WordPress Theme Divi 2.4 Gets A Revamp & New Features

Editor’s note: This post brought to you by Elegant Themes.

Version 2.4 of Divi, Elegant Themes’ flagship theme, one of the most popular WordPress themes out there, has been released. Divi 2.4 carries a number of significant enhancements, major improvements, and in some cases, total revamps.

The changes are prominent in key areas such as the library function, header options, and module settings; you will find exciting new improvements in other areas as well. Overall, this upgrade increases the flexibility and versatility of this popular theme.

New Changes and Upgrades

Briefly, here are some of the upgrades and changes to expect in Elegant Theme’s brandspanking new Divi 2.4 version.

Introduction of a new Header Module

The display can now fill the height and width of any browser window. Several new modules have been added to accommodate the header image and other layout elements.

Divi Library

While the Saved Layouts function did its job well, it essentially served as a repository. The new addition of the Divi Library replaces this function, bringing with it great new features that are integral to the page- and post-building process.

Globalizing of Library elements

This new feature saves the developer from having to keep track of element changes, contribut ing to huge time savings in the design and development process.

Introduction of the fluid grid

You no longer have to be constrained with grid sizes that may not give you what you want. Go fluid and become more productive with Divi using fluid grid.

Over 100 advanced module settings
New module settings plus the introduction of module customization with CSS gives designers more versability and flexibility than before.

A user-friendly interface
Divi’s page builder interface has been totally revamped to take user-friendliness up a notch.

Divi 2.4: What Enhancements Are In Store?

Virtually every one of these major improvements is of considerable importance to a web page designer, since most of these features will come into play at one time or another during the design process, resulting in savings in time and improvements in productivity, plus the availability of more options will result in greater flexibility, versatility, and design adaptability.

Advanced Settings, Custom CSS, New Header Module

Prior to 2.4, Divi’s modules could easily be customized by taking advantage of the settings available. Now hundreds of new and advanced design settings have been added, all applicable to every module. This feature adds greater flexibility to the theme without any loss of control. The control over building block settings has also been enhanced.

The options provided to customize a module have been increased, and they have become virtually unlimited in scope, since CSS can now be entered directly into any module or building block.

The incorporation of a new fullscreen header module adds to Divi’s page building versatility as do new fullwidth and regular image, code, and Post/Page title modules.

New & Improved Customizer Increases Versatility

Divi’s Customizer has been fully revamped, removing pre-existing limitations to make room for new theme settings, display style settings and various new module settings. Row options, text styles, content and sidebar widths, to name a few, can now be more precisely and easily controlled. This translates into huge versatility gains in the manner in which pages and posts are created.

The Divi Page and Post Builder

Divi’s page builder could always be used to create posts although the user had to make use of workarounds and put up with certain limitations in the process. With Version 2.4, all that has changed.

The primary feature making all of this possible is the introduction of a special post title module, which places title/meta/image blocks where they should be located, saving the designer a good deal of time and effort. The show/hide post content feature and a full-width or sidebar display option are new additions that users will likely appreciate.

The Divi Page Builder Interface

The Page Builder itself has undergone a few changes, with the most noticeable and useful changes affecting the user interface. The former interface for the page builder was noted for its user friendliness but the new, reinvented page builder is even more user friendly, as it gives the user ready access to many more design options.

The Library

Libraries are not typically exciting. They generally serve as repositories and little else. With 2.4 this has changed dramatically. Divi’s new library not only saves and stores a greater number of available layouts, including customized layouts, it stores individual sections, rows, customized modules, and other elements as well.

Editing can now be done within the library, and as any library element is readily accessible by the page builder. The library has in essence been integrated into the page-building process.

Globalization 101

The new library globalization feature will also have a major impact on design productivity. Now, any instance of a section, row, or module residing in the library can be added to any number of layouts or pages at any time. If one of these elements is updated, all are updated in sync. This process can be accomplished both in the library and in the page builder.

Additional improvements featured in 2.4 include a 100% fluid grid option that allows precise control, and customization of content and sidebar width and column spacing. New navigational options have been added to the Customizer including a higher number of drop-down menu, logo, background color, text size and style options.

Getting The Latest Divi Version

The pros certainly outweigh the cons by a considerable extent. In fact, it is difficult to find anything to dislike about this latest version. The learning curve is a near plateau, and user documentation makes it easy for a novice to cope with the huge variety of features and options made available.

Divi has now positioned itself as one of the most flexible and versatile WordPress themes on the market, if not the most. If you have been using other themes up until now, or if you are about to become a first-time user, Divi 2.4 is highly recommended.

WordPress Theme Divi 2.4 Gets A Revamp & New Features

WordPress Theme Divi 2.4 Gets A Revamp & New Features

Editor’s note: This post brought to you by Elegant Themes.

Version 2.4 of Divi, Elegant Themes’ flagship theme, one of the most popular WordPress themes out there, has been released. Divi 2.4 carries a number of significant enhancements, major improvements, and in some cases, total revamps.

The changes are prominent in key areas such as the library function, header options, and module settings; you will find exciting new improvements in other areas as well. Overall, this upgrade increases the flexibility and versatility of this popular theme.

New Changes and Upgrades

Briefly, here are some of the upgrades and changes to expect in Elegant Theme’s brandspanking new Divi 2.4 version.

Introduction of a new Header Module
The display can now fill the height and width of any browser window. Several new modules have been added to accommodate the header image and other layout elements.

Divi Library
While the Saved Layouts function did its job well, it essentially served as a repository. The new addition of the Divi Library replaces this function, bringing with it great new features that are integral to the page- and post-building process.

Globalizing of Library elements
This new feature saves the developer from having to keep track of element changes, contribut ing to huge time savings in the design and development process.

Introduction of the fluid grid
You no longer have to be constrained with grid sizes that may not give you what you want. Go fluid and become more productive with Divi using fluid grid.

Over 100 advanced module settings
New module settings plus the introduction of module customization with CSS gives designers more versability and flexibility than before.

A user-friendly interface
Divi’s page builder interface has been totally revamped to take user-friendliness up a notch.

Divi 2.4: What Enhancements Are In Store?

Virtually every one of these major improvements is of considerable importance to a web page designer, since most of these features will come into play at one time or another during the design process, resulting in savings in time and improvements in productivity, plus the availability of more options will result in greater flexibility, versatility, and design adaptability.

Advanced Settings, Custom CSS, New Header Module

Prior to 2.4, Divi’s modules could easily be customized by taking advantage of the settings available. Now hundreds of new and advanced design settings have been added, all applicable to every module. This feature adds greater flexibility to the theme without any loss of control. The control over building block settings has also been enhanced.

The options provided to customize a module have been increased, and they have become virtually unlimited in scope, since CSS can now be entered directly into any module or building block.

The incorporation of a new fullscreen header module adds to Divi’s page building versatility as do new fullwidth and regular image, code, and Post/Page title modules.

New & Improved Customizer Increases Versatility

Divi’s Customizer has been fully revamped, removing pre-existing limitations to make room for new theme settings, display style settings and various new module settings. Row options, text styles, content and sidebar widths, to name a few, can now be more precisely and easily controlled. This translates into huge versatility gains in the manner in which pages and posts are created.

The Divi Page and Post Builder

Divi’s page builder could always be used to create posts although the user had to make use of workarounds and put up with certain limitations in the process. With Version 2.4, all that has changed.

The primary feature making all of this possible is the introduction of a special post title module, which places title/meta/image blocks where they should be located, saving the designer a good deal of time and effort. The show/hide post content feature and a full-width or sidebar display option are new additions that users will likely appreciate.

The Divi Page Builder Interface

The Page Builder itself has undergone a few changes, with the most noticeable and useful changes affecting the user interface. The former interface for the page builder was noted for its user friendliness but the new, reinvented page builder is even more user friendly, as it gives the user ready access to many more design options.

The Library

Libraries are not typically exciting. They generally serve as repositories and little else. With 2.4 this has changed dramatically. Divi’s new library not only saves and stores a greater number of available layouts, including customized layouts, it stores individual sections, rows, customized modules, and other elements as well.

Editing can now be done within the library, and as any library element is readily accessible by the page builder. The library has in essence been integrated into the page-building process.

Globalization 101

The new library globalization feature will also have a major impact on design productivity. Now, any instance of a section, row, or module residing in the library can be added to any number of layouts or pages at any time. If one of these elements is updated, all are updated in sync. This process can be accomplished both in the library and in the page builder.

Additional improvements featured in 2.4 include a 100% fluid grid option that allows precise control, and customization of content and sidebar width and column spacing. New navigational options have been added to the Customizer including a higher number of drop-down menu, logo, background color, text size and style options.

Getting The Latest Divi Version

The pros certainly outweigh the cons by a considerable extent. In fact, it is difficult to find anything to dislike about this latest version. The learning curve is a near plateau, and user documentation makes it easy for a novice to cope with the huge variety of features and options made available.

Divi has now positioned itself as one of the most flexible and versatile WordPress themes on the market, if not the most. If you have been using other themes up until now, or if you are about to become a first-time user, Divi 2.4 is highly recommended.

WordPress Theme Divi 2.4 Gets A Revamp & New Features

9 Google Photos Features You Need to Know

Google Photos was probably one of the most raving of the many announcements in Google I/O 2015. Google Photos is a free photo management system and offers unlimited storage for high-resolution images (16MP max) and videos (1080p max). Google Photos is available as an iOS, Android, and desktop app allowing you to sync images and videos from your Mobile devices, PC, camera, or SD cards.

I have been using Google Photos for a couple of days now, and I’m quite impressed with what it can do. Herein I would like to share what I have found along the way.

Note: The iOS app is only compatible with iOS 8.1.

Easy Photos and Videos Uploads

With Google Photos, it is easy to upload images and videos. Aside from auto-syncing through the desktop and mobile apps, you can also upload photos through a "drag-and-drop" interface. So long as the browser tab is viewing photos.google.com URL, you can drop numerous images and videos, or a folder of images or videos into the tab. The drop initiated an upload of all the files simultaneously, saving you time.

Now once we have the images uploaded, we can do a few things to them such as manipulate the images, post them to Facebook and Twitter, share a link pointing to the images, create an Album, or tell Stories with them.

No More Duplicates

On top of that, I also noticed that Google Photo will merge two or more duplicates of photos leaving only just the one photo, thereby springcleaning your storage space for you automatically.

High-Quality setting

Before uploading your photos, ensure that the Google Photos setting is set to the "High Quality (free unlimited storage)" option. The other setting, "Original" wil see your images saved into Google Drive (where you have limited storage) instead.

As you login through the mobile app, Google will show this setting as you use the app for the first time. If you are login to the Web though, the setting is hidden beneath the “…” > Settings menu.

Photo Search

Google also incorporates smarter search in Google Photos. We can search through our photos with a keyword much like what we do while searching for images in Google search. In Google Photos, the keyword “food” , for example, will return the image of foods, “Surabaya” will return images which has been geo-tagged with that location, while searching for “cat” (you gueseds it!) results in cat images.

Surprisingly, Google also allows you to search with a color keyword like “red”, “green”, or “black” and it will come up with images with the respective shade or have the appointed color.

However, accuracy is still a problem. Sean Buckley of Gizmodo gave some examples in his post where searches for “Sega” returned Nintendo, “evil” returned Disneyland images, and “food” returned book images instead.

During my experiments, most of my searches come up empty (which may or may not be because of the small number of images in my library). Nonetheless, I’m sure it will improved over time as search has always been Google’s strength.

Ease of Selecting Photos

Selecting your images in Google Photos and videos is intuitive and equally effortless. In the mobile app, hold your finger on an image and then move your finger all the way to the last photo you want to select, and that is your selected batch of photos.

On the Web, hold the Shift key to select multiple images in a batch, or use the Ctrl / Cmd key to select individual images.

Gallery View

Furthermore, Google Photos also incorporate swipe and pinch gestures in almost every corner in the mobile application. If you are on mobile, Google Photos will arrange all your photos in a grid, in medium-sized thumbnails, by default.

Pinch outward and it will set the view to a “Comfortable View”, with larger image views. Pinch inwards to set the view to “Compact” with smaller-sized thumbnail so you can see more images in the screen.

Assistant

Assistant is another feature in Google Photos that is worth mentioning. This feature will go through your images for similarities through various aspects and find relationships among your photos. It then compiles them together, prompting you to choose whether to save the compilation in the Library or not.

On top of that, it also prompts you if your local storage (your phone storage) is running out space, and to help you free up some space, it will offer to remove photos.

IMAGE: smithers85/Reddit

Image Editing

Google Photos is also equipped with a decent photo editor. To start editing, click on an image. Find and click the edit button represented with a “Pencil” icon at the top right. If you are using the mobile application, the edit icon resides below the image.

The edit button will bring a new toolbar which lets you do some basic image editing such as cropping the image, adjusting the shade, lights, and colors. In addition, you can also apply pre-defined effects ala Instagram. Once you are pleased with the output, Save it.

Image Compression

Lastly, another feature that I think is less noticeable on the surface is the image compression. As we are uploading photos to Google Photos, the image size is compressed. Once it has been uploaded, download the photos and you will find the image sizes much smaller.

A photo initially 11.2MB will become only 2.4MB, that is an almost 80% compression rate. For comparison, JPEGMini compressions only could bring the same photo down to 3.2Mb. Aside from storing photos, it is a great tool for web developers to optimize their photos on their website for speed.

Final Thoughts

Google Photos is a great app. You can upload as many as photos and videos from old hard drive, old computer disk, camera, and mobile phone without having to worry of running out of storage.

It will organize the photos with its intelligent Assistant, and you can search, edit, and share it to other mediums, right from the app itself. Google Photos would probably make similar services like Dropbox, iCloud, Amazon, Flickr a little worried.

9 Google Photos Features You Need to Know

9 Google Photos Features You Need to Know

Google Photos was probably one of the most raving of the many announcements in Google I/O 2015. Google Photos is a free photo management system and offers unlimited storage for high-resolution images (16MP max) and videos (1080p max). Google Photos is available as an iOS, Android, and desktop app allowing you to sync images and videos from your Mobile devices, PC, camera, or SD cards.

I have been using Google Photos for a couple of days now, and I’m quite impressed with what it can do. Herein I would like to share what I have found along the way.

Note: The iOS app is only compatible with iOS 8.1.

Easy Photos and Videos Uploads

With Google Photos, it is easy to upload images and videos. Aside from auto-syncing through the desktop and mobile apps, you can also upload photos through a "drag-and-drop" interface. So long as the browser tab is viewing photos.google.com URL, you can drop numerous images and videos, or a folder of images or videos into the tab. The drop initiated an upload of all the files simultaneously, saving you time.

Now once we have the images uploaded, we can do a few things to them such as manipulate the images, post them to Facebook and Twitter, share a link pointing to the images, create an Album, or tell Stories with them.

No More Duplicates

On top of that, I also noticed that Google Photo will merge two or more duplicates of photos leaving only just the one photo, thereby springcleaning your storage space for you automatically.

High-Quality setting

Before uploading your photos, ensure that the Google Photos setting is set to the "High Quality (free unlimited storage)" option. The other setting, "Original" wil see your images saved into Google Drive (where you have limited storage) instead.

As you login through the mobile app, Google will show this setting as you use the app for the first time. If you are login to the Web though, the setting is hidden beneath the “…” > Settings menu.

Photo Search

Google also incorporates smarter search in Google Photos. We can search through our photos with a keyword much like what we do while searching for images in Google search. In Google Photos, the keyword “food” , for example, will return the image of foods, “Surabaya” will return images which has been geo-tagged with that location, while searching for “cat” (you gueseds it!) results in cat images.

Surprisingly, Google also allows you to search with a color keyword like “red”, “green”, or “black” and it will come up with images with the respective shade or have the appointed color.

However, accuracy is still a problem. Sean Buckley of Gizmodo gave some examples in his post where searches for “Sega” returned Nintendo, “evil” returned Disneyland images, and “food” returned book images instead.

During my experiments, most of my searches come up empty (which may or may not be because of the small number of images in my library). Nonetheless, I’m sure it will improved over time as search has always been Google’s strength.

Ease of Selecting Photos

Selecting your images in Google Photos and videos is intuitive and equally effortless. In the mobile app, hold your finger on an image and then move your finger all the way to the last photo you want to select, and that is your selected batch of photos.

On the Web, hold the Shift key to select multiple images in a batch, or use the Ctrl / Cmd key to select individual images.

Gallery View

Furthermore, Google Photos also incorporate swipe and pinch gestures in almost every corner in the mobile application. If you are on mobile, Google Photos will arrange all your photos in a grid, in medium-sized thumbnails, by default.

Pinch outward and it will set the view to a “Comfortable View”, with larger image views. Pinch inwards to set the view to “Compact” with smaller-sized thumbnail so you can see more images in the screen.

Assistant

Assistant is another feature in Google Photos that is worth mentioning. This feature will go through your images for similarities through various aspects and find relationships among your photos. It then compiles them together, prompting you to choose whether to save the compilation in the Library or not.

On top of that, it also prompts you if your local storage (your phone storage) is running out space, and to help you free up some space, it will offer to remove photos.

IMAGE: smithers85/Reddit

Image Editing

Google Photos is also equipped with a decent photo editor. To start editing, click on an image. Find and click the edit button represented with a “Pencil” icon at the top right. If you are using the mobile application, the edit icon resides below the image.

The edit button will bring a new toolbar which lets you do some basic image editing such as cropping the image, adjusting the shade, lights, and colors. In addition, you can also apply pre-defined effects ala Instagram. Once you are pleased with the output, Save it.

Image Compression

Lastly, another feature that I think is less noticeable on the surface is the image compression. As we are uploading photos to Google Photos, the image size is compressed. Once it has been uploaded, download the photos and you will find the image sizes much smaller.

A photo initially 11.2MB will become only 2.4MB, that is an almost 80% compression rate. For comparison, JPEGMini compressions only could bring the same photo down to 3.2Mb. Aside from storing photos, it is a great tool for web developers to optimize their photos on their website for speed.

Final Thoughts

Google Photos is a great app. You can upload as many as photos and videos from old hard drive, old computer disk, camera, and mobile phone without having to worry of running out of storage.

It will organize the photos with its intelligent Assistant, and you can search, edit, and share it to other mediums, right from the app itself. Google Photos would probably make similar services like Dropbox, iCloud, Amazon, Flickr a little worried.

9 Google Photos Features You Need to Know

New Photoshop Features Infographic

With Photoshop on the Creative Cloud subscription it means that all the adobe software continues to get updated which is

The post New Photoshop Features Infographic appeared first on BlazRobar.com.

New Photoshop Features Infographic