Hey guys! We are considering whether to add support for creating WordPress themes in Bootstrap Studio and are looking for feedback.
We are in the early planning stages so it is still some months away. We envision it to be a simple affair. The app will let you connect to an existing WordPress install, and will give you visual options for setting components like headings, paragraphs, divs etc to display WordPress data. Then, when you export your design you will get a functional theme which you can import in WordPress (we may build one-click publishing support at a later date).
Do any of you still use WordPress? Do you think you would find this feature useful or maybe we shouldn’t bother?
Me personally I think it’s a waste of time and resources that could be better spent adding the features that have already been requested, many for quite some time now. For me it also would depend on if you were planning on charging for this feature in some way, because if not, you’d be taking a lot of business away from Pinegrow who already has this feature. If you plan to add it as some type of plugin that people would pay extra for then it would probably be OK for those that use WordPress as it would introduce competition for Pinegrow rather than a giveaway that would cause another’s business to be lost.
I don’t use it unless I absolutely have to and I charge a lot more for it as it’s so much more work than a static site is, not to mention all the upkeep.
Anyways, I digress. I have no need for this feature at all and hope that it doesn’t slow down the addition of the other needed and hoped for features for BSS itself.
I agree with Jo-r. BSS Studio has very interesting features compared to other software of the same genre.
However, what I would really like to find in BSS Studio is to be able to change the theme within the application itself. Moreover, why not add in the option tab all the predefined classes of Bootstrap?
Part of me is saying yes, I will design wordpress themes if thats what the client wants. BUT it would have to produce clean code, and none of the usual wordpress bloat. @martin something you might want to look into is https://picostrap.com/ they really strip away a lot of the code to produce a slimmed down end product, It could give you a few ideas.
I would welcome the feature to make a WordPress theme.
I’m a small business owner and I use BSS purely for my own website and project sites.
I learnt html/css/js a couple of years ago. Bootstrap Studio for me sits right in the sweetspot between coding everything myself and a click-and-drag solution.
Currently I don’t write many blogs and that is why I prefer to maintain a static website and post the occasional blog as static pages.
But I intend to blog a bit more in the future, and that’s where Wordpress would be interesting for me.
What I resent most about Wordpress is lack of design control. So if you can bring a simple solution to theming a Wordpress site it would be very interesting.
The reason I chose BSS over Pinegrow is that in this case I prefer one-time-fee software over subscription based. I’m not sure what business model you have in mind for Wordpress support, but if you offered this option as a paid addon I would certainly consider it!
I am afraid to reply to this,but yes. Every now and then I reluctantly drag my heels and make a WP theme. Honestly, if I am in a position to do another one in this calendar year a PineGrow subscription might start to make sense although $15.00 a month is pricey for the amount of WP themes I actually make. On the other hand if an improved workflow would help me produce more revenue then it’s a no-brainer.
Would I like to do it all in one program? Of course. What would be my preferred program? BSS.
Sounds like a very exciting idea. but i guess it doesn’t make that much sense. I think there are simply too many problems inevitable. I run an advertising agency. Many of my customers absolutely want a CMS, i.e. Wordpress. But the reality is that nobody cares, chaos with the plugins, extreme loading times, many things not really data protection compliant (a huge issue here in Germany), etc. I am then commissioned to optimize something or do the maintenance. But I often have the problem that I only get normal customer access, no admin rights or FTP access.
That’s why I love BBS, no unnecessary code, fast, easy and efficient. I host the homepage projects myself. I often don’t even write an invoice for small, quick changes. And I can convince most customers that they don’t need a CMS because they don’t have the time anyway, they should rather concentrate on their business.
At first glance everything is good and wonderful with Wordpress, I don’t want to dispute that at all. But with all the plugins, scripts, different versions, it’s a monster. I’m afraid that existing Wordpress themes will become problematic.
I think it would be a good feature to add as will give users a way to mock up a wordpress theme for those that want to create a blog etc, and makes me wonder would reflow feed into this too?
That said will this unlock PHP support to include things from Wordpress sites to be rendered in BSS preview or will it always be a need to publish to Wordpress for it to fully function?
I echo most of the above expressed sentiments. I think there are better ways to improve BSS than to expend time and resources integrating Wordpress.
Personally, I hate Wordpress and never use it. I find the whole thing to be a big, bloated, slow mess with a plug-in system that exemplifies the saying, “a little knowledge is dangerous.” But I know there are a lot of people out there who swear by it, so there may be a market for it.
I find BSS already has virtually everything I need for 98% of my needs. My business model is such that my clients never touch their websites (nor do I want them to) so the CMS features of Wordpress would be of no use to me. The only time I might use it is if I had a client who specifically wanted a website built for blogging. That’s my opinion (for what it’s worth.)
WP support (if we decide to do it) won’t be a separate purchase or subscription, it will be a standard part of the app.
We will simulate the markup that WordPress generates so you will be able to see the result in Bootstrap Studio itself. This eliminates the need to add PHP support in the app. PHP tags will be generated only when exporting.
I should reiterate that we are only evaluating the idea at this point and will do it only if there is interest.
I’m currently building layouts in bootstrap studio, exporting the static HTML code and then integrating this into a WordPress theme. This new functionality sounds useful to me.
Yes, please. It would be an amazing addition. I’m working on introducing BSS to freelancers and Wordpress is still very popular and would open up the doors to more opportunities for them.
Changed my mind
I like the simple pricing structure and no subscriptions. The pay once model is refreshing
BSS is beautiful in it’s simplicity. It’s beautiful yet powerful. I’d hate to see it start to look like a pinegrow, bloated mess.
I can see the attraction of adding CMS.
There’s a lot of pros and cons mentioned so far and I’m wondering:
Is there any way to make it a plugin that is purchased separately that won’t alter the way BSS normally works? In other words, something similar to how we use external text, image, etc. editors would be perfect in my opinion. This would keep the app from becoming bloatware for those of us that are not interested in it at all.
Or another option maybe have that part of the app on it’s own tab completely so that we don’t “have” to have all those things in the main 3 tabs we use now and have to work around them (for those of us that won’t be using it).
Anything at all that could keep this totally separated would be very appreciated. That is of course, if you do end up creating it.
It would be of great help. I currently do that manually and though not overly difficult, it’s time consuming. Having an automated conversion would be very useful.
@martin I think WordPress support is a wise idea [*] especially given your indication as to how simplistic the implementation will be.
Adding WP will help drive awareness and increased revenue to the core app, much like Reflow has enabled non BSS users to become aware of the app. That will in turn benefit all users and overall development from the team. It does not sound like a hindrance to the current state of Bootstrap Studio or its use, instead much like the Reflow integration if a user has that specific requirement the app simply allows the toolset to accomplish those outcomes.
Sounds pretty good to me.
It sounds somewhat similar to Pinegrow WP & PG Theme Builder smart actions, or BlocsApp Plus version with WP features. Each of those apps also utilize Bootstrap and offer their WordPress features. I think it’s a wise decision in the overall succession of the BSS progression: BSS, Sites, Forms, Mail, E-commerce, and now WordPress.
Logically the WP addition would seem to also allow WordPress users the creation of e-commerce themes using Reflow within BSS without the need for WooCommerce. Making it yet another avenue to bring WP & WooCommerce users to BSS and allow anyone to create such themes.
Existing users of BSS which are currently building mostly static sites should not be abrasive to this idea and instead welcome a simplistic method to offer such dynamic features overall to clients and be better positioned themselves against WP competition in the market place when such need arises. This feature is a no brainer to have at a users disposal in the event of requirement and would only enhance current users potential toolset when they need it. While otherwise not being in their way similar to Reflow e-commerce features (or any Bootstrap component within the app for that matter). I think it would especially be helpful for those users mostly accustomed to static sites if BSS provides the one-click publishing as you suggested.
Given the current disarray and panic being caused by Oxygen Builder / Breakdance in the WP sector, I think your timing is perfect [*] to potentially capture some of those visual users in addition to overall WP users. There always seems to be interest for more visual builders, WP included, so why not capture part of that existing larger market and increase revenue to aid in the overall BSS development given you already have the visual builder portion. Seems like a logical strategic progression that won’t impact current BSS users and will only help the overall Zine & BSS vision and objective.
Above all - Trust your own vision for your company. I simply suggest you follow your gut instincts and internal company roadmap more than user input (especially given there seems to be a current lack of a large voice of BSS + WP users present on the forum to give input on interest). So far the development team has overall done a good job of making wise decisions and providing concise features to users, I can’t imagine this WP feature would be any different.
That’s just my personal opinion on the topic (no further debate from me) after not posting for a year. All the best with the simplistic implementation I look forward to seeing it. Keep up the good work overall BSS Team - see ya down the road.
Totally agree!!! I own both Pinegrow and Bootstrap Studio, but I rarely use Pinegrow for anything other than editing old, non-responsive HTML sites for the small number of clients I have who are trapped in the past.
One of the things that instantly drew me to BSS was the simplicity of the UI, as well as the speed and the overall UX of Bootstrap Studio. I have noted that BSS has become slightly slower as more and more things have been added to the software. I still occasionally have to reboot the computer because the program will inexplicably slow down for some unknown reason that I cannot identify. This never happened until late in the 5.8 - 5.9 release phase. But since I cannot pinpoint what causes the slowdown, there’s no way to help the devs fix it. But there’s no doubt it’s coincided with the increasing complexity of BSS’s features.
I would love to see Bootstrap Studio going more outside of only “bootstrap”. I love this tool, but I barely use it due to the limitations, I love this tool, it’s defo the best d&d tool for Front-End and Web mastering, but I would like to see more integration with other tools and especially more back end related stuff and WordPress theme builder would be a great first step into this way, it also would catch alot of attention cause wordpress has huge community and is used all the time by many ppl especially freelancers, so bss could get more sold copies and grow the community much more. I would be glad if php in the further future could be integrated fully into bss with wordpress builder also it could be usefull for my future job. My entire point is php integration with wordpress theme builder would allow us to build full stack application from scratch with the amazing bss drag and drop system.
Imho php and wordpress is great target for bss to grow and give more advanced user possibilities to dont stop using bss fully, but still keep the attraction from casual users which wanna build themes for WordPress and sell them or something
I would like to stay more around bss, but sadly I cant. Imho pinegrow does amazing job with all their implementations, but their UI and UX with microtransation/subscription system is catastrophic and its really hard to find urself there, but bss is clean, simple, but really powerful tool that could expand it more to further path than only bootstrap and static stuff. GSAP integration would be lovely for an example, but idk about their license. I just dont wanna be hold by casual users of bss at the bottom, however it sounds like, bss simplicity is lovely snd its pleasant, but we cant be stuck for so long in the “laik system” and i think reflow was great first step and it wasnt too complex for the casuals users and i think we need more compromises like this with other implementations in the future which could come into bootstrap studio and wordpress theme builder is another great idea especially that im hearing about wordpress-like and php implementation into bss all the time, so its definitely really wanted
I guess this is a problem most software faces as it matures. You eventually end up with two camps… the new/casual users who are drawn to the straightforward simplicity of an intuitive program that allows them to do a job they’d otherwise find too intimidating to attempt, and the power users who want to see the program evolve to incorporate more and more complex features to facilitate their workflow. How do you find the right balance?
Presumably, the more complex BSS becomes, the more system resources it will use, and the more demanding the system requirements will become. It might make sense, therefore, to have different versions/tiers of BSS, with corresponding pricing, UI complexity, system requirements, etc.
