
Layers – A simple WordPress site builder - spark3k
http://www.layerswp.com
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nish1500
There are tons of WordPress site builders out there. WPMUDEV released one
yesterday, calling it 'the future of WordPress'.

Everyone is hell bent on turning WP from a CMS to an app platform. This is
what results in 5mb sites and gives WP a bad reputation for being slow and
clunky.

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kmfrk
Yeah, it's what prompted the creation of Ghost.

I sometimes see people doing more in WordPress than I have yet to get Django
to do.

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madeofpalk
Yeah, I know a startup which 'ingeniously' used Wordpress as their platform,
turning it into a 'two sided commerce marketplace'.

I'm not sure if it was brilliance or stupidity.

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mikeschinkel
Question is, how is their business model performing? Has WP hurt or helped
that? In that end, that is really what matters.

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onion2k
The site says " _Layers is built into the WordPress core.._ " That means any
site built with Layers could potentially break horribly when you update
Wordpress. Doesn't sound like a good idea to me.

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davidperel
Hey Onion, I think we need to tweak that copy. Quite the opposite will happen.
We haven't touched the actual core of WP but instead made sure to use what
WordPress already offers and work to improve the UX around it. If WP released
an update tomorrow Layers + WP would still work as promised. Dave

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josephjrobison
Yes, agree. Love the look of Layers WP - but the people that you're trying to
attract (people that actually know what the WP core means) are the ones who
want exactly the opposite of something built into the WP core.

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davidperel
Thanks Joseph. What we are trying to communicate is that we haven't built a
clunky piece of tech on top of WordPress - which is common amongst most site
builders. Going to chat to my team about refining that line as we believe it's
an important point. Thanks for the comment :)

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mikkom
> What we are trying to communicate is that we haven't built a clunky piece of
> tech on top of WordPress

Now I'm confused. Didn't you just say that your tech is built in top of
WordPress (below)?

> We haven't touched the actual core of WP but instead made sure to use what
> WordPress already offers and work to improve the UX around it.

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davidperel
We didn't want to fork WordPress and turn it into a Frankenstein. The actual
core of WP is untouched however if you look at our code and the interface,
we've tried to stick as close to what WP recommends as possible.

Many existing WP page builders out there look nothing like WordPress at all.
Their interfaces are totally different and their code is not to WP's high
standards. We wanted to avoid that with Layers. We wanted you to still use WP
as is without feeling like you'd just installed something that takes over the
normal experience.

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mikeschinkel
Further commentary, you could also instead say "Built with a look and feel
that would make you think it is built into WordPress core." But not "Built
into WordPress core."

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general_failure
The demo
[http://sites.layerswp.com/coffee/](http://sites.layerswp.com/coffee/) is
down.

Also, what am I downloading? A plugin to wordpress?

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domas
It's a theme. "Layers is activated as a WordPress theme and works directly
with the built-in WordPress Customizer."

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corobo
Is it only for static page sites? I'm not seeing any demo pages for
articles/blog posts

I guess the underlying question is - can I have articles that similar feel to
a Medium post (Large featured image with overlaying title, scroll for article
- [https://medium.com/help-
center/images-652ee60abea6](https://medium.com/help-
center/images-652ee60abea6) )

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marcperel
Currently it's just for pages, we are working on ways to bring the builder
into any post type so which will help users make beautiful posts as well as
pages.

We are trying as much as possible to take inspiration from Squarespace in that
our main focus is the User Experience.

Anything decision we take with Layers has to meet our UX expectations before
being added, which I think is something lacking from the WordPress industry at
the moment, features are added but are not usable, which sucks for the end
user.

We want to fix that as much as we can.

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gadders
This looks nice. I particularly like the fact that it comes with example
layouts. I recently had a look at Scribe from WPMU that uses Upfront. It
seemed pretty powerful, but for a non designer I need something to get started
with, similar to the layouts that come with Bootstrap.

I'll give this a go tonight.

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me_bx
I'm disappointed that I can't find two pieces of information that are
essential for me on this website:

* the identity of the author(s) * a link a repository hosting the source code

~~~
marcperel
Our company is called Obox, you can get the git repo here:

[http://GitHub.com/Obox/Layerswp](http://GitHub.com/Obox/Layerswp)

Enjoy :)

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smcnally
It's good-looking. The discussion here alerted me to Layers and to give it a
test drive. I'm working in the trial on a tablet. The layout's cutting off a
lot -- can't even h scroll to it.
[http://m.imgur.com/RggaJgr](http://m.imgur.com/RggaJgr)

Site building on an ipad's an edge case, but updates from one will not be.

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bournemusk
How do I download the demo themes? I was hoping to download the
[http://sites.layerswp.com/acquire/](http://sites.layerswp.com/acquire/)
business theme, but can't seem to figure out how to do that through your docs.

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mbrzuzy
"Free Forever" scares me.

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davidperel
There is a business model behind it but Layers itself will always be free and
we'll be here to support it! We've been in the WP game since '09 and have zero
intention of going anywhere anytime soon :)

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ptbello
Care to elaborate on the business model? Honestly interested.

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davidperel
Paid for extensions, themes and a marketplace for designers and developers
which we hope to launch in 30-60 days time.

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trueluk
It seems to lack the ability for adding a widget into a content column.
Beneath my slider I display three columns, and each column contains a widget.
Is it possible to add widgets into one of the columns within a Layers content
widget?

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spark3k
Each widget occupies one whole row by itself. The bundled Content widget can
generate columns and can't accept other widgets into one of its columns. Might
be a future feature tho...

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bobowzki
I maintained a wordpress site for a client and found it to be a security
nightmare.

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mikeschinkel
You were either hosting it on the wrong place or using sketchy themes and/or
plugins. WordPress core itself is very secure.

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bobowzki
I suspect it was the hosting.

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bpg_92
I want to see how it evolves in the future. Cool project indeed.

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jjar
What's the catch?

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Skywing
Why would this be free forever? Seems like something you could charge at least
a small, one-time fee for.

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flaie
It looks great, I will surely give it a try on of my parent-in-law's
restaurant website.

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sharene23
Just had a look at the landing page. Did you guys/gals forget some meta tags?
SEO.

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gpmcadam
What META tags would you suggest are critical to SEO performance (aside from
'DESCRIPTION')?

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sharene23
Here's a good article on Moz for the basics. [http://moz.com/blog/meta-data-
templates-123](http://moz.com/blog/meta-data-templates-123)

If you have an iOS app, you'll need smart app banner tags
[https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/AppleA...](https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/AppleApplications/Reference/SafariWebContent/PromotingAppswithAppBanners/PromotingAppswithAppBanners.html)

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vidyesh
So this isn't a plugin or a theme but a Wordpress clone with a custom spin on
it?

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davidperel
Hi Vidyesh, it's a theme for WordPress as opposed to a custom spin. Our main
focus was building the best user experience we could for a WordPress product.

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tajim
Why not go the Plugin route and let the user use Layers on any theme ?

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tarminian
Lack of consistency in wp plugin design. You would have to have others buy
into what your are doing.

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hoodoof
I don't want to download, just use.

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jbb555
'Designed for Mobile ' Never mind then.

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godDLL
Care to explain?

I'd gather that with the constantly growing mobile percentage of a general
site's audience it makes sense to build things future-proof, that is mobile-
first. It wouldn't bother me if desktops were an afterthought, would it you?

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dyr
Anyone notice how crazy similar that is to Digital Ocean's site?
[https://www.digitalocean.com/](https://www.digitalocean.com/)

I know it's Wordpress and all but come on.

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maxbrown
There are far more differences than similarities. I would analyze them more
before making an accusation (didn't sound like you were just trying to
harmlessly point out the similarities).

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dyr
I wasn't taking an action. I didn't know if it was a completely custom layout
as seeing it was Wordpress layout.

