Soflyy released the first beta of Breakdance Builder yesterday and we got our hands on it to check out the new features and give it a spin. Some of the biggest takeaways from Alpha to Beta include new widgets (header builder, counter), header/footer conditions, and tons of UI and speed improvements. We're all about speed so the latter two were especially important to us.
In addition, there were tons of bug fixes and code cleanups which help to further solidify the product. With all of these great improvements, we're really looking forward to seeing how Soflyy continues to develop Breakdance Builder. It's great to see progress develop so quickly on a product that could make current bloat-filled builders obsolete (that might be a slight overstatement to claim so soon).
Performance Changes & Bugs
I can't stress enough how fast this builder loads now. The interface is also much more responsive on load. This is a huge improvement from the previous version which was quite sluggish at times. We have ran into bugs like sticky headers getting stuck, and permalink glitches, but overall this version is much more stable than the previous one.
Breakdance Beta New Features
Header Builder
The new header builder is a huge step up from creating a header in Alpha. With the new header builder, it's much easier to add and remove elements as well as rearrange them. The interface is also much more user-friendly and visually appealing
Masker Element
This feature is an amazing version of adding an image (or any element) mask over an element. You can see how it's used in the image below to make a shape around the text. We've added a video and tweaked various mask settings to create some really cool results.
Advanced Tabs Element
Finally, a visual builder that allows for elements inside tabs that aren't just text! With the advanced tabs element, you can now add any element inside of a tab. This is a great way to organize content and make it more digestible for your users.
Copy from Frontend
Arguably the coolest new feature, the copy from frontend button allows you to take any element on your site and turn it into a builder element. So if you have a detailed site built out and quickly want to grab an element from a page, you can hover over an element to do that with ease. The copy doesn't bring in global colors or background images but allows you to simply paste by cmd-v'ing into the editor. You could also copy and paste across a different website domain from once Breakdance site to another
Conditions API & Hooks
There is now the option to add your own conditions through a new API. Additionally, developers can now add hooks with documentation.
Planned Features & Fixes
A design library, popups element, and builder element creator are all planned features coming to the builder. You can view the official update log with all the details to read everything going on.
Overall Thoughts
We are very impressed with the new features in Beta 1 and can't wait to see what comes next. The product is shaping up to be a great addition to any web developer's toolkit as well as a fantastic way for those with less experience to quickly create beautiful websites. We're hoping the first official release is well on it's way so we can start producing a complete site with it. In the next few days, we'll look into the intricate changes brought in the beta and do more in depth speed testing so stay tuned.
What do you think of the new features in Beta 1? Have you tried out Breakdance Builder yet? Let us know in the comments!
