Cornerstone "advanced mode" sucks for end users. What's the future of the "classic mode"?

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#1

Hi there,

First of all: This new distinction of the “advanced” and “classic” mode for Cornerstone shows that you listen to your community. I’ll be honest: After buying 16 licences I was seriously considering moving away of X, because the “advanced” mode is simply unusable for my clients/end users.

Now I would really like to know: Will this “classic” mode be supported in the future? I really hope so. My suggestion would be to keep both modes:

  • Make the “classic” mode really simple to use for end users (so webdesigners like me can use this mode for their clients). And don’t call it “classic”, because that implies it is old and outdated…
  • The “advanced” mode is specifically for people, who want full control over their own website and design, without knowledge about CSS (totally different audience).

For me, this topic is really hot at the moment. And with the Gutenberg editor (even if it is controversial) coming to WordPress core, I think the whole page builder ecosystem will be affected.

I’m also really interested in the opinion of other webdesigners: Am I the only one with this opinion? Totally stupid idea? How do you work? Do you also use the “classic” mode for your clients? Or do you make all the changes for your clients anyway, so they don’t have to work with Cornerstone themselves?

Best regards,
Michael

PS: I hope I didn’t miss another thread already discussing this topic.

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#2

I 100% agree with this. The “classic” mode also is so much easier to understand and use with very little thought. The “advanced” mode seems to convoluted and difficult to make immediate changes (as it’s sorta cluttered) on an ongoing basis.

I would also agree with the fact that you call it “classic” make it sound old and dated. I think something more along the lines of “Basic” would make sense instead.

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#3

I think that’s great idea. I’m self taught site builder (for myself) and advanced controls are fun to work with and makes styling elements much easier - I don’t have to scan X’s CSS files endlessly :slight_smile:

However, I’m reluctant to allow my employees to work with Cornerstone/Content builder because they’d run away screaming. I think it would be great to set style of each element (classic or advanced), maybe in a few “flavours” and allow other wp users use only a limited set of elements (chosen by me) so they can focus on content. This way styling would be concitent across all site.

I’m curious if something similar will be possible with the new Template manager.

#4

Hey Michael,

I wanted to add a few points from Themeco’s end.

  1. There is no advanced mode or classic mode, there are only V2 Elements (and Classic Elements). We have a few ideas around an actual “easy” or “advanced” mode that go beyond just Elements. We will discuss with everyone after the first of the year. Once the Template Manager is out we have allocated a large block of time to work through our issue tracker and other improvements (more info).

  2. If you or your clients don’t want to use V2 Elements you can go into Cornerstone settings and turn them off as referenced in the blue message at the top of every page in the forum. You can control the experience. If you elect to turn off V2 Elements, the workflow will be virtually the same as before. While we have seen a significant percentage of customers move over to V2 elements in Cornerstone (as expected since this was by far the biggest feature request for Cornerstone), the choice is ultimately each customer’s to make based on their workflow and customization preference.

  3. Classic Elements will continue to be supported. With regards to naming, we are considering something like “Standard” and “Advanced” in place of “Classic” and “V2” since V2 could be somewhat vague in certain circumstances, and we certainly do not want to insinuate that Classic Elements are old or won’t be supported as that is not the case.

Hope this helps give a bit of context.

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#5

Hi Kyle,

Yes, I meant exactly the distinction between V2 and Classic Elements.

But I really like to hear that you actually are thinking about an “easy” and “advanced” mode, that sounds exactly like what I was thinking about.

Because even though with the Classic Elements (which I use for all client websites) Cornerstone is definitely easier to use, for end users it’s still quite complex.

I understand that the biggest part of Themeco’s user base is the self taught website builder, who uses X/Cornerstone for himself and his website.

And that’s totally fine. But we (the webdesigners) sometimes have different needs. And we may be a much smaller group, but we buy multiple licences :wink:

So I think the perfect solution of the “easy” and “advanced” mode would be, that you can activate it depending on the user role (e.g. administrators can use the “advanced” mode, editors use the “easy” mode). But as that is probably a bigger challenge, I could live without it, as long as the “easy” and “advanced” mode simply exist.

Regarding the naming: Maybe something like “Developer/Full Control” and “End User/Easy” mode?

Anyway, thank you very much for your answer. Really looking forward to see what you guys come up with.

Best regards,
Michael

#6

I completely agree with you and the OP. Advanced mode has been a bit of a headache to put it simply.

#7

Just to explain what I wrote earlier:

I think it’s nice to be able to turn on/off Classic/V2 only or both elements. But I’d like to have a similar but different option.

There are a lot of elements right now. I made a cild theme and styled all features to reflect my color branding etc. Thanks to that if someone is creating content in Cornerstone the elements have uified styling across whole website. But with V2 elements you can have an infinite range of styling options (which is a great thing and I appreciate that). However, you have to know what you’re doing to achieve desired effect, e.g. headline element can be just headline or Typing text, Text element can have different borders and backgrounds. I’d like to have a limited library of preset elements (for roles which aren’t administrator). This way my employees, who “just” create content, won’t be lost with the magnitude of options given by Cornerstone/Content Builder.

I’m thinking that most of what I just written will be covered by Template Manager so I’m waiting patiently fot it :smile:

#8

I can relate to the OP’s post. Myself I use V2 more and more, even for clients sites as they mostly only want to be able to make posts or change an image here or there.

However, my biggest gripe is that V2 doesn’t use global settings that we set in Theme Options. So to save time I do have to use Classic Elements on many occasions just to avoid having to style each V2 element. I believe that Templates will address this issue so hopefully that will be updated soon.

What would also be nice is if V2 elements could be edited in ‘classic mode’ for those less tech savvy. Not sure if that is technically possible but I reckon something like the current ‘Advanced’ options might be a solution?

#9

Yes, that would also be a great feature for the “easy/classic/whatever it will be” mode.

That’s the key point: Separating the styling/designing for users who just need to create/edit basic content (= what I call the end user).

Yes, I think that’s kind of what I proposed with “easy and advanced mode depending on the user role”.

I’m glad I’m not the only one with this opinion about Cornerstone :wink:

#10

I hold the same opinion as many in this thread, hoping that Classic Elements will still be supported.

The problem I’ve run across with V2 elements is to continiously style them each time I want to use one. There isn’t a default I can build from. Maybe Templates will solve that?

With the V2 elements, too, I’ve noticed there really is no difference between the Text element and the Headline element2. I can’t select h1, h2, h3, etc. and set the size. I need to manually go set px or em size.

What’s the point in this? I understand this thread isn’t getting into the nitty gritty of that. But, I do hope it is addressed for V2 elements that they help us save time while also giving us added flexibility that Classic elements don’t allow for.

#11

I agree with most people on this forum, I spent about 3 weeks getting the perfect theme I wanted.

when I finally got it, the header corrupted and I had to start over.

I finally went another system theme and builder.

I was able to complete a new rebuild in about 6 hours on a new builder from scratch.

The Standard version did not have enough options and the advanced, had tons of options but was trial by fire and guessing what the options did, but I did try…

As a paying customer I will not use X or recommend to anyone else.

#13

@kyle: Kind of off-topic, but: Why is this thread not visible on the forum overview page?! https://theme.co/apex/forum/c/themeco/peer-to-peer

It’s not even visible within my “My Posts” and “Bookmarks” overview. Is this a bug or cencorship?!

#15

@NailedIT, try logging out and back in.

#16

Some of this will be addressed in the mode system I alluded to. I don’t know if we’d be able to go so far as to make only certain Preset Templates available to a certain user level as that is getting really in the weeds.

1 Like
#17

That will be addressed once you can save a Preset for an Element. Global styling will become less and less important especially with a way to set a default state for your Elements which we are working on in relation to the Template Manager.

#18

Correct, the Template Manager will solve that.

There are quite a few differences between the Text and Headline Element. Below is a quick overview of these differences:

Text Element

• Designed for long-form text. Wrapped in a <div> tag and intended to hold multiple paragraphs, lists, standard headlines, et cetera.
• Overall styling of all text within this element can be styled and setup as needed.
• Contains a unique “Text Columns” feature, which is a checkbox available in the “Setup” box at the beginning of the element. Turning this on will enable the usage of CSS columns, allowing users to create print-like layouts of text on the web. You can set the max number of columns, minimum column width, column gap, column rule (a decorative border in between columns), et cetera. This can be used to achieve lots of unique looks with how you set it up.

Headline Element

• Designed for short bits of text, primarily wrapped in a heading tag (h1-h6).
• There is the main text field for the element, which can have a tag specified for it in the “Setup” box at the beginning of the element. Then there is a separate “Subheadline” text, which can have its own independent tag specified in its setup box later in the element. So, for example, you could setup your main headline to be wrapped in an h1 and have your subheadline in a h2, but you can also do different combinations such as h3 / p, p / span, it all depends on what you’re trying to accomplish and how you want your markup to be. Keep in mind that these element tags are not applied to the outer most HTML tag of the Headline Element because it contains multiple lines of text. These specified tags are applied to the tag that directly wraps each line of text, which is nested within the markup a bit.
• The Headline Element has 2 completely independent sets of text controls to style the main text and subheadline on their own.
• The Headline Element also supports a “Graphic,” which is a font icon or an image that can be uploaded and set inline with the headline. The flex positioning controls of the element can be used to orient this icon to either side of the text, or on the top or bottom. You can further use these flex controls to vertically or horizontally center the graphic, or orient it to either end.
• The Headling Element contains an “overflow” option, that allows for single-line overflow text with an ellipsis added to the end if needed in some situations.
• The Headline Element contains a “Typing” effect, which allows users to create engaging visual effects where pieces of the headline can be typed out in real time. There are many parameters to this which can be adjusted as needed.
• Behind the scenes, the Headline Element also contains special styles to ensure that letter-spacing looks proper if a background color is added to the overall element. For example, when adding letter-spacing to text that might have a background color on the container, the letter-spacing can push the text away from the side, creating an asymmetrical look. Our Headline Element offsets this with some styles to ensure that headlines always look great no matter how much letter-spacing is added to the element.

TLDR: The two Elements serve different purposes. Relating to the point of you can’t set h1 and have it go to that size, you have to first pick a px or em size as that is the point of V2 Elements - to be able to specify everything about how a particular Element should look and function. Once the Template Manager is out, you can effectively make an “h1”, “h2”, “h3”, et cetera setting and set all options for that individual tag, including the exact size, and it will all be output as desired. It will be the glue that brings everything together.

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#19

Excellent break down and I appreciate the length you went to help differentiate the two elements.

I’ll be referencing this!

#20

As a developer who started in the days of writing HTML by hand in Notepad, I’m pretty disappointed with the new “PRO” v2 editor. Yeah, it’s loaded with options, but as others have said, you have to set them manually each time. That’s not very PRO, more like newbie. A Pro editor, in my opinion, requires proficiency with CSS. The “classic” editor let’s us throw the text in, and then just assign CSS classes or add in-line CSS as needed. That’s super powerful and easy to use. The new one feels like riding a kids bike through the mud with training wheels on.

I really appreciate the ability to turn off V2 elements and keep it as classic only. Good job there!

1 Like
#21

Hi @kyle. I’ve been using classic text boxes because Yoast SEO and another SEO tool I tried couldn’t read the text in the Cornerstone text box. I was really worried that my pages would have no chance of ranking on search engines, so I started using only classic text boxes. But I much prefer the Cornerstone advanced tools – I actually find them much easier to use now that I’m used to working with them. Do you have any comments on why Yoast SEO and other SEO tools can’t read the Cornerstone text box?

#22

Hi @pearlmultimedia,

It had to do with how V2 Elements data is stored. It doesn’t effect the search engine visibility at all, it simply conflicted with the way Yoast analyzes content. This has already been fixed for our next release, and if you’d like to see a bit more about what is coming you can check out this post.

Cheers!

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