Enter to Win a License of Visual Composer, the Powerful Page-Building WordPress Plugin

Visual Composer is a powerful, multi-featured page-building WordPress plugin that you can use in conjunction with a WordPress theme, or as a standalone website development tool.

Visual Composer is built into many WordPress themes, and for good reason. It is the most intuitive and feature-rich page and post building plugin available on the market.

Lesser Known Things About Visual Composer

You can only get Visual Composer support and instant updates if you buy a product license, not if you buy a theme license that has Visual Composer included.

Only by buying a Visual Composer license will you get access to all of its features; most bundled WP themes have opted to disable certain VC features and functionalities.

Thus, by winning this giveaway, you will receive a free Visual Composer license that will allow you to use all of VC’s features and future upgrades!

What Visual Composer Can Do For You

Visual Composer is by far and away the most popular responsive drag and drop page builder plugin for WordPress. If gives you full control over your WordPress site, thanks to its combination of frontend and backend editors.

• The Frontend option does away with the need for an admin panel for managing content blocks. “What you see is what you get”, which is the way page building should be done. The frontend feature also allows you to view and test your page layout results on different devices, ensuring that everything is in accordance with your grid layouts.


• The built-in Skin Builder makes creating unique designs (and editing them) lightning fast and super easy by allowing you to ‘roll your own color theme’. You can select main, accent, hover, border, tab and navigation, and choose from a multitude of background colors with just a click or two.
  


• Extend Features – VC allows you to modify default content elements, or add your own shortcodes. There is even a Shortcode Mapper that makes adding elements easy, even for the non-developer.


• Advanced Grid Builder – VC has divided grid elements into four groups, post, post masonry, media, and media masonry, in addition to allowing you to create your own unique grid.


• Responsive – This feature is a given, but it is still worth mentioning. You don’t need to be a programming whiz, nor understand programming at all, to create user interfaces that will display correctly on all standard platforms and devices.


• Support – Support deserves a mention as a feature, since the availability of quality support is always important. The VC support team scores a definite A+.
  

Winning Terms

In order to win your free copy of Visual Composer, all you need to do is Log into Rafflecopter and Tweet about the giveaway and/or Like their fan page. The winner will be announced in one week from today. If you can’t wait until then, feel free to click the button below and learn more about Visual Composer. Good luck to all of you!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Learn more About Visual Composer →

The post Enter to Win a License of Visual Composer, the Powerful Page-Building WordPress Plugin appeared first on Speckyboy Web Design Magazine.

No related posts.

Enter to Win a License of Visual Composer, the Powerful Page-Building WordPress Plugin

ReadRemaining.js jQuery plugin

ReadRemaining.js is a jQuery plugin to tell your readers how long they’ll need to get through all of your article.

The post ReadRemaining.js jQuery plugin appeared first on Freebiesbug.

ReadRemaining.js jQuery plugin

Build High Quality Landing Pages With Qards [WordPress Plugin]

Are you find it hard to build your web pages exactly the way you want them to look? Is the creation process taking longer than you would like, even with the help of a WordPress theme? Then, you might want to try out Qards.

Qards is a WordPress plugin, produced by Designmodo, which allows you to edit existing pages or produce new pages precisely the way you intended. It makes use of editable cards which can be individually arranged by drag and drop, giving you the flexibility to make a unique web page.

Qards does the work, but leaves you in full control of what is happening. The end result is a landing page, or sometimes an entire website, that is precisely as you envisioned it.

Best Use For Qards

With Qards, you can take an already-built landing page and edit it to your heart’s content. You can also create a copy of it and build a new landing page from that. This makes Qards a great tool for maintaining consistency to a website design, allowing you achieve a similar ongoing and unifying theme from one page to the next.

Alternatively, you can use this plugin independent of a WordPress theme and just create a completely new website from scratch. Qards is flexible enough to allow you to start from any stage of the design process.

How Qards Work

Qards works like a puzzle except it isn’t — because you always know what it will do, and what you can do with the pieces. The puzzle pieces in this case are blocks on the cards.

Qards comes with a library of 8 cards, each with 8 different categories or features to be used in conjunction with a page-building menu. Take the card or cards you want to use and start editing, using the various menu options and the drag-and-drop function to do so. You can just as easily eliminate cards or blocks that you don’t need.

In essence, you already have a layout that serves as a starting point with no constraints in any way possible.

Drag-and-Drop

The drag and drop function is almost ridiculously easy to use, and once you have customized a page to your liking, you can begin tweaking and fine-tuning the various blocks until you have obtained the layout and content you want.

Making changes to your website with Qards is as easy as typing an e-mail, once you get used to using this plugin. You can take a look at this Designmodo demo to give you a good idea of how easy it is to create a landing page and make changes.

Media & Content Management

Add videos, images, new content, and change colors and fonts to suit your liking. Image size and positions can be altered, and the images you have added to your content can be modified as well.

In-place text can be customized with respect to font type, size, and background color — you can do anything that you can do with a Word document. Content blocks can be moved, duplicated, or reordered in any manner you choose.

If you want a video background to give your web page a touch of class or a more professional look, adding a video from YouTube is a simple task.

Other Features

The pages you create can be full-width and full-screen, so you don’t have to be constrained by any of the limitations WordPress or some of these WordPress themes might impose on you.

If you have an e-Commerce site, Qards works perfectly with WooCommerce to create attractive and professional looking landing pages. It also comes with Typekit integration for more typography choices and your created designs are responsive.

Pricing Plan

With Qards, it is possible to design a page, and even an entire website, without writing a line of code, making it an ideal solution for non-technical users. If you need to add or modify CSS and HTML however, the capability is there.

Qards is available for for one site. This includes free support and updates, and will not render any further monthly or subscription fees. There is an alternate pricing plan for 5 sites, which is a bargain at only 9.

Wrap Up

The advent of fast, flexible, and highly-automated page builders has been a blessing for website developers, but Qards sets a new standard for the process of page building as far as speed, flexibility, ease of use, and attention to detail is concerned.

Editor’s note: This post is brought to you by Qards, a WordPress Plugin by Designmodo.

Build High Quality Landing Pages With Qards [WordPress Plugin]

Build High Quality Landing Pages With Qards [WordPress Plugin]

Are you find it hard to build your web pages exactly the way you want them to look? Is the creation process taking longer than you would like, even with the help of a WordPress theme? Then, you might want to try out Qards.

Qards is a WordPress plugin, produced by Designmodo, which allows you to edit existing pages or produce new pages precisely the way you intended. It makes use of editable cards which can be individually arranged by drag and drop, giving you the flexibility to make a unique web page.

Qards does the work, but leaves you in full control of what is happening. The end result is a landing page, or sometimes an entire website, that is precisely as you envisioned it.

Best Use For Qards

With Qards, you can take an already-built landing page and edit it to your heart’s content. You can also create a copy of it and build a new landing page from that. This makes Qards a great tool for maintaining consistency to a website design, allowing you achieve a similar ongoing and unifying theme from one page to the next.

Alternatively, you can use this plugin independent of a WordPress theme and just create a completely new website from scratch. Qards is flexible enough to allow you to start from any stage of the design process.

How Qards Work

Qards works like a puzzle except it isn’t — because you always know what it will do, and what you can do with the pieces. The puzzle pieces in this case are blocks on the cards.

Qards comes with a library of 8 cards, each with 8 different categories or features to be used in conjunction with a page-building menu. Take the card or cards you want to use and start editing, using the various menu options and the drag-and-drop function to do so. You can just as easily eliminate cards or blocks that you don’t need.

In essence, you already have a layout that serves as a starting point with no constraints in any way possible.

Drag-and-Drop

The drag and drop function is almost ridiculously easy to use, and once you have customized a page to your liking, you can begin tweaking and fine-tuning the various blocks until you have obtained the layout and content you want.

Making changes to your website with Qards is as easy as typing an e-mail, once you get used to using this plugin. You can take a look at this Designmodo demo to give you a good idea of how easy it is to create a landing page and make changes.

Media & Content Management

Add videos, images, new content, and change colors and fonts to suit your liking. Image size and positions can be altered, and the images you have added to your content can be modified as well.

In-place text can be customized with respect to font type, size, and background color — you can do anything that you can do with a Word document. Content blocks can be moved, duplicated, or reordered in any manner you choose.

If you want a video background to give your web page a touch of class or a more professional look, adding a video from YouTube is a simple task.

Other Features

The pages you create can be full-width and full-screen, so you don’t have to be constrained by any of the limitations WordPress or some of these WordPress themes might impose on you.

If you have an e-Commerce site, Qards works perfectly with WooCommerce to create attractive and professional looking landing pages. It also comes with Typekit integration for more typography choices and your created designs are responsive.

Pricing Plan

With Qards, it is possible to design a page, and even an entire website, without writing a line of code, making it an ideal solution for non-technical users. If you need to add or modify CSS and HTML however, the capability is there.

Qards is available for for one site. This includes free support and updates, and will not render any further monthly or subscription fees. There is an alternate pricing plan for 5 sites, which is a bargain at only 9.

Wrap Up

The advent of fast, flexible, and highly-automated page builders has been a blessing for website developers, but Qards sets a new standard for the process of page building as far as speed, flexibility, ease of use, and attention to detail is concerned.

Editor’s note: This post is brought to you by Qards, a WordPress Plugin by Designmodo.

Build High Quality Landing Pages With Qards [WordPress Plugin]

Win One Qards License – Responsive Drag & Drop Page Building WordPress Plugin

Isn’t it frustrating to design the perfect webpage in your mind, but to be unable to create it for real? It’s time you found out about Qards, an awesome page builder plugin that you can use to create beautiful and responsive websites. Keep reading and find out how you can get your hands on a Qards license, worth !

Design infinite types of web pages without using a single code

The new Qards drag and drop WordPress plugin allows you to build awesome and appealing webpages or websites without having to write a single line of code yourself. Not only does this plugin let you build a page from scratch, but it also saves weeks of work time, otherwise spent on programming. If you know how to code, then Qards gives you the possibility to tweak CSS by accessing the CSS option and customize your page even further.

Qards works with any WordPress theme and helps you to design a wide variety of webpages, such as blogs, e-commerce sites, landing pages, case studies and many more. Moreover, you can enhance your project’s originality by using their easy to use visual editor and the TypeKit Integration, which allows you to select from an entire collection of fonts.

Add beautiful components to your website in no time

There are no more limitations for your creativity. You can add as many elements as you want: Qards comes with a drag & drop feature, allowing you to edit every aspect of your site and make changes easily before sharing the page with your audience.  Choose your favorite elements from a wide range of pre-designed blocks, or adjust them to your design preferences.

You can use Qards to add images, videos, smooth scrolling effects and fixed menus to your page. Feel free to modify their styles and place them wherever you like on your website.

Win one of three Qards Plugin Licenses

All you have to do to win a license for Qards, the drag & drop WordPress tool for website design, is to enter the contest through the form below. But if you don’t want to wait any longer, feel free to try Qards now.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Find Out More →

The post Win One Qards License – Responsive Drag & Drop Page Building WordPress Plugin appeared first on Speckyboy Web Design Magazine.

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Win One Qards License – Responsive Drag & Drop Page Building WordPress Plugin

Layzr.js – Lazy load plugin

Layzr.js is a small, fast, modern, and dependency-free library for lazy loading images.

The post Layzr.js – Lazy load plugin appeared first on Freebiesbug.

Layzr.js – Lazy load plugin

5 Questions to Ask before Installing a WordPress Plugin

Plugins make WordPress powerful – we can change and add almost any functionality to WordPress easily just by using a plugin. However, not all plugins are created equal. While some plugins can extend features on your site, others may downright stop your website from functioning. There are even cases of plugins that could plant a serious security hole in your website.

There are currently more than 37,000 plugins hosted in the WordPress official plugin repository. Choosing the best plugin is far from an easy task. Nonetheless, there are (or at least there should be) a few considerations you can take to heart before deciding on whether or not to install a particular WordPress plugin.

Here are some of mine:

1. What Comes With The Features?

This might seems obvious since we look for plugins based on the feature it provides. However, even though two plugins may serve the same purpose, in terms of usability, this may vary for each individual plugin.

I usually will compare two or more plugins that do the same thing then look at whether the features are sufficient for my needs.

For example, Meta Slider, a plugin that makes it easy to add image slideshows in WordPress, offers four different JavaScript libraries (Flex Slider, Nivo Slider, Responsive Slides & Coin Slider). Similar plugins such as WOW Slider only brings in one single exclusive JavaScript library. How many libraries do you need to accommodate to make one plugin work?

2. Is It Updated And (Still) Compatible With WordPress?

WordPress is updated once every 6 month with new features and often also by deprecating some of the old ones. In the WordPress official plugin repository, you will find the information of when a plugin was last updated, and its compatibility against the updated WordPress versions. You will also have to take into account the WordPress version you are using.

One good thing is that WordPress usually warns us if a plugin has not been updated for two years. It’s an indicator that the developer may have abandoned the plugin, so the plugin wouldn’t probably see another update in the future, and you best be moving along.

3. How Are The Ratings and User Reviews Like?

Do you trust ratings? I don’t, well, not completely. A Rating does not tell all when it comes to the quality of a WordPress plugin. And honestly The WordPress rating system is vague. Plugins with lower ratings do not necessarily indicate that the plugin is bad.

Perhaps it was, but remember that plugins get updates, and the earlier rating may not reflect correctly on the quality of a revised plugin.

This is where the section in each WordPress plugin page, Review, comes in handy. There, you can find other users telling you about their experience with the plugin. You can also see when the review is posted as well as the star ratings they have given. These are a more accurate measurement to adopt when deciding to install or leave the plugin.

Here’s a 5-star review and a 1-star review stacked next to each other. It happens.

Also, you might want to do some research on who is using the plugin. WordPress has a wide-range user-base from small independent sites to large corporate websites like the New York Times and TechCrunch.

If you found major websites using particular plugins, it may indicate that the plugin is good and trusted. You don’t supposed that their development team would the site at risk by installing bad or harmful plugins, right?

4. Who Is/Are the Developer(s)?

A WordPress plugin relies on its developer’s dedication to maintain and fix the bugs. Otherwise, their users will be on their own when something untoward happens in the plugin.

Usually, if the plugin is supported by multiple developers, a company, or if the developer has some sort of financial support by way of offering premium features, the plugin will likely be continuously updated. Any and all problems will probably get fixed in a relatively short time.

However, if the plugin is handled only by a single developer, speaking from experience, plugin abandonment is inevitable. That said, this also depends on who is behind the plugin.

I won’t have second thoughts of installing a plugin if it came from those who involve are directly with the WordPress core updates like Samuel Wood, or reputable developers such as Pippin Williamson, Greg Priday of SiteOrigin, and Lester Chan. Sometimes the plugin developer’s reputation precedes them.

5. Is The Design Appealing & Thoughtful?

This may boil down to personal preferences but the plugin design and aesthetic may play a role in one’s decision to try out a plugin. Generally a plugin will add a new Settings page in WordPress dashboard. Yet, some plugins create and style their own version of the Settings page. Sometimes the results look completely out of its element when it comes to WordPress.

I personally would like a Settings page to embrace the WordPress style guide, or at least look similar overall. Here’s a comparison between the Settings page of BPS Security and iThemes Security plugin. For me, the iThemes security Setting page is neater. The menu is well organized, sensible and logical.

And speaking about sensible choices, if a plugin adds an additional menu, the menu name should be short and sensible for common users. For example, if the plugin is about securing WordPress, hence naming the menu "Security" is sufficient instead of naming it as "Ultimate SEO" or "All in One SEO" etc.

Now Read:
10 WordPress Plugins To Improve User Management

5 Questions to Ask before Installing a WordPress Plugin

5 Questions to Ask before Installing a WordPress Plugin

Plugins make WordPress powerful – we can change and add almost any functionality to WordPress easily just by using a plugin. However, not all plugins are created equal. While some plugins can extend features on your site, others may downright stop your website from functioning. There are even cases of plugins that could plant a serious security hole in your website.

There are currently more than 37,000 plugins hosted in the WordPress official plugin repository. Choosing the best plugin is far from an easy task. Nonetheless, there are (or at least there should be) a few considerations you can take to heart before deciding on whether or not to install a particular WordPress plugin.

Here are some of mine:

1. What Comes With The Features?

This might seems obvious since we look for plugins based on the feature it provides. However, even though two plugins may serve the same purpose, in terms of usability, this may vary for each individual plugin.

I usually will compare two or more plugins that do the same thing then look at whether the features are sufficient for my needs.

For example, Meta Slider, a plugin that makes it easy to add image slideshows in WordPress, offers four different JavaScript libraries (Flex Slider, Nivo Slider, Responsive Slides & Coin Slider). Similar plugins such as WOW Slider only brings in one single exclusive JavaScript library. How many libraries do you need to accommodate to make one plugin work?

2. Is It Updated And (Still) Compatible With WordPress?

WordPress is updated once every 6 month with new features and often also by deprecating some of the old ones. In the WordPress official plugin repository, you will find the information of when a plugin was last updated, and its compatibility against the updated WordPress versions. You will also have to take into account the WordPress version you are using.

One good thing is that WordPress usually warns us if a plugin has not been updated for two years. It’s an indicator that the developer may have abandoned the plugin, so the plugin wouldn’t probably see another update in the future, and you best be moving along.

3. How Are The Ratings and User Reviews Like?

Do you trust ratings? I don’t, well, not completely. A Rating does not tell all when it comes to the quality of a WordPress plugin. And honestly The WordPress rating system is vague. Plugins with lower ratings do not necessarily indicate that the plugin is bad.

Perhaps it was, but remember that plugins get updates, and the earlier rating may not reflect correctly on the quality of a revised plugin.

This is where the section in each WordPress plugin page, Review, comes in handy. There, you can find other users telling you about their experience with the plugin. You can also see when the review is posted as well as the star ratings they have given. These are a more accurate measurement to adopt when deciding to install or leave the plugin.

Here’s a 5-star review and a 1-star review stacked next to each other. It happens.

Also, you might want to do some research on who is using the plugin. WordPress has a wide-range user-base from small independent sites to large corporate websites like the New York Times and TechCrunch.

If you found major websites using particular plugins, it may indicate that the plugin is good and trusted. You don’t supposed that their development team would the site at risk by installing bad or harmful plugins, right?

4. Who Is/Are the Developer(s)?

A WordPress plugin relies on its developer’s dedication to maintain and fix the bugs. Otherwise, their users will be on their own when something untoward happens in the plugin.

Usually, if the plugin is supported by multiple developers, a company, or if the developer has some sort of financial support by way of offering premium features, the plugin will likely be continuously updated. Any and all problems will probably get fixed in a relatively short time.

However, if the plugin is handled only by a single developer, speaking from experience, plugin abandonment is inevitable. That said, this also depends on who is behind the plugin.

I won’t have second thoughts of installing a plugin if it came from those who involve are directly with the WordPress core updates like Samuel Wood, or reputable developers such as Pippin Williamson, Greg Priday of SiteOrigin, and Lester Chan. Sometimes the plugin developer’s reputation precedes them.

5. Is The Design Appealing & Thoughtful?

This may boil down to personal preferences but the plugin design and aesthetic may play a role in one’s decision to try out a plugin. Generally a plugin will add a new Settings page in WordPress dashboard. Yet, some plugins create and style their own version of the Settings page. Sometimes the results look completely out of its element when it comes to WordPress.

I personally would like a Settings page to embrace the WordPress style guide, or at least look similar overall. Here’s a comparison between the Settings page of BPS Security and iThemes Security plugin. For me, the iThemes security Setting page is neater. The menu is well organized, sensible and logical.

And speaking about sensible choices, if a plugin adds an additional menu, the menu name should be short and sensible for common users. For example, if the plugin is about securing WordPress, hence naming the menu "Security" is sufficient instead of naming it as "Ultimate SEO" or "All in One SEO" etc.

Now Read:
10 WordPress Plugins To Improve User Management

5 Questions to Ask before Installing a WordPress Plugin