I gotta admin, I hate Themeforest forcing developers to use plugins like Visual Composer in every project. I’m developing my first theme right now and I don’t want to use it! It’s a great plugin, I’m not saying it’s not, it does the work that it’s intended for, and praise to the author for developing a tool like that, I really respect the author, I would not be able to create advanced plugin like that myself, that was big effort, but I’m a developer myself and I know that those tools are creating really bad code, and are not the best way of developing a well coded, speed loading, website, and really, we REALLY REALLY don’t need it included in every website here! Some clients don’t want composer, they want clean speed-loading website, properly coded, they know their stuff and how to use basic WordPress administration. I know many of you developers will agree with me. Most of use wouldn’t use Visual Composer, but we know that using it will help us skip easy hard-reject, so yeah, we hate it but we have to do it.
Now… WordPress 4.1 is coming out in December, and guess what… they are adding front-end editor!
It’s pretty simple (at least in this beta preview), but it will definitely do the basic work for those less technical users (theme buyers).
So, do you think after this Themeforest will stop forcing developers to use Visual Composer in their themes, and be happy with default WordPress options. I hope so, honestly. What do you think?
Themeforest forcing developers to use plugins like Visual Composer in every project
Where did you get this from? Sorry but this is absolutely untrue. Even Avada didn't used Visual Composer or any other page builder until recently. Using VC (or similar plugins) is absolutely optional and I really doubt that it has any impact on rejections. If you feel that your theme doesn't need it, just don't use it. If you are getting rejected, it is 100% not because you are not using VC.
The focus on the use of Visual Composer is really off putting for me (although I wouldn’t say its essential for a theme to have it) . I submitted a theme 5 days ago (still in the review cue) and its been developedwithout out the Visual Composer so should be interesting to find out what the review team think.
Themeforest forcing developers to use plugins like Visual Composer in every project
Where did you get this from? Sorry but this is absolutely untrue. Even Avada didn't used Visual Composer or any other page builder until recently. Using VC (or similar plguins) is absolutely optional and I really doubt that it has any impact on rejections. If you feel that your theme doesn't need it, just don't use it. If you are getting rejected, it is 100% not because you are not using VC.
Avada was made back in August 2012, things are much different now!
They are not forcing you by strictly telling you to add it to your site, but the market is forcing it, it effects theme sales drastically, because it’s all about visual building tools now (which I think is really bad thing for maintaining real theme quality here). So the more and more themes get it bundled, and it somehow force the market into that direction, customers are like ‘well this theme has this Visual Composer thing, that’s great, this other is really nice looking but doesn’t have this Visual Composer thing, it must be very hard to edit, hmm I will take the Visual Composer one’.
I’ll wait for more developers reply, but I think they will agree with me. Just look a the other threads about the subject here. Let me know know if I’m wrong, because I still haven’t submitted my first theme, but from reading the forums and looking at the themes being approved, I got this opinion.
First of all, please don’t mention you’re a developer if you’re not sure about what you’re talking.
Plugins like that are creating bad code? You’re making here a big, big confusion, these plugins will output the code you give them, most of them are not placing any custom code, other than the normal grid itself and a few id’s to identify each unique block. Don’t confuse it with software like Dreamweaver, Artisteer, that indeed generate automatic code for everything.
This is a big confusion and you shouldn’t talk about it if you never used that plugin or any other page builders.
ThemeForest is forcing you to use the plugin? Wait, what? ThemeForest isn’t forcing you to do anything. My Arwyn theme has just the default WP functionality and has almost 500 sales, which is quite good. There’s no VC, no page builder, nothing, just plain WP. My SCRN didn’t get a page builder until around 5,000 sales, it didn’t affect the theme in any way, it just made it easier, this is why I included a page builder. You’re finding excuses for themes not selling, the market isn’t demanding anything, if you can find any solution to make it easier to build complex stuff without using page builders, it’s good. They aren’t purchasing Visual Composer, they’re purchasing your theme.
That front-end editor won’t make even the slightest difference, adding a link or adding a featured image is already possible, WordPress will, most likely, never add anything that would make page builders obsolete. Simply because the majority of the users won’t use them. ThemeForest is just a fraction of the WP users worldwide, lots of them are using free themes, lots of them are using it for blogs, they don’t need a page builder or complex / advanced stuff that would make the blogging experience worse.
Visual Composer or any other page builder do their job very good, they were created in order to easier create complex layouts, making shortcodes obsolete. You can use shortcodes and ask the clients to manually type everything in shortcodes if you think that’s better.
The fact that they’re used a lot, by both the developers and the buyers, it means that it’s good and it does its job.
As for developers that think that it’s the plugins that make a theme popular and not the design and the theme itself… well, sorry, but that’s definitely not it
This front-end plugin won’t change anything. It doesn’t have grid system which is the reason why builders/composers are so popular.
Right the front-end plugin for Wordpress 4.1 is very basic, but I’m sure this will change. I would be very happy to add my own shortcode (plugins) to the “add block” section. But you’re right at the moment is this editor not a replacement.
