you open it. That means turning on the Builder is much faster than before because the HTML doesn't need to parse until you open the option panel. Because of this, we are able to offer more styling options without affecting the Builder's performance. Themify Builder is the only builder on the market with the most comprehensive styling options.
Action Breadcrumb
Besides the polished user interface, we've made major improvements on the general workflow and user experience. Now you can edit any row, column, or module by clicking anywhere on the canvas area – an action bar will appear with the breadcrumb. The breadcrumb allows you to access the parent column, sub-row, or row easily without having to move your mouse back and forth.
Not a Dragger?
Getting tired of dragging? With the new version, you will like the ease of adding new modules by clicking the plus (+) button. Just hover over the area you want to add a new module, click the plus button to open the module dropdown panel, then click the plus button to insert the module of your choice.
Floating or Docked Panel
The new module panel is resizable and draggable. You can position the module panel anywhere on the viewport or dock it on either the left or right side of the screen. If you prefer to have a complete unobstructed preview, you may close the module panel and use the plus (+) button to insert modules.
New Modules
Optin Form
Newsletters are one of the important tools for online marketing. Having a beautiful and ease of access subscription form can increase sign ups and regular traffic to your site. In this release, we've added the new Optin Form module. It is integrated with the major newsletter providers: Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, ConvertKit, GetResponse, and the free Newsletter plugin. You can customize the optin form fields and style them completely with the Builder.
Login Form
The new Login Form module allows you to display a WordPress login form on any page, instead of the typical WordPress admin login page. This is particularly useful if you run a membership or ecommerce site as it’ll give you the ability to display the login form on any page you want. You can customize the styling, and users will be able to reset their password on the same page as well if they’ve forgotten theirs.
Bing Maps
You can now choose between displaying Google or Bing Maps. Since Google Maps introduced a new pricing model last year, including the pay-per-view service, users have been seeking alternative methods to displaying their location online. Now you have an option to use Bing Maps, which is currently offering their maps for free.
New Styling Features
Hover Styling
We've added many new styling options to help modernize your designs and the way you create them. Hover styling is one of the most exciting styling features. All Builder styling options now have the hover state option. With hover styling, elements can change their colour, background, font, etc. when the mouse is hovered over it. Make things glow, expand, shrink, pop, and camouflage, all with hover styling.
Height and Min-Height
Height and min-height styling options come in handy when you need to set an element at a specific height. Let's say you want a row to be half the height of the viewport, you can add 50vh (viewport height) to the row. In the past, users rely on padding to achieve a similar result. Now, using height property would give you a more precise result.
Rounded Corners
Don't like the sharp and squared corners? Make it rounded then. Adding rounded corners is very easy with the latest update. To apply rounded corners, simply drag the input like you do for padding and margin. You can add a different value for each corner or have all corners be the same.
Text Shadow
Previously we added gradient font styling which is now a popular styling feature. We are pleased to introduce the text shadow feature in this release. It is a great feature to make large headings pop! You can also use the text shadow styling to make the text glow.
Shadow
Combining shadow styling with the hover feature, you can make things stand out. The new shadow styling feature supports RGBA colour, so you can apply nice semi-transparent soft shadows that blend in with the background.
Blend Mode
If you are a Photoshop user, blend mode will be a familar term to you. Now you can apply blend mode to any row or module without Photoshop. Try to set a row with parallax scrolling background and insert an image module with a blend mode selection - this will create a stunning scrolling effect.
New Tools
Find and Replace Tool
The new find and replace tool allows you to replace any content in the whole Builder database. For example, if you change your site’s URL or domain, you would be able to look for the old URL and replace it with the new URL. The advantage with this tool is that you don’t have to go to every single page to replace text manually. You can batch replace all of the content at once.
Regenerate CSS Files
The Builder styling outputs the design appearance in a generated CSS files stored on the server. This includes the background image path in the CSS file. When you migrate to a new server, the background image path in the CSS files might still reference the old URL. This is when the regenerate CSS files tool comes in handy. It re-generates the CSS files as per the new styling data.
More Predesigned Layouts
Predesigned layouts have always been a time saver feature for many Themify designers and developers. We are proud to announce that we have over 217+ predesigned layouts and 63+ predesigned rows (note that we have renamed the predesigned rows to "Blocks" in this release). We will continue to grow our predesigned layouts and Blocks to help you design beautiful sites faster.
Themify Panel
Since the last Themify framework redesign, we haven't made any major changes to the Themify panel design. Even though the design has been used for many years, we think it still looks attractive and functional. Instead of overhauling our Themify panel, we've retouched it instead. The Themify panel still has its familiar look. However on closer review, there are many subtle enhancements. The font, colour, spacing, rounded corners, and shadow – everything has been carefully crafted.
Theme Settings Quick Search
There is a new useful tool added on the Themify panel. Now you can easily search the Themify panel Settings without having to look through the Settings tab. For example: if you search "portfolio", it will show you all fields related to the term "portfolio".
Important Tips: Make Sure Everything is Updated!
We've updated all themes and all Builder addons for this release. Please note that the new Builder requires the new addons to work hand-in-hand. After updating the theme, please update all addons as well.
If something goes wrong after the update, you can roll it back to the previous version at Themify > Updates, select the previous version and click "Re-install Theme".
If there any error/bugs occur after the update, please notify us and we will fix it ASAP.
If you are using the Builder plugin version, be sure to update all addons after updating the Builder plugin.
Master Club - The Best Value!
This update was possible with the help of all of our hardworking developers, as well as all of you! Because of your continued support by purchasing or renewing your memberships, we have been able to keep making Themify better and better. So thank you!
With our latest update, we couldn't be more proud or excited for you all to try our faster and more efficient framework. We're hoping to spread our wings and reach more of those in our WordPress community, because we know we're worth a try. There's a reason why the Master Club is our most popular and best value purchase. You'll get access to everything: every theme, every plugin, every addon, access to updates, file downloads, and our support experts, for a full year when you sign up for the Master Club for just $89.
We recently announced the release of the Builder 4.5 Beta Version, and now we've got the Builder Plugin 4.5 Beta as a standalone plugin for you all! (This beta version of our new Builder plugin is only for use on non-Themify themes. If you'd like to test out the Builder 4.5 Beta on a Themify theme, please follow the guide in the original Beta pre-release announcement).
In this latest version, we basically re-coded the entire Builder core to now use Javascript for a better and faster user experience. Along with these performance enhancements, we've added many new and exciting Builder features! We've left the full details on our original announcement so you can read that there. Continue below for a brief roundup and a friendly disclaimer before you install the Builder Plugin Beta!
We’ve added a small but mighty option for you all. Now when you import a skin, also known as a demo site, there will be an option available to import all of the images as well. In the previous version, all demo images were replaced with a placeholder image due to concerns about image copyrights. However, one of our designers lovingly combed through each and every theme, ensuring each image would be available for our users.
Now, when you import a demo, you can click the checkbox 'Include all demo images', and you will have an identical site, complete with all of the free stock images we’ve chosen. Don't forget to update your themes to the latest version to take advantage of this awesome option.
