I am constantly on a search for new blocks to make my workflow more consistent, particularly in areas where I don’t even know I could improve things. So I’ve already reviewed 11 block collections, and this is number 12. Let’s see what I get out of it:
Accordion: Expandable, but doesn’t seem to be collapsible except by clicking another one.
Advanced Spacer: Yep, it’s for controlling space and not much else.
Anchor: Useful instead of coding your own.
Banner: Same as headers in most other collections, very large image with the ability to put text over it AND you can add 6 transition effects when you hover.
Button Group: Not a bad deployment, generating multiple buttons side by side, all individually controlled for text, colours, links.
Circular Progress Bar: Options to change colour and thickness, plus value, but not SHOW the value?
Contact Form: Basics, nothing special.
Countdown: Set future time and date, and countdown by years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds, with some typography but not very sophisticated designs.
Counter: Animated count up to a total.
Custom Post Type: Basic options but threw JSON errors trying to load excerpt.
Google Maps: Enter your key, insert your map.
Heading: Custom heading, not default ones, allows you to do font typography plus colours.
Icon: Simple insertion, a bunch to choose from as defaults, nothing exceptional.
Icon box: Centred, heading, description.
Image Box: Main image, doesn’t seem like it does much at first, but it has a bunch of animations on hover.
Image Hotspot: Adds tooltip so you can click in various places on a larger image.
Image Slider: Decent setup, can even just have 1 image, not a slider in that case.
Image Stack: It seems basic at first, but then you have different layout options with a partial overlap like index cards.
Instagram: Connect an Instagram account.
Mailchimp: Couldn’t try this one, don’t have MC key.
Media and Text Slider: I have no need for it, but I like the way it loads them — tabbed for each “slide”. And lots of tweaks available.
Person: Basic profile box. Heading, subtitle, text and description AND their social links.
Post Carousel: Basic options but threw JSON errors trying to load excerpt.
Post Slider: Basic options but threw JSON errors trying to load excerpt.
Price Box: Few options, nothing special.
Price List: Again, I was hoping this would allow me an easy way to do a long table. It had an option for an image, leaders from name to the price, not bad. But only basic tweaking options.
Progress Bar: Simple horizontal line, set the %, it will show in two colours but can’t vary the width of the line but you can animate the load.
Recent Posts: A selection of options to show a list of your last x number of posts in varying detail, although it throws a JSON error trying to show excerpts.
Section: Lots of options to put in backgrounds.
Social Links: Basic options plus some outlining, nothing special.
Table: Relatively simple but powerful, and you can change table settings or cell settings, merge or split, seems great. But you can’t change the typography. WTH?
Table of Contents: Decent, nothing special, although it does give an ordered list option.
Tabs: Basic options, some tweaks, nothing special.
Template Library: Up until here, it was a rather ho-hum collection but the template library is pretty well done with lots of nicely done options. My favorites include SubHero 4. I feel like I could have used that for a nice Blockquote layout, maybe I just like the background image.
Testimonial: Basic layout.
Timeline Block: Alternating blocks with image, header, description, and minimal styling.
Toggle: Seems identical to the accordion.
Video Popup: Only for externally hosted videos or if you have a direct link to the locally-hosted ones, plus loads in lightbox.
Overall, I’m impressed with the level of tweaking but underwhelmed with the overall consistency between blocks. Some have great options, and really stand out. Others are extremely basic with almost no tweaking. I was hopeful for the table block, and it comes REALLY close, but doesn’t allow typography changes. Although I could wrap it in a larger container that would handle that to set the defaults.
Of the close to 40 blocks, I really like their Template Library, and they have decent options for the Anchor, Button Group, Media and Text Slider (even if I have no use for it), and the Table. Not sure if the collection is worth keeping though, unless I’m going all in on their table. Other than one of the nice templates in their gallery, I already have options to do all the rest.
I’ll keep it around as a potential option in the short-term, not sure about the long-term.
