Layout Builder of the Elegant Page Builder
(click to enlarge)

ElegantThemes is well-known for its beautiful themes. What a lot of WordPress users do not know is that ElegantThemes also develops Premium WordPress Plugins. In this post, we are going to investigate the Elegant Page Builder. But also dubbed Elegant Builder, or just Builder.

The Elegant Page Builder allows you to create awesome page layouts, simply by picking page elements and adding them to the canvas of the page – visually, by a drag-and-drop. You can add columns, sliders, tabs, buttons, toggles, text boxes, and more.

Basically, what Nick Roach and his team at ElegantThemes have done in this case is isolate the Landing Page Builder from ElegantThemes Convertible and put it in a plugin. A limitation of the Convertible theme, is that it is great for landing pages and one-page websites, but not beyond that.

Now, with the Elegant Builder, you can add all the benefits of the Landing Page Builder to any WordPress theme. In order to test Builder, we need a theme. For this review wilwebs picked the StudioPress Prose child theme.

Like most Genesis child themes from StudioPress, this theme comes with a landing page template. And since Prose comes with point-and-click styling options it has a clean an minimal design. Both qualities are perfect for our objective.

Theme Extensions by the Elegant Builder

Widget Areas of the Elegant Builder
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The Elegant Page Builder installs like any other WordPress plugin. Just upload the plugin with WordPress (Plugins >> Installed Plugins >> Add New >> Upload) or over FTP, and activate it.

After activation, you will notice that the Elegant Builder has added five widgetized areas to the Widgets screen – Area 1 to 5. This allows you to incorporate widget areas, and therefore widgets, within the pages constructed with the Page Builder.

The main purpose of the Elegant Builder, however, is creating beautiful webpages by drag-and-drop. How do we achieve that? The plugin adds a Layout Builder to the bottom of the Edit/Add New Page screen. And not only there – the Layout Builder appears on the Edit/Add New Post page too!

If you do not want to use the Layout Builder on every page and with every post – no problem. You can disable the Builder for individual posts and pages.

And if you want to use the Layout Builder frequently, or even exclusively, just drag the Layout Builder box up and drop it just below the WYSIWYG editor and minimize the latter.

Working with the Layout Builder

The Layout Builder is actually the graphical user interface of the Page Builder that we use to assemble our page. When you start the Layout Builder on a specific post or page for the first time, you will see a blank canvas just like in the example above.

Elegant Builder – Adding A Module
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Building your page is really a matter of drag-and-drop. Just drag any of the 17 modules to the canvas. Elegant Page Builder offers you a nice variation of modules:

ElegantBuilder – Deleting A Module
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Each module has two icons; a Delete icon on the left, and a Settings icon on the right. Deleting by mistake is not easy, since you always have to confirm the removal of a module. This is done by clicking a Yes button.

Elegant Builder – Paper Settings
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The Settings icon launches a dialog box where you can enter your text, URL, dimensions – whatever is relevant for the module chosen. In case of Paper for example, you have the entire WYSIWYG editor at your disposal – including the kitchen sink.

By adding columns first, you can build more advanced layout. First you drag the column to the canvas. After that you add your module(s) to the column.

Elegant Builder – Adding A Column
(click to enlarge)

Page Builder offers six types of columns: 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 2/3, 3/4 and Resizable.

So, building a webpage with the Elegant Page Builder is basically a straight forward process:

1. add a module
2. enter the content/configure the module
3. (optionally) add columns
4. resize and rearrange the modules
5. publish

There is very nice demo available on the ElegantThemes’ website that shows the sample layout of the Layout Builder. It previews a great deal of the possibilities of the Elegant Page Builder.

Plans & Pricing

ElegantThemes does not sell individual plugins – or themes. You can subscribe to one of two memberships. The Personal Membership is only $39 – the price of one premium theme! For this annual fee you get access to all the themes – currently 76, #77 has been announced!