Elementor360 Newsletter – Issue 11

I delayed the 11th edition of the Elementor360 Newsletter because things were pretty quiet after the new year. It seems now the floodgates are open and there are a number of new releases and lots of news. Time to see what we’ve missed.

Tutorials

I created three tutorials in January – all looking at different features of the Dynamic Content for Elementor (DCE) addon. DCE started out with very little documentation and there were some rough edges. I’ve noticed that the documentation library has been growing and things are starting to feel solid. Dynamic Content for Elementor is turning out to be a sleeper. It is not as widely known as some of the Elementor addons, but it is picking up steam. I wondered if I should focus so many tutorials on on addon, but I noticed that a number of the survey respondents were DCE users, so I think it makes sense. Have you taken the user survey to let me know what you are using and the type of content that would be helpful for you?

Tutorial on Creating Theme Templates with Dynamic Content for Elementor

This was a fun tutorial to make. I believe in using Custom Post Types and custom fields to better organize your content and DCE turned out to be pretty easy to use. Have you noticed that Elementor Pro gets a little lazy on the archive options? You have settings for the Post Grid, but there aren’t settings for adding custom fields to your archives. DCE made that straightforward. The DCE functionality works well and provides some flexibility in designing archive templates that Elementor Pro lacks.

Tutorial on Adding a Copy to Clipboard Button Using Dynamic Content for Elementor

This was a short tutorial. We’ve all seen the copy to clipboard buttons for license keys, code snippets, etc. DCE has a widget for this.

Tutorial on Extending Elementor Pro Forms with Dynamic Content for Elementor

In this tutorial I look at some of the ways Dynamic Content for Elementor expands the functionality of Elementor Pro forms. Remember when I mentioned that DCE seems like a sleeper? One of the reasons I feel that way is because it is pretty easy to create a front-end form submission for your post type that is saved to the database. That is one of the things shown in the tutorial.

Themes

Astra Pro Security Update

The Astra theme team released a security patch for the popular pro addon.  Users are urged to update to version 2.2.5 to avoid a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability. I didn’t see a big fire drill announcement. They just quietly mentioned it in their release notes.

If your workflow and routine doesn’t accommodate keeping your themes and plugins updated then it’s time to change. I run an update scan almost every day. What about you?

Plugins

Ultimate Addons Adds FAQ Widget with Schema

Version 1.22.0 of the Ultimate Addons for Elementor plugin added a new FAQ widget for question and answer style content.  There is the option to display FAQs either as an accordion or in a grid.  There is also the option to turn on schema support and schema will be automatically fetched from the content and included for search engines.

Ultimate Addons Adds Navigation Menu Widget

Ultimate Addons for Elementor has a new Navigation Menu widget.  You can use existing WP menus or create a menu in the widget.  There are 4 modes: horizontal, vertical, fly-out, and extended.  There are extensive styling options and the ability to use Elementor sections, images, maps, forms, shortcodes, etc to create mega menus.

JetEngine 2.2 Adds User Profile Builder

Crocoblock continues to improve.  JetEngine 2.2 adds a User Profile Builder.  You can create an Account page, add single user and all users pages, hide the admin bar and more. Another feature of 2.2 is the addition of a Gutenberg listing grid.

HappyAddons Adds New Promo Box Widget

HappyAddons added a new premium widget to their plugin, the Promo Box.  This widget seems to lend itself to products or services that you want to highlight.  The content features support dynamic data, so you can use it in your content templates.

HappyAddons Now Offers Image Masking

The premium version of HappyAddons now has an image masking option available for several of their widget: the image, image box, card, info box, promo box, and team widgets.  The image mask allows you to display your images as custom shapes.

Element Pro Pack Adds 8 New Widgets

The Element Pro Pack addon version 4.5 added eight new widgets.  Reading Progress, Google Reviews, and Fancy Tabs among others.  This brings the addon up to 139 widgets and 10 extensions.

PAFE Enables One Page WooCommerce Checkout and Adds Form Preview Before Submission Option

Piotnet Addons has enhanced their form builder by enabling one page, multi-step WooCommerce checkout forms and has added the option to preview the form before submission.  The PAFE form builder is one of the main features of this addon and it is good to see it being continually improved

Elementor – News From the Mothership

The Elementor team has been rocking it. There was a lot of news during the last month.

Elementor Hits 4 Million Active Installs!

It was just last August that Elementor hit 3 million active installs.  Now they’ve topped 4 million.  This is good news for Elementor users as our community is strong and continues to grow. Of course this is big news, but I think it might be bigger than people realize. I’m starting to feel that Elementor may become a leader / influencer beyond the page builder arena.

Elementor 2.9 Beta with Global Theme Styles, Improved Lightbox Functionality, and Custom Link Attributes

The highlight of the new Elementor beta is the introduction of global Theme Styles.  This is a feature that users have requested for a long time and it finally lands.  Elementor already has the option for fonts and colors, but themes typically add styling for a number of common elements such as forms, buttons, images, and other elements. You can now set these styles in Elementor and remove the reliance on the theme and the Customizer.

The beta also sees the extension of the Lightbox feature. Lightboxes will be able to have titles, description, zoom, share, and full screen mode, along with more styling options.   Another set of featured added to the beta relate to links.  We will have the ability to set any allowed link target (not just open in a new tab), set the title attribute, and document relation settings using the “rel” attribute used for search engines.

Global Theme Styles is something that I was expecting for Elementor 3.  This makes me wonder what large feature the team will add for version 3?

Elementor Add Magazine Template Kit

The Elementor team added its 6th template kit.  These template kits are full site designs. This kit is geared towards magazine layouts.  Magazine layouts make sense when you have a lot of different types of content and want to make it easier to find.  This template kit has a focus on navigation options and includes the use of the new Table of Contents widget and related content sections.

Elementor Pro Adds TOC Widget

The release of Elmentor Pro version 2.8 saw a new Table of Contents widget.  There are a number of display and styling options as well as the ability to set the TOC as sticky so that it follows scrolling and updates to show the current section being read.  Version 2.8 also saw and update to the Pro Gallery to allow lazy loading of images.

That’s it for this issue. Happy Elementoring.

Affiliate Disclosure: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. You will still pay the same amount so there is no extra cost to you.