SP Page Builder 3.4 Pro brings the most awaited Slideshow addon, Blend mode and more

SP Page Builder is a gem, using which you can be the trendsetter. It has changed the way the industry builds Joomla websites with its simple but elegant page building approach. With the release of SP Page Builder 3.3, the world has seen a radical new way to build web pages on frontend. And, today we bring something that will truly revolutionize your website building experience.

Let’s have a quick glimpse at the major attractions of SP Page Builder 3.4 Pro

• Introduced the new Slideshow addon
• Added 16 slider blocks to the block collection
• Production Mode added for compiling addon CSS to a single file
• Introduced Blend mode to Rows, Columns, and Addons
• Added 7 Blend-mode blocks to the block collection
• Integrated gradient and pattern overlay with blend mode in addons
• A predefined style added to the Person addon
• Article display and scrolling control added to the Article Scroller addon

Here’s an intro video to get you more excited.

The all-new Slideshow addon

Sliders have always been one of the most attracting features of any website. There’s Carousel addon to rotate images radially, Gallery addon to showcase multiple images elegantly, and then there is SP Page Builder’s new Slideshow addon to redefine how to use sliders on a website.

It’s a much bigger tool than one can imagine. We’ve covered each and every aspect that a slider can ever do. We’ve been working on the Slideshow addon for more than half a year. We worked on it from the ground. The script was developed from the scratch. A full team of dedicated developers and designers worked to bring this incredibly powerful slider addon into reality!

 A quick look at the amazing features that the Slideshow addon brings

• Versatile slider content types
• Unlimited slider content styling
• Dedicated slider controller
• Elegant animation effects
• Innovative slider timer
• Fancy slider counter
• Simple container adjustment
• Effortless slider grid control
• Custom CSS styling option

Versatile content types & unlimited styling

The Slideshow addon empowers you to create a stunning slider with unlimited styling and rich content options. Each slider item brings layered settings for the slider contents.

After adding the background image for a slider, you’ll be seeing the options to insert more slider contents. While adding a slider content, you’ll be asked to select the type of content from the given 5: title, text, image, button, and icon. Every type of content has its own animation effects and styling options.

The settings for animation and styling interchange with their respective content types.

Dedicated slider controller

The addon comes with 4 different types of slider controllers: Bullet, Line, Arrow, and Image Thumbnail. You can make your own style for each of these controller types. Customize their position, enable/disable the indicator, and choose a style from the predefined ones. The bullet/line styling options can be found under their respective names. 

The indicator styling can be controlled from “Bullet/Line Center Style”.

The Arrow controller comes with even more versatility. There are 2 arrow styles, 4 content styles, content modification and dedicated styling features for both normal and hover state.

You can style and position the controllers the way you like. Trust me, it’s really flexible and rich.

Innovative slider timer

It’s something that can increase the dopamine secretion of your visitors, and make them like your site even more. It visualizes the time delay for the next slider and that anticipation makes the next slider even more attractive.

Elegant animation effects

The Slideshow addon comes with 6 predefined animation effects for a slider. Choosing one will give you access to make modifications.

You can enable/disable autoplay, set the interval time, and control the sliding speed easily.

Fancy slider counter

It’s another notable feature of the Slideshow addon. You can display a slide counter on the slider. With this feature, you can change the counter color, adjust the font size, choose the font family, and set its position.

Simple container adjustment

With the Slideshow addon, you can easily control the slider content container to ensure that the contents fit properly in a slider. This is a very simple feature that will be useful to create a perfect slider.

Effortless slider grid control

When you want to take the full control over how to fit your slider's inner contents properly, then you need something more advanced like grid controlling. To take this control, open a slider's inner content settings panel and define how many grids you want to allocate for that specific content. You can also swap between content placements using the Reverse option. 

16 ready-to-use slider blocks

The Slideshow addon is not just a typical addon. To give you a functional experience of what you can do using this addon, we have created 16 ready-made slider blocks. To access them, you need to click on the “Blocks” from the left sidebar of SP Page Builder frontend editor. Explore them all and choose the one you like.

SP Page Builder v3.4 is not all about the Slideshow addon only. It’s much bigger than that! This update brings other astounding features that certainly will blow your mind. And for that, keep scrolling.

The most requested Production Mode

This has been one of the most requested features for SP Page Builder. Before jumping into how to use this option, let me enlighten you what’s the application of this mode. Well, the production mode automatically stores the CSS code that generates from all the addons in a web page into a single CSS file. By doing so, it reduces the website loading time. Up until now, the addon CSS had been generated inside the header tag, but with the Production Mode enabled, all the code will automatically be stored in a separate CSS file. To enable this mode, go to System > Global Configuration > SP Page Builder > Production Mode > Yes.

To better understand the application of this mode, have a look at the Before state of a website.

In the above screenshot, you can see the CSS code generated from all the addons reside in the <head> tag, but when the Production mode is enabled, they are stored in a separate CSS file.

So you see, a new CSS file is automatically created to store the CSS code that generated for the webpage.

Revolutionary Blend mode in Rows, Columns, and Addons

If you’re not amazed yet, there’s more for you. With the new Blend mode, there’s no limit to what you can do with SP Page Builder. You can take a simple image and make it insanely aesthetic with these modes. You can use the Blend mode on any row, column or an addon. To apply the blend mode feature, first you need to go to Options of your preferred element (row, column or addon).

Then navigate to style tab and add a background image.

Here’s an important thing to remember, the blend mode only works when the “Overlay Options” is set to Color, Gradient or Pattern. In this example, we’ll see the use of blend mode on Pattern. So, scroll down to the Overlay Options, navigate to the Pattern tab and upload an image.

Once you’ve done that, now it’s time for choosing a blend mode from the 16 predefined ones.

7 predesigned Blend mode blocks

As new features bring a lot of other amazing stuff, the blend mode brings 7 ready-to-use predesigned blocks along with it. These blocks demonstrate crazy applications of the Blend mode. They are 100% ready, just drag and drop to bring them in action.

A new predefined style in the Person addon

SP Page Builder’s Person addon is a great way to add and display different persons’ information on a website. The addon had 4 predesigned styles to represent a person so far. Today we’ve added 1 more. So now you get total 5 styles built in the Person addon to view a person’s information on the website you manage.

Article Scroller addon gets article display and scrolling control

The Article Scroller addon has also got an enhancement. In the SP Page Builder v3.4, the Article Scroller addon got the option to control the number of articles that you want to display and can control the number of articles to move in every scroll. It’s all present in the “News Scroller” mode.

Other notable improvements in SP Page Builder 3.4 Pro

A new version always comes with a few fixes. We are continuously working to minimize the bug list. We have resolved the Article addon thumbnail issue. The difficulty with Image Overlay addon border-radius has been solved as well.

We’ve received a few feedback on the Accordion and Tab addons not working properly while duplicating them on a page, we have looked into the matter and turned out, it was a CSS property complexity. But no worries, the issue has been fixed in this update. Additionally, the OpenStreetMap issue inside the Accordion addon was solved as well.

If you’re convinced that SP Page Builder 3.4 Pro enhancements are limited to these, then think again. Here’s the full changelog for v3.4 Pro.

• New: Introduced the new Slideshow addon
• New: Added 16 slider blocks to the block collection
• New: Production Mode added for compiling addon CSS to a single file
• New: Introduced Blend mode to Rows, Columns, and Addons
• New: Added 7 Blend-mode blocks to the block collection
• New: Integrated gradient and pattern overlay with blend mode in addons
• New: A predefined style added to the Person addon
• New: Article display and scrolling control added to the Article Scroller addon
• New: Background-Position option in addon settings
• Update: Image Content addon accessibility improved
• Update: Language updated for padding
• Fix: Addon empty margin and padding issue
• Fix: Access Control List (ACL) issue
• Fix: Double CSS code issue
• Fix: Tabs addon image not showing properly inside Modal addon issue
• Fix: Minor design issue in the Animated Heading addon
• Fix: Empty space in send button of the Contact addon
• Fix: Spam mail issue in the Contact addon
• Fix: Accordion addon after CSS duplicate issue
• Fix: Tabs addon after CSS duplicate issue
• Fix: Title font size responsiveness of Accordion addon
• Fix: Hover border radius issue in the Image addon
• Fix: Border radius issue in the Image Overlay addon
• Fix: Empty item PHP warning in the Icon Group addon
• Fix: OpenStreetMap in Accordion addon integration issue
• Fix: Thumbnail visibility of the Gallery type in Article addon
• Fix: Undefined variable issue in the Testimonial Pro addon
• Fix: Language spelling issue in the Person addon
• Fix: Row middle alignment responsiveness issue
• Fix: Price symbol color issue in the Pricing Table addon

We wanted to give you a taste of some of the core features over the plethora of perks that SP Page Builder 3.4 Pro brings, in this article. Explaining all of them one by one would be rather baffling. Keep your eyes on our blog for helpful tutorials and updates. JoomShaper is always thankful for the love and support we receive from you. Wishing you a very happy new year ?

Advice: Take a full website backup before updating SP Page Builder. 

Tip: In case of design problems - In Helix template settings, Turn off "Compress CSS Files" feature, also from other plugins and then clear Joomla cache. Finally, refresh the browser view.

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