We are excited to share the first major update of Analog templates for Elementor. Version 1.1 has rolled out yesterday so today is perfect to discuss the new features it brings and the roadmap we are working on. Let’s dive in.
What the new update brings
If you are already using Analog Templates for Elementor, you should find an “Update available” notification in your WordPress Dashboard. Hit update and you should be good to go. Keep in mind that now our plugin is also available in the WordPress repository, so you can find the full changelog here. If you have not tried Analog templates yet, we strongly encourage you to do so by downloading from this site or through the WordPress repo.
New plugin UI
Ok, we rebranded a bit and hacked our way into a deep blue color. This seems to work better and communicates the momentum deeper for everyone. We also worked on spacing and architecture, setting the foundation for a design system approach for our product and it’s upcoming features.
Option to strip-off typographic styles on import
This one is on beta but is really useful if you want the typography of the templates to follow the typography of the theme. Under Analog Templates Settings tab, you will now find a checkbox that will apply for all the future template imports. If you check this, the Analog template that you will plug into your layout will inherit the typographic styles of your theme.
Lazy loading
It’s important to be lazy when you need to be. That’s why we are saving everyone’s resources and used lazy loading placeholder images for our template covers until they load. Everything is faster now.
Several tech improvements
Several bug fixes, improvements, and optimizations have been executed as well, as they are listed on the changelog. We are constantly working behind the scenes and will keep optimizing as we go. Your input is crucial.
Roadmap
The future is bright, and we are working our way towards it with momentum and confidence. It is important for us to find the sweet spot between usability and cutting edge design for consistent websites powered by Elementor. To do that, we need to sort out a couple of things.
Page Styling Settings
We are working on a solution to provide per-page control of typography and spacing so you won’t need to manually tweak the typography for every element in your layout. To achieve this, we are adding typography and spacing controls under Elementor’s Page settings panel. Set the typography of your H3s and see the effect live on your layout, on all instances.
We have a working alpha version of this feature and should be ready to share more soon.
CSS-powered templates
This one is a big step but it is a necessity in today’s template ecosystem. Let’s be honest. When a user imports an Elementor template, all the typographic styles are manually added on the Elements. This results in extra CSS and lack of consistent typographic control. The plan is to have the template’s typographic CSS as an external snippet that is imported with the template into the system. This should still maintain a level of interoperability and minimal dependency. We are working on it and while refining the Page styling settings as mentioned above will clear the way for this CSS feature.
Analog Templates Pro
We are working on a paid version of our plugin. Analog templates for Elementor will still continue to have professionally designed landing pages for free. However, a pro version will allow us to include Theme builder pages for all your site pages, layouts with Elementor’s Pro widgets and a robust library of blocks, popups, Stylescapes, UX design patterns.
We aim for Analog to become an essential pillar in your WordPress design workflow. With the least friction, Analog aims to offer practically anything you need to create scalable sites with Elementor on solid design foundations and best practices.
Cloud uploads/downloads
With Analog templates Pro we will introduce the ability to upload your own templates into the cloud and download them when and where you need them. You can have your own cloud-based gallery of templates for your own use or for client projects.
Feedback
The period between the first release and this update we received a lot of useful feedback from the community. People seem to enjoy the amount of attention and detail we put into our templates. We have already seen many great implementations on public sites as well as integrations of our designs into broader layout contexts. We can’t be happier to see that users actually find value in our product by building upon it, integrating and scaling it up, instead of ending locked into design decisions and structures.
We are excited about the future and the features we will add to Analog templates. We need your help, input and suggestions to integrate our product into a frictionless design workflow that enhances consistency into a component-based design mentality.
Onward.
