Flexible Elementor Panel – Nice Quality of Life Improvement

The Flexible Elementor Panel (FEP) plugin doesn’t add any new widgets to Elementor. Instead, it allows you to resize the Elementor widget panel. This gives you more than two columns of widgets and makes it faster to look through the list. It also adds other shortcuts for getting around. It is a free plugin available in the WordPress plugin directory and is a nice quality of life improvement for working in the Elementor editor.

Video Version

Feature Tour

After you have installed and activated it, there will be a new settings option in Elementor. 

Buttons at the top: At the top there are two buttons added. The double arrow rolls up the widget list so you just have the title bar, and the crossed arrows snap the widget grid back if you expanded it.

None of the other options are enabled until you switch on the ones you want.  

Draggable panel: The first option allows you to drag the Elementor widget panel to a new location, so you could for example dock it on the right side.  I have dual monitors and was hoping that I could put it on the other monitor, but it is locked to the editor window. 

Use Flexible Grid for widgets: The flexible grid is awesome and one of my favorite features.  If you have several widget addon packs installed, the list of widgets can get very long.  The flexible grid makes the icons a bit smaller and allows you to have several in the row, not just two.  

Minimize all categories with right click: This is another one of my favorites. With just a right click on the top of the widget panel you can close all of the sections. This makes is super fast to get to the one you need.

Editor Skins: The default Elementor editor skin is “Light,” but with Flexible Elementor Panel we get two other options. There is a Pink and an Orange option, both might appeal to people who prefer a “dark mode.”

Exit button: Another nice addition is the “Exit Button”. At the bottom of the Elementor widget grid there is a new exit button. This saves needing to click on the hamburger menu at the top and then the exit option.

In the FEP settings panel you can select where you want that button to take you. There is also the option to open in a new window, if you usually want to keep the editor window option.

Your exit point options are:

• View – Takes you to view the page being worked on the front of the site.
• Edition – Takes you to view the page being worked on the back end of the site .
• List Page / Post – Takes you to the All Pages or All Posts listing.
• Admin dashboard – Takes you to the admin dashboard.
• Elementor Library – Takes you to the Elementor Templates list.

Close first widget panel: This only closes the widget panel in the editor.

Conclusion

I see that the team behind the plugin are planning a premium version, but it has not yet been released. I wonder what additional features they would add?

I found that Flexible Elementor Panel adds some nice options that makes getting around in the Elementor editor much quicker. I particularly like the flexible grid for widgets, close the sections on right click, and the exit button. Are you using FEP? I hope you found this review useful.