Leading professional WordPress site building platform Elementor introduces its version 3.4 with performance and feature upgrades to help website creators achieve more. The platform redesigned its website back in May and released version 3.3 a month after that, providing users with important updates.
Elementor is now ready to give users access to its most recent version that emphasizes greater design flexibility. The site builder responsible for the creation of over 8 million websites also promises considerably decreased page loading scores and the streamlining of key processes. Most importantly, it is offering custom breakpoints.
Performance Upgrades
In the earlier part of 2021, Elementor introduced a host of upgrades particularly in the area of performance. These enabled faster page load times by improving asset loading and accessibility, the use of smaller asset files, switching to a conditionally loaded lightbox, conditional asset loading, as well as the reduction of extra DOM elements and the amount of unused JS and CSS.
Version 3.4 builds upon these upgrades to deliver additional performance boosts. The improved platform reduces JS asset file sizes further by ceasing support for old web browsers, which entails a reduction of code being loaded. According to data released by Elementor, the current update has “improved server response time by up to 23%, and reduced the memory usage by ~5%. We also saved approximately ~30% off of data traffic to the Editor load.”
Additionally, the new version of the platform comes with an improved Font Awesome SVG icons mechanism. This enables SVG asynchronized loading or a non-blocking approach in showing icons on a page to achieve more granular control over how icons are displayed. This helps in addressing the shifting in page layout or text by allowing the use of the <html> tag as part of the loading operations.
Custom Breakpoints
The biggest new feature Elementor is debuting on version 3.4 is its custom breakpoints. This feature has been requested by many users fervently. In a blog post about this feature in late 2020, Elementor Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer Ariel Klikstein wrote that “custom breakpoints have been at the top of the list (of feature requests) for quite some time.”
However, there were challenges the developers had to work on first before this feature could be integrated into the platform. Klikstein suggested that the feature could possibly jeopardize Elementor’s code and performance.
“Benchmarking tests performed using Blackfire Profiler showed that using the existing system of control duplication to add three more breakpoints can slow page load times (Frontend) by up to 47 percent and increase peak memory usage by up to 15 percent,” Klikstein noted.
The obstacles have finally been overcome, though, with Elementor now ready to release version 3.4. The platform used to have only two breakpoints. Now, it offers breakpoints for a total of seven devices. These include desktop computers, tablets, tablet extra, mobile, mobile extra, laptops, and computers that make use of widescreen monitors.
Mobile extra and tablet extra refers to the display dimensions that are not in line with the common 16:9 and 18:9 aspect ratios of most mobile and tablet devices. The more recent iPhones, for example, follow a 19.5:9 aspect ratio while smartphones from Samsung are slightly “taller” with 20:9. Elementor tries to account for this wide variety of screen dimensions to ensure optimized web designs for different device displays.
“Web creators will have the ability to fully control their website design for an extensive range of devices with a pixel-perfect viewport and fully responsive website design and UI. Crucially, Elementor enables the addition of custom breakpoints without significantly jeopardizing performance,” writes a statement from Elementor.
To achieve the additional custom breakpoints, Elementor had to overhaul its control system including the manner by which it handles responsive values. The platform is already phasing out its old controls to give way to a more efficient system, which is designed for better overall performance.
Future Upgrades
Elementor 3.4 is certainly not the last update to the platform. As Elementor VP for Product Marketing Eran Alon said, the company is “committed to providing the best platform to meet our users’ needs.” Further performance improvements are set to be introduced in the future as the platform makes performance a core focus in each of the new iterations it introduces.
Users can look forward to new ways of streamlining page loads especially with a focus on loading only the elements that site users need. Elementor is also working on the reduction of the use of JavaScript/CSS Libraries and native browser support. Additionally, the platform is eyeing more improvements and optimization of its existing internal JavaScript and CSS.
Highest Standards of Website Building
The release of Elementor core version 3.4 builds on the enhancements added to the platform to provide an even better experience not only for professional users but also for newbies to website building. In a statement, the Israeli startup said that the new version is “part of the company’s continued efforts to propel performance standards forward with momentum in every release, furthering Elementor’s mission to empower web creators and enable them to build websites to the highest standards.
A significant player in the website building market, Elementor is now behind 5.5 percent of all websites online in more than 152 markets in different parts of the world. It is used by web designers and developers, marketers, freelancers, and others who need an easy-to-use but feature-rich website builder capable of producing professional sites for different purposes. Seeking to help entrepreneurs and professionals in having a credible online presence, this open-source platform streamlines the process of putting up a well-built WordPress site without the hassle.
