Visual Composer Shortcodes

[Sotiris]

Hi ShteebleBuy,

Ok one thing at a time.

1) Today I worked with Intense quite a lot and I have to say that I have faced no issues with it. The only thing that needs some “care” is that before you enter a shortcode to a text box you need to have that text box created/published. So after adding the element that will contain the intense shortcode just make a page update and then go ahead and add it.

2) To be sure when working with more complex shortcodes on Intense before hitting the “insert shortcode” button after you have finished editing you can copy the shortcode just in case. So if things get “stuck” you can paste it anywhere after a page refresh without having to re-edit it. Nonetheless, after the updates I have faced no issues so far but I have only used Intense shortcodes wherever there are “text input” fields within Cardinal elements. It does not have to be a text block strictly.

3) Just to be clear please clarify to me what you want to achieve so I can try it. How exactly do you want your parralax setup? Is it fullpage and full width or just a “row”?
Do you add a Swift Page Builder Row and set it up as paralax?

You cannot use any Intense shortcodes or layout elements outside of Cardinal Elements i.e. using the classic editor. Once you switch to SPB those will be wiped out. However, this is normal and it also happens if you try to mix Visual Composer or Live Composer (I have it) assets with SPB. Each page editor needs to use exclusively its own elements (page formatting) and you can only enter other shortcodes within those.

In your case why don’t you use a full-width row, set it as parralax and then enter the gravity form shortcode in a text block with white background? Same as using an Icon Box as shown in the Contact Us page in Dante demo site.

Doesn’t Gravity Forms (don’t have it using another form plugin) create a shortcode for each form generated? And yet, can’t you set the form background to a color or whatever non-transparent? Do you want a “white stripe” where the form sits on?

I just did a really quick test to create something similar using a parralax row, a text block and my form shortcode. This is the result. Look at the screenshot. In this example I have not used a white background on my text block but this can be easily done with some CSS using an extra_class for the text block.

I also tested the Intense Content Section shortcode inserted within the text block and it also works fine (full-width as well).

4) As far as performance is concerned I have not noticed any slowdowns and I am using 22 plugins on my website with some of them quite heavy. Especially on Chrome I am amazed how fast things render even without minified scripts or any caching enabled yet.

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[Rui Guerreiro – SUPPORT]

Thanks for your reply/time
-Rui

[Sotiris]

No problem! I hope that it helps.

[Rui Guerreiro – SUPPORT]

🙂

[ShteebleGuy]

Wow @Sotiris!!

Thanks so much for that very detailed description!!! Quite quite helpful; I really appreciate your taking the time.

If you don’t mind my asking, what are the Intense Shortcodes you find yourself using most often that are not included in Cardinal?

It’s people like you who share their efforts with such generosity that make the web a true community!

[Sotiris]

Well to be honest Cardinal will already cover 90% or more of most people needs but it is always nice to have options and extras or solutions if your needs exceed what “most people” need.

In my case, I bought the plugin among others for this reason and due to the fact that I am really new to web design and wanted to try many routes so I can learn. Since I did not know anything about CSS 2-3 months ago, I thought that the more shortcodes I could have access to the more power to my fingers especially not knowing how to “tweak”. Now, after at least 150 hours or more on CSS “studying” I see that a lot of stuff can also be done manually even by me. On the other hand, plugins with such options such as the intense can be a great time saver compared to manual CSS.

I try to only use plugins when absolutely necessary or when there is no way to achieve what I want using the theme assets or where I want to differentiate some elements.

For example intense offers:

– A wide choice of shadows (on frames for images, maps, media, etc) although your needs will depend on the design route you follow (flat or not for example)
– Great icon control such as animation and stacking among others as well as very flexible sizing options. Cardinal is offering more icons though (incl. Gizmo) that I have used a lot.
– Very nice options for Google maps although I am also using Cardinal’s colored layers as well.
– A timeline feature
– Nice tab features with extra icon options & border coloring options although editing them is manual after you insert the shortcode vs Cardinal’s tabs that are editable easily. I have used both Cardinal and Intense tabs.

– Then you have a ton of custom post-types within intense that you might or might not need. At the moment I have not used any but the site still has a lot of content to be added so I might use some.

These are just some examples though and since I am not finished with my site yet so I can not give a definite list of what I will use. The best thing to do is to go to intense’s site and check each shortcode one-by-one to see what you might need.

[Rui Guerreiro – SUPPORT]

Thanks for the input.
-Rui

[ShteebleGuy]

Got it! Best of luck with your new web design interest!!

Thanks again for being so responsive. Have a great weekend!

[Rui Guerreiro – SUPPORT]

🙂