Confused about difference between customizer, visual editor, and cornerstone

Hi guys,

Can someone explain the difference between customizer, visual editor, and cornerstone?

I have just started a wordpress blog hosted by bluehost, and I’ve installed the xtheme and imported a demo. It seems like there are three ways to edit the website…maybe even more than three…I"m just really overwhelmed and I don’t know which one I should be using for pages and which one for posts.

HI there,

You can create pages with Visual Composer or Cornerstone. Personally I’d stick to Cornerstone and remove visual composer. Both plugins can create beautiful designed pages but cornerstone is integrated in the theme where as VC is a standalone plugin.

So what you could do is create a new page…then instead of editing the page click on Edit With Cornerstone.
Once you’ve done that you’ll see a pane on the right named Layout.

Below Layout you’ll see Add Section - click on this and you’ll see a row on the right…
Within this section you can add columns or if you want to add an image or text you can click on the purple cube at the top of the page. These are the standard elements you can add to a section…just like VC. Just drag and drop the element you choose to your page.

Once you’ve finished your page you can save it by scrolling down to the very left pane (grey) and down below hit 'Save"

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Thanks for your help TheDude. This is good to know. If you don’t mind, I have a couple more questions. I’d really appreciate your advice again.

  1. How do I remove the visual composer? Would it be wise to remove it and is that easy? If not, then should I just copy/paste from word or google docs straight into the visual composer, then edit with cornerstone?

  2. After going to “appearance”, then “customize”, I go to xtheme’s customizer. There I can see all the demo content that was imported is still on my site. My question is do I need to go through and change or remove all of these articles and things that were part of the demo?

  1. Visual Composer can be removed by deactivating the plugin and after that removing it…
    If you remove it, you will be removing the content so yes…copy first then delete

  2. Yes, you will need to delete it but maybe it would be better to install a fresh install of Wordpress ?

Thanks for chiming in @TheDude.

@tygerdavis,

  1. Visual Composer content and neither content from the default Visual/Text WordPress editor could not be edited in Cornerstone. They are not backwards compatible. If you build a page in Cornerstone, you should stick with it and vice versa.

  2. Yes, you can delete them if you don’t need them anymore. Alternatively, you can start a fresh WP install.

Thanks.

  1. Oh okay. I couldn’t actually find where the plugin is for it. Also I’m still not sure if it would make sense to wipe it from WP. I mean is it completely useless since I have cornerstone?

  2. I don’t actually have any of my own content yet - I’m am just beginning and everything has been freshly installed. So I guess I have to replace everything in the theme demo with my own content or delete it right?

Hi christian_y. Good to hear your input as well. Thanks for that.

  1. That’s useful to know they aren’t backwards compatible. As I mentioned in my other response to thedude just a moment ago, I’m still not sure what’s the easiest way to do this.

  2. As I said everything is fresh on my site and I don’t have any of my own content yet.

Hello There,

The plugin installed on your site can be found on Admin > Plugins > Installed Plugins. Visual Composer and Cornerstone is both a page/content builder. It will depend on you which do you prefer to use. Cornerstone is the page builder that comes with X theme. It is a required plugin, whether you want to use it or not, it is installed automatically. On the other hand, Visual Composer is a bundled plugin, another option to build content.

Correct, feel free to edit the demo page/post to build you own content or delete it completely and create a new page or post. Whatever works for you is fine.

Customizer/Theme Options, is where you will set sitewide settings for your site. This settings works for every page on your site or as stated on the options.

For more information, feel free to check our knowledge base here.

Hope this helps.

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Thanks Lely!

And thank you everyone else! Feeling more confident now that you guys gave me some advice.

: )

If someone doesn’t mind, I just need help clarifying a couple more things.

  1. Visual composer is not in my installed plugins. Maybe I don’t know what the visual composer is. I thought the visual composer was when I click “post/page” and then “add new”, and that’s the tool that pops up. There are three options. Visual, text, and cornerstone.

  2. Even if I am able to delete this, wouldn’t I need it to input content before I can edit it with cornerstone? Again, I think I am confusing the visual composer with something else.

Hi,

  1. You are actually correct the first time as you have mentioned Visual Editor.
    Visual Composer is another page builder plugin like cornerstone and it shouldn’t have been mentioned to avoid confusion…
  2. No need to input a content, you can go directly to Cornerstone and put all the page contents you want from there.

Thanks

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Thanks paul.r

So I don’t actually have visual composer. Just cornerstone.

What is the best way to create a new blog post/page using cornerstone?

My thinking is to go to post/page, click add new, then copy/paste the content from google docs, THEN click edit with cornerstone.

Is this the most efficient way to publish new content with the xtheme using cornerstone?

Hi,

It should be go to post/page, click add new, add a title and click publish.

After that click on cornerstone, add a section and then a text element.

Add your content in the text element.

For more information, please review Cornerstone Section in our Knowledge Base

Thanks

2 Likes

Okay I understand.

But why should I click “publish”? Shouldn’t I wait until the end to do that?

Hi There,

Yes, it’s up to you. You can save it draft while developing the content or just publish right away. Either way it depends on you.

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Hi,

URL: goflitter.com
Product: X theme/childtheme
Theme: Ethos 1
Plugins: Akismet, Cornerstone, Duplicate post, Google Analytics, Really Simple SSL,
Slider Revolution, SSL Insecure Content Fixer, Yoast SEO

Note:
I also find it a bit confusing in terms of future website stability (sustainibilty).
I’ve read several topics about Cornerstone and Visual Composer. Just now I’m building my website and figure out what’s best. I’m under the impression that if I choose to work with VC for my blogs there’s a future risk for my website functions. This can happen when a plugin doesn’t meet X theme requirements…?

Untill now I used Cornerstone for creating my blog. Previously I worked with Site Origin which was very user friendly. I’m under the impression that VC looks a lot like Site Origin. I’m getting used to Cornerstone but it hasn’t the same look and feel as VC/Site Origin. It seems that I often have to adjust CSS to meet my personal taste?! So what are the ‘risks’ (pros/cons) of using VC?.

Many thx in advance.

Hey Ellen,

There is no risk in using VC. Like @Lely said, it is a matter of personal preference. What you just need to decide from the start if you’re going to use VC is, if you’ll use it natively or with X elements integrated because you can’t have both.

Thanks.

1 Like