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In many ways, Elegant Themes prides itself on the ability to have created this visual builder so that millions of site owners, designers, and developers would create beautiful and fully responsive websites with no expert coding. Divi offers a seamless and intuitive experience that makes website building enjoyable and easy for professionals as well as beginners.
Therefore, let’s look into what is so stellar about Divi and how it can uplift your web design skills.
What is Divi?
Divi is not simply a theme for WordPress. It is primarily a drag-and-drop page builder featuring a visual editor that allows you to actually build your site in real time. The days of flipping between the back end editor and front end just to catch a glimpse of your changes are over. Divi guarantees a true WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) experience: what you drag out onto the canvas is exactly what ever gets placed on your site. Your control extends from the very basics of layout to fancy stuff like animations and even custom CSS.
Why Designers and Developers Love Divi
Divi has taken the WordPress theme market by storm for several important reasons:
Ease of Use: Drag and drop has been in favor for a while now. Beginners just go ahead and build complex beautiful pages with no code knowledge at all.
Customization: In fact, Divi can be 100% customized by the user to suit any aspect of design, meaning fonts, colors, layout or spacing.
Responsinvess: The very best thing about Divi is that it is fully responsive; simply put, whatever website you create will look fabulous on any device, be it a desktop, a tablet, or a smartphone.
Pre-Made Layouts: Over 200 layout packs are included with the theme, which users can immediately use for their designs. These are pre-designed layouts for several types of industries, including e-commerce, blogs, and portfolios.
Advanced Functionality: While being beginner-friendly, Divi provides additional options for those developers willing to customize. It has an advanced setting for custom CSS, is responsive by editing, and has a backend friendly to code, satisfying novices and developers alike.
Getting Divi Started
Setting up Divi is easy. Follow this quick guide to get started:
1. Install the Divi Theme: After purchasing Divi from Elegant Themes, download it and install it from the WordPress dashboard.
2. Activate Visual Builder: After installation, activate the Visual Builder so you can start editing your pages straight away using drag and drop to place elements, enter text, and include images, buttons, sliders, and many more.
3. Choose a Pre-Made Layout or Start from Scratch: Divi comes with a set of premade layouts so you don’t need to build your site from scratch. If you want a completely different design, start blank and work section by section on your website.
4. Customize: From colors to fonts, and even your layout structure, change anything and everything with Divi. And remember, you’ll see these changes as you make them!
5. Save and Publish: Once you are happy with your design, save it and publish your page. Now you are ready to go live!
Features of Divi
There are tons of features available within Divi that make it unique from most WordPress themes and page builders. Let us briefly consider some of those features.
Drag-and-Drop Builder
The Divi Builder basically provides a means to drag and drop elements to lay out rows and columns. This is a very visual process that allows you to view your design as you build it, thus making the whole process much easier. You never have to go to the backend to put in lines of codes or take guesses on how your site might look.
Real-Time Visual Editing
Real-time editing means that each of your changes is reflected immediately on-screen. This saves quite a lot of time and gives you much more precise control over your design because you do not have to keep flipping from editor to preview mode to check how it looks.
Responsive Design Controls
Divi controls how your site looks on different devices. You can adjust your site for mobile, tablet, and desktop views, making sure it’s on-point responsive design wherever you look. In case you want any element hidden on a particular device, that can be done as well.
Pre-Made Layout Packs
Divi’s library of pre-made layouts is a massive selling point. These layouts serve as predesigned templates that can be imported with just one click to give an initial shove to your project. Layouts catering to various industrial needs are available; from market-specific needs like e-commerce to portfolio, blogs, and business sites.
Highly Advanced Design Features
Divi is set to provide some very advanced design features:
– Custom CSS: For those who want ultimate control, custom CSS can be added to every single element directly.
– Hover States: Instil interactivity on elements that come alive upon hover.
– Animations: Make your website bounce and interact with the smooth application of animations on any element.
– Shape Dividers: Design boxy drops and cute little dividers to separate your content.
Global Elements and Styles
Divi lets you build global elements to be utilized anywhere on your site. For instance, you can save a button style you designed as a global item so that the button style can be easily applied to other page layouts. If you update it in one place, it will be updated everywhere else.
Divi for E-commerce: WooCommerce Integration
Divi integrates seamlessly with WooCommerce, the most popular WordPress plugin for e-commerce. With Divi and WooCommerce, you can build an online store that looks and functions beautifully, with product pages, shopping carts, and checkout forms all styled to fit your brand.
Divi’s WooCommerce modules let you display products in a grid or carousel format, highlight featured products, and customize the look and feel of your store. You can also add custom cart buttons, create dynamic product pages, and style your store exactly how you want.
Pros and Cons of Divi
Like any tool, Divi has its strengths and weaknesses. Here’s a quick breakdown:
Pros:
– Easy to use: Ideal for both beginners and experienced developers.
– Highly customizable: Endless design options.
– Responsive design: Your site looks great on any device.
– Real-time editing: Makes designing quicker and more intuitive.
– Pre-made layouts: A time-saving feature for quick launches.
– WooCommerce ready: Perfect for building an online store.
Cons:
– Learning curve: While easy to use, Divi’s endless features can overwhelm beginners.
– Page speed: Divi sites can sometimes suffer from slower load times due to their complexity, but this can be improved with optimization techniques.
Whether you’re building a personal blog, a portfolio, or a full-fledged e-commerce store, Divi offers the tools and flexibility to create a stunning, professional-looking website with ease. Its intuitive drag-and-drop builder, advanced customization features, and seamless WooCommerce integration make it the perfect choice for designers, developers, and business owners. With Divi, the only limit is your imagination.
So, if you’re ready to take your website to the next level, Divi is your go-to tool for creating visually striking, functional, and responsive websites.