Visual Composer / Muffin Builder extremely cumbersome to use

Let me start by saying I really want to love this theme. The designs are fantastic and the support seems to be great. Importing demo content was a breeze. My big problem is what ends up being the biggest part-actually building and editing pages. 

I've been using WP for years and have purchased dozens of themes ranging from classic html/visual composer to advanced inline editors. After over a year working with the Jupiter theme I have become fluent in the Visual Editor and thought I could do anything in it. Unfortunately Be with it's mixture of visual composer and muffin builder is the hardest I have ever worked with. Adding simple things becomes menu after menu of options and shortcodes. When I try to edit demo content I often get presented with huge blocks of code within the modules instead of WYSIWYG text editors. 

I found elements of different demo pages that I wanted to copy paste into a new page. Normally I can go into html mode, copy the chunks I want, paste them in a new page and they appear i visual editor. When I make changes in muffin builder the normal page builder is blank, so my only option is the muffin builder. Here I have no option to select groups of info to copy. 

The preview content within Muffin name says the section title and the name of the element and title (ex: Promo Box  - Title Name) but it doesnt list any of the content within. In Jupiter right inline it lists all the content within the box. Using this format my clients can very simply see the page and edit it. With muffin it's a lot of guessing and clicking around.

The full page visual composer would be great for full page inline editing, but unless I'm starting a brand new page, I can't click into anything to edit it. I can only add new page sections. If I add new content then I can edit it, but that doesnt help me for all the content I added in Muffin. Do I need to decide at the start of the project what editor I am going to use and then never switch between them?

Comments

  • Users are different and that's why we added both builders into theme. It is possible to use both at the same time (we have many users who use both at once) but from our side we recommend to decide at the start which you want to use. We think this is much better option. But you must to know that VC do not have all items from muffin builder included because this plugin is not compatible with few items. So in this case we recommend to use Muffin Builder. We have lot's of users who switched from VC to Muffin Builder tool and now they prefer to use our builder.
  • This was my concern. Do you guys think you could provide us with working demos using just the Visual Composer instead of the muffin builder? I think that will be awesome for people who decide to use the VC over the muffin builder.
  • @jessgut12 Sorry but this is not possible. Transforming current demos into VC will take ages and that's why this can not be done. If you want to create websites within VC, you must create them from scratches yourself.

    Thanks for understanding!
  • So, it´s not possible for me to use a Muffin Builder item, when the rest of the page is created in the Visual Composer? 

    I am struggling with making the Muffin Builder content appear in the middle (or after) the Visual Composer content. 

    I have tried to use the "Templates" section - using the "Insert AFTER current builder content", but the settings vanish after updating the page.?

  • @bente_nybo It is possible to use both builders on the same site but one by one. You can set their order under Theme options > Global > Advanced section where Content | Display Order option is.
  • Hi, as the OP has said, editing a simple list in MB "column" is a gruesome task. With all the sophistication of the MuffinBuilder at the end of the chain it is back to simple HTML. It somehow feels like moving back into the dark ages... 
  • Hi, I agree with others : Be theme are awsome but not the muffin editor. I just bought the theme but I wonder if finally i will use it. I was on Jupiter and was really happy to make changes. To be continued (but i am sure that you should make some exemples with only VC …)
  • Just purchased BeTheme thinking "Awesome I can take their templates and modify them in VC"... Nope.. they are done in Muffin. That was not clear before purchasing, and too late to change now as have promised the client I can build it in this theme for them.

    One day I will find a theme engine that doesn't have confusing compromises like this.  Muffin seems straightforward, so I am sure I will work it out... but no way I am teaching the customer's VA to edit the pages in Muffin builder instead of the frontend VC.
  • @meppyman Over 90% of customers prefer Muffin Builder than VC and that's why we can not build pre-made layouts with VC instead of Muffin Builder. Also, VC is much heavier than our builder what means it does not work on many customer's servers. And also, as many of these customers wrote, VC is more difficult in use as well.
  • In your info it says that it is not possible to use the muffin builder with one of your demo sites (in my case Copywriter) but it is also not possible to use the VC. We downloaded the demo site so we could simply go into it and edit it on the front end. now we are having to do it with the html. Is there something we are doing wrong or is this how the theme works? 

    HOW to edit frontend? without using html and without having to gain into 3 separate boxes just to change a simple content and color?

    Thank you for a prompt reply. so far none of our queries have been answered 


     So far we are far from pleased and will not continue using this theme in the future unless there is a simple solution. It is very complicated.
  • @DaraEmerson If you want to edit pre-made layouts, you must use Muffin Builder tool. After demo import, please go to page editing and under Page Options you will see the content of page. There is no need to use HTML because the demos were made with Muffin Builder elements. We are sorry but except that, we do not have any other way to edit pre-made layouts. There is also no front-end editor because such editors are very limited and it's impossible to make great looking, varied and interesting pages with them.

    Thanks for understanding!
  • The Visual Composer says this when we want to edit with the frontend editor. Basically it is not possible to edit the website with the fronted program of the VC:
    YOU HAVE BLANK PAGE 
    START ADDING CONTENT OR TEMPLATES
  • you have also not told your potential customer that it is not possible to edit frontend with the VC. This was the reason we purchased this template. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE respond. Is it possible to edit the custome theme with your muffin builder front end?
  • please go to page editing and under Page Options you will see the content of page

    Dear Muffin group,
    Would you please explain more clearly where to find "page options?"
    is there some documentation explaining this?
    We have not been able to find this.

    In addition the slider revolution has suddenly dissapeared from the top navigation tab and no longer appears on the website.

    Thank you
  • when we would like to edit a page we edit it in "page options" clicking into the boxes to edit, as usual. However: THERE IS ONLY THE HTML to edit. There is no tab to simply edit in a more visual mode. We chose the template because we did not have the time to build a site with html this time around. 

  • So maybe you can tell us where we wrote that we have something like Muffin Builder front-end? It's interesting what you say, because we did never had anything like that included. Like we wrote above, front-end solutions are very limited and we do not see any sense of using them. If you want front-end builder, just use Visual Composer plugin and build pages from scratch.

    In reference to Page Options, you got them presented on the following screenshot http://themes.muffingroup.com/betheme/documentation/#pages in the doc. When you edit/create page, Page Options is located just under Wordpress default editor.

    Because nothing happens without reason, the slider might disappear because of few reasons:

    - you removed it
    - cache
    - extra plugins
    - own customization

    Revolution Slider, can be selected for page under Page Options section as well. There is a drop-down field with sliders (if you created or imported such of course).
  • Hi all,

    I have bought the theme a couple of days ago and I'm happy with Muffin builder for myself.
    The major thing is that Muffin Builder is missing a text editor to simply edit text and add images.

    My regular customers do not have any programming knowledge and this is where VC comes into play.
    VC has a unique feature of editing your page in the frontend with ease.

    If Muffin builder would add a text editor tool it would really rock.

    Or... If we can use VC code within Muffin Builder ;-)

    Br,

    Steve
  • @Stevan-1978 You must be missing Visual Editor item then :)
  • I just have to leave a comment here…

    I'm not very happy how the Muffin Builder works (outside of the usual WP Page edition) but I'm very happy with the final result…

    I just made a simple comparison of Muffin and WPBackery… Muffin generates a much simpler HTML…

    image
    Muffin HTML with only 2 DIVs

    image
    WPBakery Visual Composer has 3 aditional and useless DIVs
  • Hello, when I download a new plugin wtih widget, whitch isnt integreated in the muffin builder, i need to use the WP bakery to add it to the page. But it is not possible to move the widget area between the content of the muffin builder? Is there any solution for that? Or is there some way to import new plugins to the page with the muffin builder?

    Thank you
  • You can use only one editor per website.
    It's not possible to mix two of them.

    Muffin Builder allows only to insert shortcodes,  that's all.
    Thanks.
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