With the arrival of WordPress 6.1 and the growing number of ESF compatible "new generation" themes, some freelancers using Divi on a daily basis to build their customers' site have asked this question "Do we have to abandon Divi for a theme based on blocks? ». Some even contacted about this. Let's talk about this in this article...
1 – What is a "block-based theme"?
Before going further, it would be nice to talk a little about these new generation themes which have been introduced since version 5.9 of WordPress.
Indeed, since January 2022, when we install a new WordPress site, a "Block Theme» is enabled by default (Twenty Twenty Two, Twenty Twenty Three...), it is a theme that allows to create the entire site with Gutenberg blocks (native WordPress editor).
I'm not going to explain everything in detail, but if you want to go further, I invite you to read the article that I had published at the release of WordPress 5.9.
So if we figure it out, Block-based themes allow to place Gutenberg blocks from all over the site : main content, header, footer, etc. But they also allow create any model of the site directly from the Site Editor (page template, article templates, page 404 template, etc.). Hence the term ESF, for Full Site Editing.
2 - What is the difference between the ESF and the Divi Builder Theme?
None.
Finally, none on paper, but a lot in the UX (user experience). Since the exit of the Divi Theme Builder In 2019, this tool grew, users had time to own it. And then you have to admit: Divi is very intuitive, and her Theme Builder too!
So to summarize: one can finally edit a WordPress site entirely (without having to use a tool such as Divi or Elementor) since January 2022, provided you use a block-based theme that supports ESF functionality. To discover the list of compatible themes, appointment here.
3 – What happens to Divi?
The question is: then become the +10.000 themes that were built before the arrival of WordPress 5.9 – such as Divi?
Don't panic! They continue to work and as long as they are maintained by their developers, there will be no fears to have.
Since the arrival of Block Themes, the "old" can be considered to be classical themes. Divi is therefore a classic theme.
And what you need to understand is that a classic theme cannot evolve into a block-based theme, because they don't really use the same file architecture, nor the same language within some files (PHP vs HTML)...
So, what will become of Divi?
4 – A waiting Divi 5.0...
To be honest with you, I was hoping that Divi 5.0 would come out in summer 2021.. I was so sure, that I had already prepared a draft article on Divi Tips, ready to complete it and draw it when the time came.
And then I realized that Divi 5.0 was going to be very complicated to understand for the developers of ElegantThemes:
1 Should they develop a brand new "new generation" Divi theme that would incorporate a ESF into the Divi sauce – and in this case, what about the old Divi and millions of sites that rely on it?
2 Or, continue to develop "quillou bilou" theme Divi and its builders, which we know and master.
Big dilemma...
But what I understand is that WordPress has evolved at high V speed since 2018 and that third-party tool publishing companies have certainly tuned to reinvent themselves and keep pace. And some are still trimenting...
Did you know that? You can test Divi for free by visiting on this page and by clicking on "TRY IT FOR FREE"
5 - A brand new Divi 5.0 for 2023
That's what we promised Nick Roach in its latest publication entitled "Let's talk about Divi 5.0 and his future« .
In summary, here's what we can remember...
A zero recast
This is the choice that ElegantThemes made: reconstruct the theme Divi from zero. A bold choice, because sown and very long. The main objectives are:
- remove technical debt
- use current new technologies
- significantly improve performance
- moving in the same direction as WordPress
The development of true API
Some companies have managed to create additional modules for Divi but the current API is not very permissive. As a result, developers of third party plugins for Divi encounter complications, it's quite difficult.
With Divi 5.0, a new API will emerge, a real API. This will allow developers to easily create what they want. I'm so looking forward to seeing this new wave of expansions dedicated to Divi happen
Divi 5.0: a "hybrid" theme?
As explained by Nick Roach, it would seem to understand that Divi 5.0 will be halfway between a classic theme and a block-based theme.
This would explain the difficulty of this new development so that sites using Divi 4.x.x can pass without encumbering to Divi 5.0. A smooth and transparent transition.
No new features
Divi 5.0 will be a major update, but for once there will be no new features. « Some surprises here and there » Promise Nick Roach. But nothing fundamentally new!
The real novelty, you'll understand, is a compatibility (or pseudo-compatibility) with the WordPress ESF while ensuring backward compatibility with old sites.
And this is great news!
Yes, if ElegantThemes had decided to create a brand new Divi that would not be compatible with the old versions, the transition (migration) of the old sites to this new theme would have been the responsibility of the users... of us, what! This would have been easier for them, of course, but they would certainly have lost the confidence of users.
Adios shortcodes!
You may never have noticed it, but if you disable Divi to use another theme or constructor, you will see a whole bunch of shortcodes left by the Divi Builder.
Let's not forget, Divi is 10 years old, and at the time, it was probably a correct way to design this kind of tool. Since then, Divi has continued to grow with this, which has contributed to this technical debt.
Finish! It is assured, the new Divi 5.0 will be built with today's technos: React and company, those used by Gutenberg... It's pretty promising and reassuring.
An identical user interface
Divi 5.0 will be delivered with the same user interface. You will find everything as before! This is good news because you won't have to reform or learn to use a new tool.
Obviously, everything was thought out to avoid most user-side friction and frustration. That's very clever.
A little more patience
I was waiting for Divi 5 in 2021. And then in 2022 too. I contacted ElegantThemes to find out what was going on... Here is an excerpt from my email sent on November 1, 2022:
Basically, I was asking them where it was and if we could get some information to get under the tooth.
On November 11, 2022, I received a reply email informing of the publication of a full article on the blog of ElegantThemes, containing a video of Nick Roach explaining to the community backwards the decor of this big project...
For reasons of confidentiality, I masked some passages as well as the name of the person I exchanged with.
To sum up, it was written about the same as in the official article, but above all, I noted two very important sentences:
- "Our team improves some things to ensure better compatibility, but ultimately, Divi and Extra will support ESF. »
- "As Nick I has mentioned, it will take a while, But it'll be worth it.. »
I think that's the good news we were waiting for...
6 - In conclusion: should we wait for Divi 5.0?
I assure you, for my part, I'm not going to migrate to another theme.
Not only am I a fan of Divi, as you must know. But also because I'm lazy and I don't want to spend hours migrating from Divi sites to new themes – UNITLY – while the work will be done for us when the new version comes out.
So just wait and be patient.
However, Nick referred to "2023"... And a year is 12 months! So, are we gonna wait a few weeks, or months? The future will tell us.
Bonjour et merci Lycia,
Article pertinent et indispensable, comme à ton habitude. Surtout pour un pro de l’image certes mais quasi nul en création de site et tout son environnement…-:)
Belle journée, Alain
Très bon article. La vidéo de Roach expliquait bien leur nouvelle stratégie mais tu expliques bien la nouvelle approche de WP 👍
Merci beaucoup Alain
Merci Cyril
Bonjour Lycia,
Merci pour ton super article et ta newsletter.👍
Je suis encore débutant dans la création de site web et presque tous les sites que j’ai créés, l’ont été faits avec DIVI.
Alors la sortie DIVI 5 et la compatibilité avec DIVI 4.xx sont de très bonnes nouvelles pour nous.
Bonne continuation, très belle journée et encore merci beaucoup pour ton investissement et ton implication dans la communauté WordPress et DIVI. 🙏👍
Merci Lycia pour cet article.
J’avais vul’annonce Élégant Thème en Anglais, mais c’est tellement plus clair en français !!!
Hello ! J’attends aussi avec impatience Divi 5.0
J’avais vu la vidéo de Nick Roach à sa sortie il y a une semaine environ et j’avais retenu qu’il n’y aurait pas de refonte totale de l’outil par rapport à l’interface et qu’il s’agissait surtout de réécrire le code de Divi pour le rendre plus performant.
En lisant votre article ce matin, je me dis que j’ai peut être mal compris la vidéo.
Du coup je suis allé la ré-écouter.
Pour moi il est dit entre 1min50 et 2min05 que ça va pas être bouleversant pour l’utilisation et les utilisateurs.
J’ai mal compris la vidéo ? ou j’ai mal compris votre article ?
Merci beaucoup Patrick
Oui Jean Claude. C’est ce que je me suis dit aussi 😉
Oui c’est exact, il dit qu’il n’y aura pas de bouleversement pour nous utilisateurs. Mais sous le capot c’est une refonte complète qui permettra à Divi d’évoluer dans le même sens que WordPress. Donc une bonne nouvelle. Et dans mon article j’essaye d’expliquer ce qu’il se passe à ceux qui ne comprennent pas que la nouvelle version de Divi impacte directement les anciens thèmes.
Merci pour ces infos! J’allais justement reprendre une license divi. dois-je arrêter mon choix et attendre ou, comme vous l’avez écrit l’usine à gaz sera transparente pour les utilisateurs ? merci de confirmer si je peux ou non reprendre une license pour faire des sites et mettre à jour ceux que j’ai déjà réalisé car j’ai des demande d’anciens clients.
cordialement
Bonsoir Ivan. Je pensais avoir été assez claire. Pour ma part, je continue avec Divi et je conseille de faire la même chose. Donc oui, renouveler la licence permettra de mettre Divi à jour lorsque la version 5.0 sortira. Et en attendant elle permet de mettre Divi à jour lorsque des mises à jour mineures sont proposées.
Hello ! J’attends aussi la sortie de Divi 5.0 !
Très bon article qui résume bien ce qui nous attends… et on va attendre, car moi aussi je suis un fan de Divi.
Ayant développé un module pour Divi (https://madeby.restezconnectes.fr/project/module-divi-openstreetmap/),
j’espère que je n’aurais pas à tout refaire !!
A bientôt
Ah super Florent ! C’est fou ! J’espère que tu auras le droit de tester l’Alpha et Beta pour les dev. Tu devrais te rapprocher du support pour savoir comment tester ces beta avant la sortie, ça t’évitera d’avoir une surprise. Bravo en tout cas !
Ah ! Je viens de faire le lien : je conseille WP Maintenance à tous mes élèves ! Cool de te voir par ici 😉 Florent !
Merci Lycia ! C’est sympa.
C’est compliqué des fois de continuer le support d’extensions. Je les ai mise à la disposition de la communauté mais je me doutais pas du travail dernière pour assumer les déboggages et les mises à jour.
Mes 2 extensions phares WP Maintenance et Send PDF for CF7 me donnent du fil à retordre et tout seul c’est pas évident. Je vais devoir trouver un partenaire.
PS : sur ton site les icônes du menu sont bizarres… (cache à vider)
Oui je me doute Florent. J’ai longtemps utilisé aussi Send PDF pour mon générateur de cahier des charges. Dans la communauté, il y a bien des personnes qui pourraient t’aider pour le support… ce serait cool
hello Lycia ! des articles très intéressants, qui me permet de rester au courant des évolutions ! Encore merci ;))
Great news. The use of short codes everywhere had become a deal breaker and I transitioned some of my big sites away from the use of Divi to the excellent Kadence theme. My main site still uses Divi.
I am excited they decided to modernize and update the Divi theme. Looking forward to 5.0. Thanks for sharing this post.
Kadence seems to be popular, I didn’t have try it. Thanks Mike 😉
Kadence theme and blocks is pretty good, and fast. It does a reasonably good job at providing breakpoints for the three main breakpoints used in WordPress. So, ok, responsiveness is covered here but, there’s still a problem because the block editor itself doesn’t implement the tools for responsiveness. This leaves third parties, such as Kadence or Toolset do do that job, but they all have different definitions of what responsive is, ultimately making the build process quite frustrating.
My understanding is that the Gutenberg team want people to use something called intrinsic design instead of responsive breakpoints but so far it looks like this only affords limited design possibilities. It’s like WordPress is stuck in its blogging roots and is pretending that all the mainstream website possibilities that sprouted from it never happened. This is why you tend to see bloggers being the biggest fans of the block editor which in itself it is a big improvement over the older editor in may ways. But it doesn’t address some use cases. There are gaps.
Elegant Themes will do well to get Divi in line with the way the block editor will render html via comment tags. It will smooth over any future potentially conflicts and be as compatible as possible. Will using a page builder sometimes feel like a hack to get over the shortfalls of WordPress… probably, but it feel like a nicer hack.
Hi Lycia !
J’espérais que les nombreux petits bugs et défauts d’ergonomie disparaitraient avec la DIVI 5, mais il semble qu’il ne faille rien espérer de ce côté. Si elegantthemes n’a jamais pris le temps de corriger la traduction fantaisiste de divi, il ne faut pas espérer qu’il débug son ergonomie.
Mon usage restera toujours aussi limité sans rajouter de nombreux plugins de moins en moins compatible ou ajouter mes propres CSS.
Nous sommes en 2024 et toujours pas DIVI 5 en vue. Sortira-t-il avant la prochaine évolution de wordpress ? Celle qui le rendra complètement obsolète !
J’aurais depuis longtemps abandonné DIVI si je n’avais pas investi autant de temps et d’argent dans ce logiciel.
Existe t’il une méthode simple et sûre pour revenir à WordPress avec un thème compatible.
Ah je te sens énervé Sam et je comprends certains des tes arguments. Par contre, pour ma part, je fais tous mes sites en « Divi pur », c’est-à-dire que je n’utilise jamais aucun add-ons pour Divi et j’arrive pourtant à faire ce que je veux sans coder, dans 99% des cas. C’est d’ailleurs ce que j’enseigne dans ma formation Divi Video Boost. Concernant la sortie de Divi 5, tu as raison, elle commence à se faire languir.