I worked on my first site with Elements - here's what I found out

[Seb]

Hey team,
I worked on my first elements site and I must say, that I’m impressed. Things I’ve found:
Included forms in a static page builder is great. It’s one of my biggest pet peeves with other builders. You always have to rely on third party solutions - with GDPR you’ll have to stay alert about that.
Theme studio + custom values are a banger
Publishing works great
Components are great feature - I look forward to setup my own components to reuse.
Clean HTML options. It’s great that I can switch a container to a ul and a child container to an li
The flexible builder setup - want the structure panel and components panel side by side? Easy!
Alphabetical components. Each layout uses multiple layout components, but they are not at the top but rather further down where you need to scroll. I think thats unnecessary.
The theme studio only supports fixed rem/px values. I would love to see the possibility to add clamp values.
Missing list item. Beginner users need a list block for ul/ol. Its frustrating for experienced users to build a simple html feature by hand and nearly impossible for beginners.
The code output could be improved. If I used a background color it also output a bg-100%-opacity class which is not necessary afaik.
Not possible to access the outer container of container. In HTML a section usually consists of a section and a div. The inline-padding is put on the section to avoid shrinking your content width on larger screen sizes.
Missing bread crumbs feature - I love to use these in page headers for easier navigation.
Forms: Couldn’t get forms to work, neither with webhook (formspree) or smtp. My form always throws an error
Forms: I think it would be great if the basic form component would already contain the basic setup of labels, fields for mail and message, error, success and submit. (with button).
GDPR: Google fonts are not downloaded but served with CDN. I know you can upload them manually, but a download feature would be a real time saver
Confusing container, flex, grid, background situation. The most frustrating part was stacking different layout blocks for building my layouts. It’s nervy changing your layout from flex to grid with moving stuff into a new layout block. I think it would be way easier to merge the container, grid and flex into a container block with grid and flex being options and not standalone blocks. Additionally I would add a section block which defaults to the html section. It’s good practice and my customers usually grasp the idea of “each unique content is a section and in the section are different containers.”

Great software @dan and team! I look forward to building static pages with it!

[pumpkin (Fynn)]

@Seb

Alphabetical components. Each layout uses multiple layout components, but they are not at the top but rather further down where you need to scroll. I think thats unnecessary.

Or how about showing the 5 most used components at the top? That’d save us from scrolling to find the container, text, buttons or whatever gets used the most.

@Seb

The theme studio only supports fixed rem/px values. I would love to see the possibility to add clamp values.

Great idea!

[ben]

Hey @Seb

Thanks for the feedback, we really appreciate hearing from new users and getting a fresh perspective on Elements

@Seb

Included forms in a static page builder is great. It’s one of my biggest pet peeves with other builders. You always have to rely on third party solutions - with GDPR you’ll have to stay alert about that.
Theme studio + custom values are a banger
Publishing works great
Components are great feature - I look forward to setup my own components to reuse.
Clean HTML options. It’s great that I can switch a container to a ul and a child container to an li
The flexible builder setup - want the structure panel and components panel side by side? Easy!

Glad to hear you’re enjoying all these features in Elements

@Seb

Alphabetical components. Each layout uses multiple layout components, but they are not at the top but rather further down where you need to scroll. I think that’s unnecessary

We do want to improve on component listing and better ways to organise components.

However, do you know about the quick search panel? You can open it anytime by pressing Command + Shift + F.

Just start typing the name of the component you want, hit return, and it’ll be added to your page—right after the currently selected component. This saves a lot of time when compared to scrolling through the component list

@Seb

The theme studio only supports fixed rem/px values. I would love to see the possibility to add clamp values.

Yes, this is something we’re aware of and would like to support in the future

@Seb

Missing list item. Beginner users need a list block for ul/ol.

This one’s already on our roadmap — feel free to add your vote to help us prioritize the features that matter most to our users.

I can’t give a timeline just yet for when this will land in Elements, but you’re not alone — we’ve heard from others who are also keen to see a List component added.

@Seb

The code output could be improved. If I used a background color it also output a bg-100%-opacity class which is not necessary afaik.

Overall, the outputted code is already in a good place—especially when compared to competing products. That said, we know there’s always room for improvement, and this is something we take very seriously.

You can definitely expect ongoing enhancements in this area as we continue to refine and evolve Elements

@Seb

Not possible to access the outer container of container. In HTML a section usually consists of a section and a div. The inline-padding is put on the section to avoid shrinking your content width on larger screen sizes.

Could you expand on this one? I’m not 100% sure what you mean by it not being possible to “access the outer container of container”.

@Seb

Missing bread crumbs feature - I love to use these in page headers for easier navigation.

Breadcrumbs are also on our roadmap! We’re planning to introduce additional navigation components in the relatively near future, so definitely keep an eye out for this

@Seb

Forms: Couldn’t get forms to work, neither with webhook (formspree) or smtp. My form always throws an error

Some users have reported needing to “Re-publish all files” to ensure the form works as expected. Have you tried this already?

@Seb

Forms: I think it would be great if the basic form component would already contain the basic setup of labels, fields for mail and message, error, success and submit. (with button).

You’re asking for Templates — and yes, we’re actively working on them!

These will allow us to ship pre-designed sections, like a complete Form with fields and a submit button, ready to drop into your project. We’re aiming to have this feature available in the app in the near future.

@Seb

GDPR: Google fonts are not downloaded but served with CDN. I know you can upload them manually, but a download feature would be a real time saver

I’ll chat with the rest of the team about this one and see if we can improve how Google Fonts are served.

@Seb

Confusing container, flex, grid, background situation. The most frustrating part was stacking different layout blocks for building my layouts. It’s nervy changing your layout from flex to grid with moving stuff into a new layout block. I think it would be way easier to merge the container, grid and flex into a container block with grid and flex being options and not standalone blocks.”

I totally understand where you’re coming from — and this is actually something we discussed at length during the development of the core components. In fact, we ended up rewriting all of the components after the first few betas to improve consistency and usability.

One of the key reasons we chose to have separate Container, Grid, and Flex components was due to the complexity that would arise from trying to combine them into a single component.

If there were just one unified “Container” component, it would be difficult for users to immediately understand whether it’s using Flex, Grid, or simply acting as a standard layout wrapper. The controls for each of these layout types vary significantly, and we’d have to dynamically add or remove controls depending on which mode is selected.

That kind of dynamic behavior could create a confusing experience—where clicking on a component might reveal a completely different set of controls depending on its layout type. We felt this would lead to more friction and frustration than the current, more explicit approach of having dedicated components.

Having said that, we are always open to this type of feedback and welcome anyone else reading this to add their thoughts — we want to build the best app we can for our users