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Category: Themes

Last Updated: 31 January 2025

Are you in the market for an online casino WordPress theme to make your website shine? With so many options available, choosing the right one can be a daunting task.

Fear not, for we've done the legwork and compiled a list of the top casino WordPress themes to help you craft an online gambling haven that's both visually captivating and functionally impeccable.

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Category: Themes

Last Updated: 16 December 2023

The WordPress theme market is constantly evolving, and Elegant Themes is working hard to keep up.

First, we had Divi 3 and the raft of improvements it brought. We then had Divi 4 that brought us the Divi theme builder.

We also had Divi AI, which is one of the best versions of AI website building around right now.

Now we are eagerly awaiting Divi 5.

Thanks to some releases from Elegant Themes, we know a little about what’s coming.

Let’s have a quick look at the key features, design capabilities, performance, and overall user experience we can expect from Divi 5.

https://youtu.be/4rhMThRegYs?si=rhkBlDe5U6991VcL

Key Features of Divi 5

Divi 5 brings a slew of new features to the table, enhancing the already powerful Divi Builder.

Here are some features we’re looking forward to:

1. Theme builder: Divi 5 introduces a fully-fledged theme builder. It looks like it will allow us to create custom headers, footers, category templates, and more. This extends the theme's flexibility beyond just individual page design.
2. Dynamic content: A major highlight will be the ability to insert dynamic content elements into designs, such as post titles, custom fields, and author information. This dynamic approach simplifies the creation of dynamic templates and reduces the need for coding.
3. No more shortcodes: Shortcodes have been part of building websites since forever. Divi 5 plans to do away with them. It is switching to JSON and will use a system like how WordPress works with data. Legacy shortcodes will still be supported for a while though.
4. Global defaults: Divi 5 will allow you to set global design defaults for elements. It will enhance design consistency and speed up the development process.
5. WooCommerce integration: For eCommerce websites, Divi 5 will offer WooCommerce integration with specialized modules for product displays, carts, and checkout pages.
6. Multi-select and bulk editing: The addition of multi-select and bulk editing capabilities should streamline the process of editing and styling multiple elements simultaneously.
7. Changes to how Divi manages APIs: Divi 5 apparently plans to introduce a new API system that allows third parties to use them when creating plugins and apps.

Let’s look at other improvements we can expect in Divi 5.

Design capabilities

Divi 5 continues its tradition of empowering designers with a powerful visual editor. The Visual Builder remains intuitive and user-friendly, even for those with minimal technical experience.

The introduction of dynamic content elements should enhance the design possibilities and reduce the need for external plugins.

Performance

One concern often associated with powerful page builders is performance. Divi 5 takes steps to address this by implementing clean code output and optimized loading routines.

It also plans to ‘clean up years of technical debt’.

“We are recreating Divi’s backend framework, cleaning up years of technical debt, changing Divi’s storage format and improving its rendering mechanism,” Elegant Themes CEO Nick Roach said. “This new version of Divi will be able to processes design settings much more quickly.”

User experience

Divi's user experience is a mixed bag. On one hand, its interface is remarkably user-friendly and accessible, making it suitable for beginners.

The installation and setup process, guided tours and extensive documentation make it easy to get started.

On the other hand, some advanced features may require a learning curve, particularly for those who haven't used Divi before. Users familiar with previous versions might also need some time to adapt to the new workflows introduced in Divi 5.

Divi 4 is great, but there’s a definite learning curve. That’s especially true if you’re used to working with Elementor or another page builder.

Block based

We all know WordPress is shifting to full site editing and block based themes are becoming more common.

Elegant Themes was to keep up with those changes and will be transitioning into a block theme.

“On the block theme front, as a part of Divi 5.0, we are also transitioning into a Block Based theme, and since Divi 5.0 is actually internally built using the same ‘packages’ that Gutenberg itself is composed of, Divi 5.0 has a lot of compatibility built in from the core,” Elegant Themes developer Josh Ronk said.

“We are working diligently to push Divi 5.0 for maximum Gutenberg block compatibility, with the goal being that you would be able to use Gutenberg blocks inside of your Divi built pages, and then apply all of the Divi design options you love to the otherwise plain Gutenberg blocks you have installed.

This means you won’t have to choose between Divi or Gutenberg, and rather you get Divi AND Gutenberg.”

Divi will remain backwards compatible for as long as possible but will eventually shift one way or another.

As WordPress is moving towards FSE and block themes, it’s likely that Divi will too.

“Divi 5.0 will use React and it will leverage more of the native Gutenberg packages,” Roach said. “At some point we hope that Divi and Gutenberg will work in harmony. We don’t want to fight against the direction that WordPress is heading.”

When will Divi 5 be ready?

Now the million dollar question, when will Divi 5 be ready to use?

According to Elegant Themes, they have been working on the update for over a year and are still some way off completion.

It’s in development beta right now and has public alpha and beta to go before an official release.

If we were to guess, we would expect to see public alpha before the end of 2023, with beta and release early 2024.

An update this fundamental cannot be rushed and we would guess that the developers will really want to get this “Foundation Update” right.

We would guess they would want the release to be close to Divi’s 10^th birthday but cannot imagine them releasing it until they are fully confident of its stability.

As always, keep an eye on CollectiveRay for the latest news on Divi and a review of Divi 5 as soon as it’s released into the wild!

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Written by: David Attard

Category: Themes

Last Updated: 16 December 2023

AI is everywhere right now. Hardly a day goes by without a new headline mentioning AI or promoting a new product that uses it.

One standout product that leverages the power of AI is Divi.

Known for being one of the most popular WordPress themes out there, and a firm favourite of us here at CollectiveRay, Divi is joining the AI revolution with Divi AI.

What is Divi AI? What can it do? What value does it add and how will it change working with Divi?

This review will seek to answer all those questions.

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Category: Plugins

Last Updated: 25 June 2023

Are you trying to find a knowledge base WordPress plugin?

With a knowledge base plugin, you can quickly and easily publish documentation, tutorials, and how-to articles. These resources can be arranged effectively if you keep them separate from your landing pages and blog.

The top WordPress knowledge base plugins are highlighted in this article for your use.

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Category: Plugins

Last Updated: 31 January 2025

DiviFlash is a relatively new plugin that extends the Divi Builder (check out our review) in some meaningful ways.

It adds modules, landing page templates and module layouts to the already feature-packed page builder.

But is it any good? Is it worth the price and how easy is it to work with?

We spent a long time with both the Divi Builder and DiviFlash to find out.

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Category: Tutorials

Last Updated: 31 January 2025

Are you having trouble adding to WordPress Facebook Pixel? If you're running any kind of Facebook ads, adding the Facebook Pixel to WordPress is essential because it will help you optimize your ad campaigns.

Facebook Pixel is essentially Facebook ads' equivalent of Google Analytics, or if you're more familiar with Ads, it's closer to Google Ads.

The Facebook pixel enables you to more precisely target your ads and assess how well they convert clicks into sales.

Additionally, you can develop Custom Audiences, plan Events, and generally manage your Facebook advertising campaigns more effectively.

However, if you're not very tech-savvy, it might be a little challenging to figure out how to actually set up and use Facebook Pixel with WordPress.

We're going going to give you two different (but easy) ways that are suitable for beginners to help you out:

• Using small change to WordPress theme code: The only option available to you when editing the theme code manually is to add the Facebook Pixel code directly.
• With a WordPress Facebook Pixel plugin: The benefit of this approach is that you can create custom audiences and conversion goals from within your WordPress dashboard when using a plugin. Because it has specific integrations for WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads, this plugin is particularly fantastic for eCommerce stores.

We would advise using the plugin method if you intend to use custom audiences and conversion goals. Actually, the plugin will always be better, unless you have specific reasons not to use it.

However, if all you want to do is use Facebook Pixel to build lookalike audiences and other more fundamental features, manual code implementation is the most straightforward way to set it up.

If you've in a hurry, use the Table of Contents below to scroll to the relevant section.

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Written by: Shahzad Saeed

Category: Tutorials

Last Updated: 31 January 2025

Have trouble when trying to change font in a WordPress theme?

The typography of your website is crucial to both its branding and usability, so choosing the right typeface is important.

Thankfully, the majority of WordPress themes include the ability to change the fonts, though some are more flexible than others in this regard. Additionally, there are plugins available that can be used with any theme.

We'll begin this post by demonstrating how to use the theme's built-in options to change the font in a WordPress theme.

In addition, if your theme doesn't already include the fonts you want, we'll share some free plugins you can use to add more font options to any WordPress theme, even if it lacks flexible built-in options.

We'll also demonstrate how to use the WordPress editor to modify the fonts used in specific pieces of content.

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Written by: Shahzad Saeed

Category: Tutorials

Last Updated: 22 January 2023

A message stating that "Your PHP installation appears to be missing the MySQL extension which is required by WordPress" appears when you try to install WordPress or access your WordPress site.

It can be annoying to experience a problem that prevents you from using or accessing your WordPress site, just like with any WordPress error message.

However, don't give up hope!

This error typically indicates that something is wrong with the website's code and that WordPress is unable to connect to its MySQL database.

We'll discuss what that "something" might be in this article, along with some advice on how to analyze and resolve this error message.

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Category: Tutorials

Last Updated: 31 January 2025

You don't want to frequently have duplicate content on your website. However, it is a wise practice to duplicate your pages in order to maintain consistency, or a templated style. Your only concern should be how to complete the task, which is why today we're going to discuss how to duplicate a page in WordPress.

WordPress is a flexible platform, so it makes sense that there are a few ways of how to duplicate a page in WP. There is also a method that will work for you no matter what level of experience you have.

We'll look at four ways to duplicate a page in WordPress in this post. But first, let's explore why you might want to do this in the first place.

The Difference Between "Duplicate Content" and Duplicating a Page in WordPress

Before we get into specific justification, it's important to clarify the difference between duplicate content and creating duplicate pages in WordPress.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is related to the latter. Duplicate content refers to a page on your website that contains substantially all of the same content as another page elsewhere on the internet.

Although it might be detrimental, a search engine won't usually penalize you right away for it.

This, however, differs from "copied content," which is a deliberate attempt to "game" search engines in order to rank higher. The consequences are much more severe because it appears to be a deliberate act.

Contrary to everything mentioned above, duplicating your page simply means copying its layout, formatting, and content.

The purpose is to use this duplicate page as the basis for a new one; doing so carries no SEO penalty. Next, let's briefly discuss why you might want to do this.

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Written by: Shahzad Saeed

Category: Tutorials

Last Updated: 22 January 2023

All WordPress customers should change the PHP versions for each unique WordPress site within the hosrting dashboard. PHP versions 7.4 and 8.0 are currently supported for most advanced WordPress hosting companies such as Kinsta. In this article we will discuss how to update PHP in WordPress.

Given that it is significantly faster, resource-friendly, and more secure than its predecessors, PHP 7.4 or the most recent version 8.0 are both highly recommended.

In some configurations, it has been demonstrated to be 3x as fast, as seen in PHP benchmark reports.

As you might be aware, PHP now follows a dependable release schedule. Critical security updates are provided for an additional year for each new version, which is actively maintained for two years.

They have adopted the same schedule, which means that they will be removing unsupported versions of PHP when they reach end-of-life. This is done to ensure that your WordPress sites are as quick and secure as possible (EOL).

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