And how JavaScript is becoming main language for WordPress Development
Pagelines in 2012 was part of that Wave of WordPress Page Building software that has taken over the WordPress theme market. Theme providers now have a single all-purpose Builder+Theme Designer like The 7, Divi, or X-Theme. Or like Headway and Ithemes, the vendors support their themes/templates with very good drag and drop Page/Post building tools. I have stayed with Headway because I like the combinations of a Wireframe Layout Designer, good selection of drag and drop widgets, solid template and snapshot creation capabilities and all linked with a surprisingly versatile CSS Styler tool. So the bottom line, is that Pagelines had dropped off the WordPress radar.
Not Anymore
This screenshot from the Pagelines blog, shows a few of the reasons that upcoming new Pagelines 5 has grabbed my attention:
First, Pagelines 5 will be written 100% in JavaScript. Hmm, keeping up with Matt Mullenweg and the Calypso interface for WordPress Admin. And even more interesting, Andrew Powers head honcho at Pagelines cites many of the same reasons Matt has mentioned for going with JavaScript. First performance in the new Pagelines 5 shows 50% faster load times and 70% faster operational times over the equivalent PHP code. This is enabled by the fact that most of the code runs on the client not waiting for the server. The second advantage of JavaScript is that the codebase is about 50% smaller than the equivalent functions in PHP. The benefits is a smaller codebase to change and/or debug.
But the last reason Pagelines went with JavaScript was for the ability to deliver pervasive realtime bindings:
Powers promises that in Pagelines 5 you will be able to control everything in real time including:
- Padding / Margin / Grids / Spacing
- Background images, overlays and videos
- Font sizes, alignments
- Page layouts and templates
- Images and Content
Now as a developer I have been attracted to the capabilities of realtime Page Designers like Visual Composer or SiteOrigins PageBuilder. But also live styling with CSS Interactive Editors like CSS Hero and SiteOrigin CSS Editor. Pagelines 5 appears to be promising to bringing these together with joint styling, layout and UI/UX composition in one WordPress Interactive Design space. So on March 2, this party will certainly be taking a good close look at what Pagelines 5 will have on offer.