Elementor 3.0 Released with New Features

Every software that does not get upgrades is as good as dead. Why? No software is ever built to perfection on version 1. That is why you have facebook and google still hiring developers to find faster ways to showcase data and build faster apps and FIX BUGS!!

WordPress plugins are no different. They come with bugs, WordPress releases new versions of itself and thus plugins have to rediscover themselves in the ecosystem.

Do you want to try it out? See the video below on how to upgrade to Elementor 3.0. However, before you upgrade to Elementor 3.0, please make sure you backup your site, check the compatibility of the 3rd party addons for Elementor you are using with version 3.0.

Breaking Changes in Elementor 3.0

Like all software that come with a major release, Elementor 3.0 is a major version and includes a number of infrastructure changes.

Of course with new code, the old is re-written and sometimes, it breaks the other plugins that are in the ecosystem working alongside. And sometimes it is your own site that breaks. That is why we have changelog notes like this from Elementor about the new version 3.0.

New features for Elementor 3.0.

There is no need for you to worry about slowed down website with the new changes. Rather most setups will actually be sped up after upgrading to version 3.0. All the changes of Design System Features and Theme Builder work on the backend and don’t impact the live site. The performance improvements, including the removal of some HTML wrappers, should actually speed up your site.

Elementor confirms that the removal of HTML wrappers will not break your site.

The only sites that might be impacted are ones with custom code or third party addons that hadn’t been updated to be compatible with Elementor version 3.0. In addition, any sites that have applied custom CSS to those specific wrapper classes may also be impacted. In this case, you should refactor your code to use different classes than those that have been removed. 

Elementor

Design systems support fully embraced

In this video below, you learn how to implement your brand guidelines or Design system for your website using Elementor Page builder in WordPress using the version 3 new global settings panel.

Dropped support for Internet Explorer

This new version comes with wild changes like dropping the support for Internet explorer. Internet Explorer is no longer supported but this does not affect Microsoft’s newest chromium based version of Edge. This will allow the usage of modern code to make the plugin faster and allow new design tricks.

Will these updates and planned deprecations break my website?

In general, there shouldn’t be any issues, since we performed many tests before releasing this version. However, we do suggest checking your website, if something does break, follow these steps first to save you time.

Elementor – https://docs.elementor.com/article/677-faq-for-elementor-3-0

It is likely you will have some issues if you use caching plugins. Simply because their job is to keep the JavaScript and CSS files served to all customers much faster with any changes detected. This means, that the new files in Elementor 3.0 may not be recognized by your browser when you update.

On the bright side, you will not lose your existing current global settings when you update. All the settings are migrated properly. Saved Colors will now be renamed Global Colors. 

In the global settings, you can add the generic outlook of the colors and fonts for the whole website to reduce the time spent trying to sync all the elements in the website to fix the design work or brand guide.

What should you do when you update to Elementor 3.0?

The plugin authors advise that follow these steps before you contact support so as to have a solution faster and avoid overwhelming the Support Engineers if you have the technical skills.

1. Clear/Purge your local storage and paging cache in your website caching plugins

You need to clear this paging cache in your cache plugins before your visitors get any trouble.

If you upgraded to version 3.0 but now the admin dashboard doesn’t load anymore, you need to clear cache and your local storage.

• Clear cache.
• Clear localStorage. To do this,
  • Open the browser’s Console.
  • Select “Application” in the console’s top menu.
  • Select “Local Storage” in the console’s left menu.
  • Right click your site(s) and click clear to delete the local storage.

This should clear old settings from loading in your Editor. 

2. On your WordPress root folder, edit the wp-config.php and set the value of WP-DEBUG to true.

3. Use the most updated versions of Elementor, WordPress & your theme or Change your WordPress theme (temporarily) to WordPress Twenty Nineteen (or other default WordPress theme).

4. Make sure your server’s PHP version is above 5.4, although above 7.0 is ideal.

5. Deactivate all your plugins besides Elementor (and Elementor Pro). If this solves the problem, gradually activate your plugins one by one, until you spot the problematic plugin.

TL:DR – Watch the video series on how to navigate Elementor 3.0

I have made a simple video playlist for beginners to experiment and use Elementor 3.0 in its fullness.