Builderius 1.5 RC-1 Release Notes

Release Candidate 1

This is the first release candidate, and the end of the beta.

Styling is rebuilt around a new selectors input and a cleaner code editor, and the workspace now stays the size you set. Scripts and fonts get their own managers. You can import HTML or Builderius JSON into the builder, preview the site as any user on the site, and the backend for multilingual sites is in place. A new minimal starter gives you and your agent a small, readable base to build on.

This release also changes how Builderius is installed, so read Plugin restructuring before you update.

Plugin restructuring

Each tier is now a single plugin: Community, Website, Professional or Studio. Install the one for your tier and you’re set. Paid tiers no longer need the free plugin installed next to them.

Auto-update is off for this release, so update manually: download your plugin from your account, install it and activate it. Activating the new plugin deactivates the old free and PRO plugins. Your licence key, templates and settings carry across. Test your site, then delete the old plugins. Updates after this one arrive the normal way.

From now on, a licence that covers a different tier offers that tier’s plugin as an ordinary update.

A new my.builderius.io

We rebuilt the user panel at my.builderius.io from the ground up. Manage your licences and the sites they cover in one place, and download the plugin for your tier from the same screen.

You can now reach support directly from the panel. Upgrade and buy more licenses from there, Studio users also get an affiliate programme, with commission on the sales they refer, managed from their panel.

Styling and workspace

Selectors rewrite

Create, attach, style, rename and delete any selector without leaving the element you’re working on. One input handles classes, tags, attributes, pseudo states and complex selectors, with live validation by the browser’s own CSS engine. Something like .card:hover is now one typed line.

Renaming a class renames it everywhere: its rules in every scope, and the class on each element that carries it, across templates and components.

Code editor update

A cleaner CSS editor that you resize yourself. Switch to All CSS with one click and keep your element selected. Insert pseudo states and breakpoint rules from a list, and get the right selector token suggested as you type. The %local% / %selector% badge is a split control: the label inserts the plain selector, the caret offers :hover, ::before and ::after.

Resizable sidebars and canvas

Drag the dividers to make either sidebar wider or narrower, and drag the canvas edges to test any width. Panels no longer expand by themselves, so the workspace stays the size you set.

CSS variables panel update

The variables panel now opens next to your work and no longer shrinks it. The left sidebar and top controls stay in place, and variable rows adapt to the panel width, from two lines to one.

Navigator accessibility

The Navigator works as a proper tree for keyboard and screen reader users. One Tab stop, arrow keys to move through elements, and every icon button has a name.

Scripts and fonts

Script Manager

One place to manage the external JavaScript and stylesheets your site loads. Add them per template or globally, set their attributes, switch them on or off, and rename, delete or move them between scopes. A new script starts switched off, so nothing loads until you decide it should. No more snippet managers, do it all inside Builderius.

Fonts Manager

A font manager for setting up the custom typefaces your site uses. Add Google Fonts or your own local fonts, then configure each one: family, weights, styles and how it loads.

Import

HTML import

Paste HTML and get Builderius elements, selectors, styles and assets. Media queries are matched to your site’s breakpoints, Google Fonts land in the Fonts Manager, and relative URLs are resolved against the page they came from. A summary lists every change the import made.

JSON import

Paste Builderius JSON copied or exported from another template or site, and import it straight into the builder. Clear messages tell you when the JSON isn’t valid or a module isn’t available on the site.

Content and preview

Multilingual groundwork

This release lays the backend for multilingual sites with Polylang and WPML. A new context menu option wraps your strings in translate functions, as preparation for full multilingual support. Wrapped strings show their translations once the string translation interface is in place. Until then, the option has no visible effect.

Preview as

Preview your site as a logged-out visitor, a logged-in user or a specific user. Check dynamic content and conditional rendering inside the builder and on the front end, without making a release or publishing. Available from the admin bar and inside the builder.

Rendering conditions, data variables and the templates that apply all follow the previewed user. The picker pins that user across the builder windows you have open. Preview as is off until you switch it on, and a previewed page can run forms and actions as that user only if you allow it.

A new minimal starter

A starter small enough for you and your agent to read in full. Typography, spacing, forms and buttons work before you write a line of CSS, and the whole stylesheet is about 16 KB with around twenty classes. Set one primary color, then build your own components on top: any class you write overrides the defaults, with nothing to undo first.

Builder

Added: sort, rsort, usort, is_numeric and is_json in the expression language. They were documented but never registered.

Changed: Clicking an element opens its Styles tab. Alt/Option-click opens Content.

Changed: Styling panel categories open and close independently.

Changed: A builder left open while a release was extracted or a starter installed now asks to be reloaded. Before, saving from it could put the old content back over the new.

Changed: A site keeps a capped number of save points, 50 by default and 200 at most. Only save points are dropped, never commits.

Bug fixes

Dynamic data

Fixed: Dynamic data could render blank across a whole site, with a fatal error about Type::getNullableType() in the log. Template and global data variable queries were merged on every render, and the merge could produce an invalid query. They are no longer merged, and a template’s own data variable wins.

Fixed: A wp data variable that had ended up in Global Settings is moved back into the templates and components that should hold it, once, on upgrade, including in history.

Fixed: A default of 0 in a query, such as query ($limit: Int = 0), was dropped when the query was printed.

Fixed: Deprecation notices from the bundled GraphQL library on PHP 8.2 to 8.4.

Releases, starters and history

Fixed: A release moved to another site lost the pages its rules pointed at. Members-only pages could arrive public, and blocks conditioned on a specific page rendered nowhere. Anything that cannot be matched on the new site is now reported rather than guessed.

Fixed: After extracting a release or installing a starter, the builder kept showing tabs for pages and templates that no longer existed.

Fixed: With several builder windows open, one still holding the old site could pass its global styles to one that had loaded the new site.

Fixed: Restoring a commit group kept the earlier undo history, so one undo could bring back replaced content.

Fixed: Branches and commits from replaced content were never removed. Existing sites are cleaned up on upgrade.

Fixed: An import or starter install that stopped part-way blocked every later one. A stalled job now frees its slot.

Fixed: Deleting a release left its sub-modules behind.

Front end and forms

Fixed: Text inside a template could call PHP functions through Twig filters.

Fixed: A page full of SVG icons could not be saved, and then could not be opened.

Fixed: A refused form submission now says why, and an expired page asks you to reload. One address can send five messages per form per minute.

Fixed: JavaScript snippets run again on every canvas repaint and clean up their listeners.

Fixed: Interactive collections show their rows in the builder.

Fixed: Reading a property that is not there returns null instead of breaking the page.

Installation

Auto-update is off for this release. Download the plugin for your tier from your account, install it and activate it. The old free and PRO plugins are deactivated for you. Test your site, then delete them.