Page Builder Sandwich

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Category: Frontly Builder

  • Why We Switched from EDD to Freemius

    Why We Switched from EDD to Freemius

    When Page Builder Sandwich was launched in 2016, we were using Easy Digital Downloads. In 2017, we moved to Freemius. Here’s why we switched:

    What is EDD and why did we choose it?

    Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is a popular self-hosted eCommerce / WooCommerce alternative for WordPress. Out of the box, you can’t really sell a WordPress product using EDD, but its Software Licensing extension makes it perfect for selling plugins. The extension handled the creation and verification of license keys, too.

    EDD also worked well because it allowed customers to purchase our product directly from the website, while also giving them their own account page where they can log in and view their purchase history.

    Since it worked well, and since we’re a big fan of Pippin Williamson, this was Sandwich’s first option.

    How does it work compared to Freemius, and when did we switch?

    In 2016, Vova Feldman, lead developer and co-creator of Freemius, emailed us a rundown of Freemius, explaining that it’s more than an eCommerce solution — It provides other features like analytics and insights solution, a marketing automation tool, and built-in support tool so customers could contact you directly from the WordPress Dashboard.

    Initially, we only used ‘Freemius Insights’ — one of Freemius’ features — because we were curious about the analytics. It did help us understand the common reasons why people were uninstalling our plugin at that time.

    It also helped us make more data-driven decisions through quick surveys for customers. For example, if a user were to uninstall our plugin, a quick feedback form pops up and asks why they chose to uninstall. These feedbacks helped us understand our customers’ needs.

    In this exercise, we found out that users were uninstalling because they didn’t know what to do after they activate. We simply added a welcome screen and tutorial video to decrease the uninstall rate. Easy.

    Analytics aside, Freemius platform was built that you can readily use it for selling your WordPress products more effectively!

    After weighing pros and cons, we moved to Freemius in January 2017. Here’s why:

    Freemius lets customers purchase your product directly on their WordPress Dashboard

    Instead of being redirected to an external website, Freemius allows customers to purchase straight from their WordPress Dashboard. This made huge impact on sales of course! Generally, the fewer things the user has to do to purchase something, the more likely it is that they actually make the purchase.

    With EDD, people who interested in Sandwich had to jump out of their page building experience to an external website to purchase a license key. They would go through several clicks — and several more distractions — before they could finally purchase.

    In contrast, with Freemius customers purchase right out of their own WordPress Dashboards while they’re trying out Sandwich — no need to navigate away to a different site to purchase.

    The convenience of it all made purchasing ten times smoother and easier for customers, leading to a significant increase in sales.

    The developers are also invested in your success

    Selling your product using Freemius isn’t free. For each sale, they gather a small share of your revenue, that goes into payment and processing fees. That’s their business model.

    But the important thing to note here is that their business model revolves around your WordPress product’s success.

    Vova and his team are very accommodating. They gave us their own tips and tricks on how to generate more revenue, how to improve our plugin, and how to use Freemius to our advantage. Their generosity with information contributed to Sandwich’s growth.

    Conclusion: If you’re a WordPress product author who wants to monetize, Freemius is the way to go.

    Page Builder Sandwich aims to heighten intuitiveness and user experience through page building. Freemius does this, too: It effectively smoothens the experience for both customers and sellers alike.

    Since switching to Freemius in 2017, we’ve had happier customers, lower uninstall rate, and overall a better sales. If you’re looking to monetize your WordPress plugins or themes, Freemius is definitely the way to go.

    Its features are better than the competitors. It helped us make smarter decisions for improvement. Their team offers outstanding support. If you are a WordPress product author, we hope you experience the same impact we had with Freemius.

  • Frontly Rebrand Update #1: Copy-Pasting Paragraphs

    Over our past blog posts, we mentioned that PBS will be rebranding as Frontly, and that we’ll be changing and improving a lot of aspects for the better. One of these aspects is being able to use Frontly to experience a smoother, more intuitive page building experience that’s even better than PBS.

    So while we’re still making Frontly perfect for you guys, we’ve decided to release a series of posts to let you know exactly what it is you’re getting once Frontly hits the market.

    Copy-paste blocks of text on Frontly

    We designed PBS in a way that your every paragraph is a separate element. Copy-pasting long texts divides the selection into separate textblocks.

    What do we mean by this? Here’s an example to illustrate.

    On PBS’ current version (the one you’re using now), copy-pasting multiple lines gets broken into multiple text elements, making it harder to move sections of text around. This makes it hard to edit text.

    So if I wanted to move the text I just copy-pasted to another column, it’d be harder because I have to drag the lines one by one.

    This is something we’re definitely addressing with Frontly.

    This is a small test page Benjamin made for Frontly. Here, you’ll see that we copy-pasted the same paragraph we tried to copy-paste on PBS. Only this time, everything is retained in a single area that you can drag around and place wherever you want to.

    This means you get to add and edit text more smoothly, giving you a hassle-free typing (and page building) experience.

    Retain full text formatting with Frontly

    Another thing we’re excited to have you guys try out in Frontly is how all formatting remains the same – all headings are kept, including bullets, and even emojis.

    Copy-pasting with PBS vs copy-pasting with Frontly

    On Frontly (right), you’ll see that all text formatting was retained from the original source. Everything bolded, italicized, underlined, or edited as a different heading size all remain intact when pasted onto the Frontly area (compared to PBS, where the only thing retained were the emojis).

    What else do we have in store for you?

    As we’ve mentioned, this is only the first in a series of posts about how Frontly is going to be lightyears ahead of PBS. We can’t wait to show you all of the other stuff, so stay tuned for our next blog post!

    Suggestions or comments? Hit us up and leave a reply below!

  • Frontly API: Making Frontly Builder More Developer-Friendly

    Great news for developers: in Frontly’s upcoming release, we’ll finally be launching the Frontly API.

    It’s currently still in development, but you’ll finally be able to create addons and extensions for Frontly. Of course, we’ll also be launching an API documentation to go along with it for a smoother, more functional experience.

    We can’t wait to see all the great stuff you guys are gonna come up with.

    Here’s a short list of some of the APIs we have so far:

    1. Text Formatting Bar API

    With the Text Formatting Bar API, developers can extend the functionality of Frontly’s text formatting bar. With this, you can add new buttons/options on the text formatting bar.

    2. Add Element API

    This API will let you create new elements, adding them to the list of already-existing ones in the Elements section on the left side of the content editor.

    3. Inspector API

    The Inspector API will let you create, add, or remove settings on each element’s Properties Inspector.

    4. Text API

    The Text API will allow you to make modifications to text styles, specifically, the ability to modify text formats, change text background colors, and more.

    Developers! It’d be great if you could send over some suggestions

    These are just some of the basic APIs we have in store for you. We’re in the middle of creating more, but if you have any other ideas of APIs we can add to our console, just leave a comment below, or hit us up at [email protected]. We might just feature your suggestions in the upcoming Frontly release ?

  • Frontly Builder: Frequently Asked Questions

    A few months ago, we announced the launch Frontly Builder, a bigger, better front-end page builder with increased performance and awesome new stuff. Think of it as a new and improved version of Page Builder Sandwich.

    It’s still in the works, but it’s coming real soon. In the meantime, we’re sure you guys have some questions about Frontly. So here’s a short FAQ for everyone!

    What will happen to my PBS-run site?/Will I lose everything I’ve built using PBS?/Will the Frontly update destroy my website?

    • No, definitely not! Everything you’ve made using Page Builder Sandwich will remain intact, and nothing will change.

    I purchased Page Builder Sandwich before the Frontly release. What do I do?

    • The only thing you have to do is… nothing. For current PBS users, Frontly will be released as an “update”. You’ll just be upgraded to a “better” version of PBS- Frontly.

    Will I have to repurchase Frontly?

    • No. If you’ve purchased PBS before the Frontly release, you don’t need to purchase anything. As mentioned, everything will be released as an “update” for old users, so you won’t have to lift a finger or shell anything out- we’ve sorted everything out for you guys. ?

    That’s it for now! If you guys have more questions, leave us a comment below so we can add to this list of FAQ’s.

    We hope you’re excited about Frontly as we are! See you there. ?

    Leave us your email to get first dibs on updates!

  • We’re Releasing Something Big Really Soon.

    In a few short months, we’ll be relaunching as Frontly Builder.

    At the moment, it’s still under some heavy development. But even so, we’re crazy excited to show you guys what we’ve been up to. Here, we’ll be talking about why we’re making the switch, how Frontly’s going to be different from PBS, and what you need to look out for.

    From Page Builder Sandwich to Frontly Builder

    Before the idea of Sandwich, we noticed a little pattern with page builders everywhere: A lot of them were difficult to use.

    For example, some of these builders would have you go through numerous pop-ups and other settings if you want to add something as simple as an image, a row, a button.

    And if you wanted to change a column’s settings, clicking on the edit button takes you to yet another pop-up that requires you to input settings like size and margins through dropdown options that aren’t very flexible.

    It was frustrating because we knew that page builders should exist to make things easier for users, not the other way around.

    Other wordpress page builders
    Other WordPress Page Builders

    This is how we came up with Page Builder Sandwich.

    We wanted to introduce a builder that was going to maximize users’ experience when creating webpages, allowing them to create awesome things the fast and easy way.

    We received lots of great feedback that allowed Sandwich to evolve. And the more our audience grew, the more suggestions we received on how we could further improve the plugin.

    We were in a state of constant development, and we loved it.

    Page Builder Sandwich has true front-end power, and so will Frontly Builder.

    Redefining What It Means to Run on TRUE Frontend

    Sandwich’s evolution was constant.

    Apart from the feedback (both negative— things we could work on; and positive ones— which we knew we had to retain), Sandwich’s capacity to grow increased, too. We kept finding more and more ideas and solutions to further improve PBS.

    And the more wants and needs from PBS arose, the more our code’s main foundation got tweaked.

    Imagine an actual sandwich with all of your favorite toppings.

    Sure, it’d taste great, but how is it going to fit in your mouth? How is it going to serve its main purpose— to be eaten?

    This is kind of what happened with PBS. We realized that so much more could be done with it with an even more efficient, stronger foundation. That we could take it further.

    As we mentioned, Page Builder Sandwich is in a constant state of evolution.

    Frontly is the next step to that evolution.

    You’ll still get an awesome support team, theme and plugin compatibility, and more.

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    This Isn’t a Goodbye for Page Builder Sandwich.

    It’s a hello to Frontly.

    So what makes Frontly different from Page Builder Sandwich?

    We’ve been working really hard to maximize Frontly’s development. The goal now is to make it an insanely better version of PBS — to embody what it means to operate on true front-end.

    Right now, we’re focusing on further improving Frontly’s UX and UI. We’ve worked on giving it a smoother look, a more user-friendly experience, and features that’ll let you build professional-looking websites in even less effort and less time.

    Questions on Frontly?

    We have a short FAQ post you can check out. Add a comment below so we can add your questions to our list!

    It’s Coming Really Soon.

    While we’re crazy excited to show you guys what we’ve come up with, we wanna make sure everything is just right for you. So leave us your email to get first dibs on updates, tips and trick, and big promos on the release date.

    We are relaunching as Frontly Builder.

    Leave your email so you don’t miss out.