Last month, we announced the development of a new theme, Extra. Until now, we have given little detail about what this new theme is really about, and what type of things we are hoping to accomplish with it. Today, we are excited to give you a sneak peek at some of the great features that Extra will offer.
Custom Homepage, Layouts, & Categories
Extra will give you control over your index pages like never before, allowing you to completely build your homepage and category pages from the ground up. This will let you break away from the standard, prebuilt category pages, allowing you to create unique experiences on a per-category-basis. This is a killer feature. Shouldn’t an author’s blog look different than a more massively-aggregated news category with a constant influx of fresh articles? If you had the choice, would you structure your product review category differently than your homepage? Unlike any other theme, Extra will let you make those meaningful choices.
Header Options
With the content heavy nature of magazine style websites, we know that your header plays a large roll in how users navigate and access your posts. Extra will let you display a primary menu, a secondary menu, social media, links, and advertisements along with logo orientation options, and unlimited color choices. Did I mention we are building some gorgeous mega menus as well?
Rating Systems
Extra will come with two different rating systems out of the box—a system that lets you add a product rating to any post, as well as a user rating system. Both of these features are perfect for fostering reader engagement.
WooCommerce Integration
Extra will be fully compatible with WooCommerce and will allow you to easily create an online storefront that integrates perfectly into your website.
Post Formats
Extra will support article, audio, gallery, quote, video, map, and link post formats. Turning your website into a media rich experience will be easier than ever.
A Strong Foundation
Under the hood, we put a lot of effort into making sure Extra will function on a strong and responsive grid system, while also allowing for extremely diverse layouts. We have put a ton of effort into the tiniest of design details.
What Is Extra All About?
Extra is a magazine theme, and it will focus on the features that matter for online publications. We have some great magazine themes in our collection, such as Nexus and Lucid. We want to take the idea of these themes and add on a new layer of customizability, while at the same time building a foundation that can be expanded on for years to come. I hope you like what you see so far. Let us know what you think 🙂
I love the Extra theme, it fits like a glove for my site…but…under WP 4.4 this is what is happenning:
-customizer.php are not saving some options
-If I use a darker theme (dark background variations in hue) I have to hack CSS a lot so I can keep them persistent
– No option for tag layouts (they assume the default category layout (which is a blog masonry layout in my case), and the tag filter of a tag cloud doesn’t work, so when I click on a tag, it opens a masonry layout with all my posts
– No option for sidebar headers
– Featured images are cropped by default
BUt other than that, which I’m working on to solve…the theme is a wonder for my purposes (an old blog with some refreshing contemporary styles!).
Man, that preview is really cool. Just what I need!
Coming Soon, moments from now, REALLY. You’ll Love It!
How is your evidence creditable?
I think John is being a little sarcastic 🙂
@Nick, We deserve an update man! What is going on with the Extra Theme!
when is EXtra will be launched
We’ve been updated with Divi 2.5.8 few days, meaning that we are not that far from Divi 2.6 which could be as huge as 2.5 and accompanying Extra.
The question is when ?
Christmas surprise ?
New Year surprise ?
Divi builder has been released. The promise was “few weeks later for Extra to come”. It seems that weeks are turning into months…
Any hope for December 2015 ?
I remember Nick saying that since they being “working” on Extra that it will be available little after DIVI plugin. Clearly their concept of “few weeks” is for us “a few months”
It seems they have forgotten about this forums since they do not provide a bit of news.
I can not wait
Please! News
When the Extra will be available? There has been Divi 2.5 for quite some time, and the Divi Builder Plugin has also been released.
waiting for it
pls release a demo of it
or video so that we get an idea what’s we will be getting finally.
I would rather they release Extra when it’s ready and bug free.
Most companies out there tend to release too early and use the customers as beta testers – Not cool.
That being said, an updated timeline would be a nice gesture from the ET team.
Is it today ?
😮
Unfortunately this unintentional building of expectations may be setting users up for disappointment.
Nick, some screenshot of how Extra would look like may temporary satisfy our brains 😉
Any update on when Extra will be released? Love Divi, but would love Extra more!
Nick, a new sneak peak ?
😀
.
.
.
🙁
Hi.
What is new about Extra?
Wow, long thread! My take-away is that Nick Roach made just ONE small mistake… the early sneak peak. You can tell he regrets it and won’t do it again 😉
I am so impressed by his commitment to quality in the face of pressure to release. We need more companies like that. I had been happily using Weebly for 3+ years but this month they released a DISASTER upgrade called Weebly Carbon. You can barely click without hitting a bug and businesses are at a standstill.
That’s what happens when you don’t manage quality. So after lots of research, today I decided on Divi. I feel VERY good about that decision and expect great things.
Please give us some news… 😀
We can’t wait any longer!!!
Hi Nick,
Why it’s so long 🙁
I see that Divi is the most important theme in Eleganthemes, but what about next theme/s? Older are a bit “oldfashioned”.
I hope for something new before my subscription expires
It’s always nice to see that even after being away from ET for a year, there’s still no new templates.
No elegant builder is an older plugin. The wait goes on 🙂
Any ideas when Extra will be released?
I see that the Divi Builder is out, so Extra is next??
Wait, is the “Elegant Builder” actually the Divi Builder?
I look forward to this template with real impatience. How much longer? 🙂
Great news! Especially for a review blog – I made the switch to DIVI some weeks ago – now I will have a look at Extra!
I am a writer and blogger. Currently, I am using Divi and absolutely love it! I am so looking forward to seeing how Extra works! Keep up the great work!
Hey Nick… Any chance we have some functionality like this in DIVI..
http://demo.select-themes.com/brick11/
All I see in DIVI is just a down arrow…
Looks fantastic.. Nick – really looking forward to this and the Divi update.. keep up the amazing work – you help power half the internet’s WordPress sites I think! 🙂
Oh I love this theme for a product or movie review site. I always wanted to add the ratings feature.
Over a year now an still no product?
Do I need to consider this project dead?
Don’t get me wrong the advancements in Divi are great, but it doesn’t suit the needs of some site I work on.
BTW any new ETA?
Cheers!
As this post explains, Extra has been delayed due to our new vision for a unified framework, and Extra cant be released until we finish our work on the Divi Builder (which powers Extra).
In many ways Extra hasn’t really been delayed, it’s just that the work that we put into Extra has already been released in the form of Divi 2.4; and Divi, The Divi Builder Plugin and Extra will all benefit from this new framework.
As the time-line in the post explains, Extra will be released after we finish our work on the Divi Builder and release the Divi Builder Plugin.
While Extra has been delayed, the work we put into has not been made in vain. From an outside perspective, it seems like the Extra project has not been moving forward, but like I said, Divi and Extra are (in many ways) one in the same, and our work on Extra has currently manifested itself in the form of improvements to Divi Builder used in Divi. We are working as hard as we can on this suite of products, and I am confident that we have made the right decision in our plans to develop them.
As of now, is it possible to modify how a category page will be displayed? e.g. grid view
I guess this will be available in Extra.
Thanks,
Sudipta.
Vapourware until it’s released, been touted for way too long to keep asking for release dates. Forget about Extra and when it finally appears it will feel like Christmas and New Year rolled into one.
Nige,
Extra will not be released until 2016. How do I know? simple. ET has not released the DIVI plugin. And they just announced the DIVI podcast and you tube show so there goes a waste of resources instead of getting programmers to finish EXTRA. ET is incrementally spacing their product launch so here is the possible timeline:
– DIVD plugin – late September
– DIVI podcast and show – mid November – ( I can see the host in the first show answering all EXTRA related questions… this is if we get to ask that kind of questions)
– Sneak peak of new theme – early December
– Launch of mentioned new THEME – late 2017
if I come across as mean, I apologize, I am honestly frustrated that is all. THe lack of products (themes) and lack of Nick or anyone else form ET to provide some light about what we were teased 1 year ago does not help either.
today is August 7, 2015 let’s see how long does it take them to let us know EXTRA is coming…
Eduardo, the Divi Podcast does not affect the development of our products. Nathan, who will be running the podcast, is our content manager and has already been working with us for years. He does not develop themes, and his focus on this podcast does not delay Extra’s development.
We haven’t spent resources on the podcast that are, in any way, taking resources away from development. In fact we are almost always hiring new developers, and right now is no exception (podcast or no podcast).
In many ways Extra hasn’t really been delayed, it’s just that the work that we put into Extra has already been released in the form of Divi 2.4; and Divi, The Divi Builder Plugin and Extra will all benefit from this new framework.
As this post explains, Extra has been delayed due to our new vision for a unified framework, and Extra cant be released until we finish our work on the Divi Builder (which powers Extra).
We are really sorry for the delay, and we know that this sneak peek was a mistake, but we are working as hard as we can to make our products in a way that best serves our customers.
Nick, thank you for the quick response. I have a question for you. If you said that what we saw in DIVI 2.4 is what we would have seen in EXTRA then what can we expect for EXTRA when is released? if the DIVI PLUGIN is that powerful then EXTRA will be just another magazine theme? In other words shall we continue being desperately anxious for EXTRA or just move on? There is a magazine theme NEXUS in your collection that is responsive and I have been thinking that as soon as you release the DIVI PLUGIN I will use that. As you may know many of us need a magazine theme. And we have been working with DIVI to make the impossible to try and get what we need to continue making business.
Nick you have advised us to look somewhere else for themes but I have been loyal to your company for a few years now and am completely vested in your product since all my sites are created with DIVI.
I just hope we are able to be exited again about your future projects. Yes DIVI is great but the long wait definitely took away some of the excitement as we contine to wait (along time) for the DIVI PLUGIN and EXTRA.
Lastly, as an unrequested recommendation, pick a day out and every month post an update on pending projects. Even if it is “we still working on the DIVI PLUGIN” so we do not have to post our frustrated posts and comments to get an update from you. I am pretty sure that will be welcomed from many of us and won’t feel in the dark.
Extra will include the Divi Builder and all of it’s features, however it will be extended to add more functionality related specifically to online publications.
A big part of what we have done so far with Extra (and in this case, what is already part of Divi 2.4) is completely re-coded the builder framework to be modular.
What this does is make the Divi Builder easily extensible. It’s now possible for new modules and new functionality to be “plugged in” from the theme into the framework seamlessly. This is our plan with Extra.
First of all, the theme will have a completely different style than Divi, and in addition to all of the Divi Builder stuff that already exists, new modules and features related to “magazine style sites” will be included.
That’s the basic idea. You could also start with Nexus + The Divi Builder Plugin, and then move over to Extra when it’s released. That’s why we have delayed Extra so much, and decided to wait and build everything on the same framework. Moving from Divi, or a theme + the Divi Builder Plugin into Extra will be easy.
Post an update on Extra.
Hi Rob. We posted an update that explains our plans for Extra and why the theme has been delayed as we build a unified Divi framework.
In many ways Extra hasn’t really been delayed, it’s just that the work that we put into Extra has already been released in the form of Divi 2.4; and Divi, The Divi Builder Plugin and Extra will all benefit from this new framework.
Do we have any updates or news on this?
I presume it’s delayed extensively.
Been waiting nearly a year for this.
Hoping it will be released soon.
Thanks,
Hi Gab,
We are really sorry for the delay, but we are confident that the delay is required to build Extra in the way that best serves our customers.
As this post explains, Extra has been delayed due to our new vision for a unified framework, and Extra cant be released until we finish our work on the Divi Builder (which powers Extra).
I know this isn’t the answer you are looking for, but in many ways Extra hasn’t really been delayed, it’s just that the work that we put into Extra has already been released in the form of Divi 2.4; and Divi, The Divi Builder Plugin and Extra will all benefit from this new framework.
Don’t want to beat a dead horse but is there an ETA on this?
The new Divi is great but I was really looking forward to having this theme.
Cheers!
We don’t have an ETA, but we released a post that explains why Extra has been taking so long, and our new vision for a unified Divi Builder framework.
Development on Extra has been moving forward, it’s just hard to tell from an outside perspective since all this hard work has been rolled into Divi 2.4 and has currently manifested itself as updates to the current Divi theme.
Once development on the framework is complete, and The Divi Builder Plugin has been released, we will resume focus on Extra and it’s expansion of the Divi Builder in the form of new magazine features.
Please! Launch this! =]
We are working on it! We are terribly sorry for the delay, and you can read more here about why Extra is taking so long.
While Extra hasn’t itself been released, much of the work we put into Extra over the past year is currently rolled into Divi 2.4, as part of our vision for a new unified builder framework.
Hey Nick! What’s going on. It has been almost a year since extra announced. At Least can you tell us is Extra still under development or abandoned?
Extra hasn’t been abandoned! In fact, much of the work we put into Extra over the past year has already been released in the form of Divi 2.4.
As this post explains, Extra has been delayed due to our new vision for a unified framework, and Extra cant be released until we finish our work on the Divi Builder (which powers Extra).
My subscription is just going away, month by month, and this still isn’t out. Kinda disappointed that I paid money for a whole year’s subscription when I only am a fan of the Divi theme. Really, really would like Monarch.
Hey Nick,
Is there any way you can just fill in the blanks below:
“Hey ET family, I wanted to check in and give you an update on something we’re very excited about, and know you are too. We are about ____% finished with Extra, and are making good progress every day. We still don’t have a specific idea as to when it will be released due to the uncertain nature of the new features we’re adding, beta testing, and troubleshooting, but we are currently working on tackling _______ and ________, modifying and streamlining _______, and building the _________ feature, all of which you can look forward to when it is ready.
Extra has been in the works for ___ weeks (!!!), our most ambitious project to date. And while we know it can be frustrating to wait so long for new products, please remember that it simply means there is more to be excited about this time around. We are just as anxious to deliver it to you as you are to get it, because we think you’ll be blown away by what we’ve come up with, and we’re excited to see what you will be able to do with it.
Thanks for hanging in there with us!”
This is similar (albeit much shorter) than the progress report I send to all of my clients every Thursday, though I always provide an estimated delivery date. Project management is a huge part of web development, which is why I find it a bit difficult to believe that, a year in, you have no idea where you’re at in the development process.
We aren’t frustrated because we’re needy, we’re frustrated because we love what ET does, and we want to root for you. But you have to give us *some* kind of update every once in a while. Please.
Nick,
First of all I would like to say that Divi is the best WP theme I have ever seen. I’ve been with ET for a while now and I will continue to remain with you all to the end. I practically use Divi for every blog project I create. Keep up the awesome work! And take some Extra time on Extra because the more time you spend making it perfect, the more perfect it will be.
To everyone else who keeps DEMANDING Nick update on Extra, why don’t you people try to develop as many themes as Nick has, charge a really low price for them all like Nick does and then meet the demands of your customers. It is easy to demand complain until you are actually in the shoes of the developers. I’ve seen ETs annual price the actual price of just ONE THEME so be thankful for what you get and wait patiently until they release a new one. For all the people leaving ET over this silly reason, Nick, I will tell you this – I’m going to keep up renewing my membership each year!
Good work dude!
I don’t think people are contesting that Divi is an amazing theme. We all know how awesome Divi is, that’s why we’re all here. We all know that the membership program is a great deal considering how many themes we get for an annual membership, that’s why we’re all here! If we could develop our own themes and charge a low price then we WOULDN’T be here and you wouldn’t hear from those people anyway.
The people you ARE hearing from are the ones who value ET so much as to grow their business from it, who refuse to use all other themes because they know how amazing ET themes are. You really can’t relate to the frustration that people are feeling when they see a sneak peek to a theme, receive another sneak peak a month and a half later and then not hear anything about it again for another 7 months?
We are approaching 1 year now since it was first announced and without any real updates on when it might be released. It’s become embarrassing to tell clients how great this new theme will be for their website and then turn around and recommend something else. The frustration we feel with ET is only a reflection of the frustration our clients feel with us who have spoken so highly of this theme.
Whenever it is released, yes it will be amazing and it will be the best theme out there. But what’s the lasting effect of this long drawn out wait from customers? Can we trust sneak peeks again? Will it be worth the wait? Who knows??? ET does… we just want to know too.
We are really sorry for the delay, and we know that this early sneak peek was a mistake. We have posted an update about why Extra is taking so long.
In many ways Extra hasn’t really been delayed, it’s just that the work that we put into Extra has already been released in the form of Divi 2.4; and Divi, The Divi Builder Plugin and Extra will all benefit from this new framework.
I recently became a lifetime member of ET and I am already in love with its themes and plugins. I am developing my new product review site with Divi. Of course, Divi is fantastic compared with several other premium themes that I have used so far.
But, after reading about Extra, I have already decided to migrate my product review site to Extra whenever it is released.
Hope Extra is released soon.
Raj
I’m so lucky to have bought into Elegant Themes years ago—you guys are doing fantastic work and enabling me to support my family and help others who need good sites. Thank you!
Anyone want to start a pool on whether Extra will be released a) before the June 11 one year anniversary of its announcement b) before the year is over?
Wow, almost one year now since the theme was announced. Well, the delay could also be because MSN seems to have taken ET’s theme idea and ran with it! I also noticed msn.com (strangely) looks a lot like the Extra screen shots and even functions the way Nick described his theme’s elements. So much for putting out your design ideas ahead of time. All I can say is I hope they decide to still release Extra and don’t decide to can the project because I REALLY want to use that theme!
I have to say the wait is worth it and I must be more patient than most.
*blows on knuckles*
I “left” Elegant Themes for about 3 months. I wondered some of what some of the others here had said… are they really that great anymore, etc., etc. Well… about 1 month in I was 50% sure I’d made a big mistake. 2 months in I was ready to come back. 3 months in I had spent so much time making websites my “new” way that I came screaming back.
This is, by far — and in my very experienced opinion, the BEST theme resource in the world. It is solid. It is extensible. The Divi theme alone is worth the price of a lifetime membership!!
All that being said… I still check often (okay, every morning) hoping to see “Extra” released. But… I can wait. Because I know, unlike Calvin’s beanie, that this is going to really “FLY!”
http://bit.do/calvins-beanie
For those that are complaining about the annual subscription and not having gotten anything new, I think it’s crazy. Elegant Themes is so ridiculously inexpensive and you get an entire library of themes for the price. In my experience, paying an annual fee like that is to cover the theme updates. At least that’s been the norm with a lot of other templates and plugins I’ve purchased. It’s similar to the SaaS industry.
If you compare the Elegant Theme subscription to a one-off theme from Theme Forest or something similar, I’ve paid more than the annual subscription for a single theme. I’ve purchased specialty themes for hundreds of dollars. If you’re a freelance designer, you only need to sell one website to cover your annual subscription cost. In my opinion, complaining about the cost is silly. It’s peanuts. If it’s breaking the bank then you have a much more serious problem on your hands.
The communication, however (or should I say lack thereof) is definitely frustrating. Nothing grinds my gears more than when someone goes silent and won’t respond to your inquiries. It’s disrespectful and rude. It’s poor customer service.
Like many other I’m also growing impatient waiting for Extra to come out. It would be awesome to get an update. It’s been a long time coming and in the meantime I’ve also had to purchase a couple other magazine templates elsewhere.
All any of us want is someone from the team to say “Hey, at this point we’re looking at another 2-3 months away,” or something like that. I think most of us understand that to build something great it takes time and you often encounter unforeseen challenges. That’s the way the development business goes. Sure there’s going to be people disappointed if it takes longer due to delays and such. But I think you’re upsetting a lot more people by ignoring everyone. That’s just my opinion.
But seriously folks, stop ripping on them about the subscription price and saying you’re going to go elsewhere and you’re giving up on them. That’s just being silly. If you need a magazine theme in the meantime, go somewhere else and get it. I’ve had to do 3 magazine sites since the original announcement and that’s what I’ve done. There’s other great themes out there. Sure they don’t have the same features as what’s expected from Extra, but they’re still very good.
And you know that if Extra is anything like Divi, it’s going to be nothing short of amazing.
If you got out for dinner, ordering a steak with vegetables for a valuable price, would´t you complain if you get served fish and fries (even though they might be excellent and maybe even more expensive if ordered directly) without having being asked?
In this case its somewhat worse: Many people purchased (paid) for a subscription that is based on “promises” being made upfront and not being kept. In my country it would be easy to perform a reversal of the full contract – including any fees occurred already and could easily end in a additional fine for the vendor.
Regarding the quality delivered so far and looking at the comments, many people even would´t have complained, if they just were kept updated.
I am not confident that nick is aware, he is setting a complete business at stake by acting as he does.
Any relationship relies on communication and ET failed on that – and even worse – doesn´t seem to be able to handle critic very well – if at all.
While I would love to use ET EXTRA and even DIVI as well as some of the plugins, I am not able to set my own customer relationship at stake by choosing a vendor that seems to operate not very mature.
@ET, for god sake, pull the pants down and get to the point about your vision, mission and with that your roadmap, release cycles for new themes (such as extra) as well as for updates.
I am confident your loyal community can handle the truth much better than you might think it will. Sticking the head into the sand will cost you much more of your shrinking reputation than you can afford.
We already made a post about our goals and progress, and what it means for our product release roadmap. You can read about it here.
Nick, can we have another update on Extra. Perhaps with some definitive dates this time?
Would Extra be released this month? next month or 6 months later? Please give us some idea.
Thank you for your hardwork and wonderful themes but a release date for extra would really help.
Is there anyone else but Nick left at Elegant Themes?
People seem to be posting blogs and analysis articles when most of the ‘happy customers’ are crying out for a proper update on the timeline.
Why isn’t everyone tasked with completing Extra. That seems to be your most frequent request. We have more chance of playing Half-Life 3 before we see Extra.
Our team is bigger than ever, and we are all working harder than ever! As this post explains, Extra has been delayed due to our new vision for a unified framework, and Extra cant be released until we finish our work on the Divi Builder (which powers Extra).
Any updates?
I just got the reminder email that my subscription will renew in 7 days. Thanks for the reminder, I guess I didn’t realize it was automatic. However, I did and do plan to renew.
I am renewing for 1 reason only: I want continued support and updates, primarily for Divi, which I have used for several clients’ sites, and another one just this week.
Having said that, I signed up just before Divi was released, so I have gotten a new theme during my first year of membership. I’ve pretty much given up that I’ll ever see Extra, however.
What frustrates me even more than how long it’s taken for Extra to come out is the Complete and Utter Silence about when it might come out or what’s taking so long. I feel like design trends will change before this theme is ever released. Why can’t you tell us Something? Why did you bother to tell us about it if you weren’t planning to release it within a couple of months of your “sneak peek”?
Another thing that is really, really starting to irk me is the popups on this site. I came to the site today to check on the payment method I used for my membership. I’m a paying member. I had to log in (no cookie keeps me logged in like on other sites) and While I Was Entering My Password, a one of those moving rotating popups appeared Right On Top of the Login panel!!! You already have me as a customer, why do you continue to subject me to popups?
Am I alone in finding that a couple of things can ruin an otherwise satisfying experience? Other than these two complaints, I’m a happy Elegant Themes customer. But these two things seem bigger and bigger on the annoyance factor. I can’t help but feel you’re going to lose some customers if you don’t address at least one of these.
We are really sorry for the delay Melissa, and we made a blog post that explains why Extra hasn’t been released yet, and how the work on Extra is currently been rolled into a unified Divi Builder framework.
While Extra has been delayed, the work we put into has not been made in vain. From an outside perspective, it seems like the Extra project has not been moving forward, but like I said, Divi and Extra are (in many ways) one in the same, and our work on Extra has currently manifested itself in the form of improvements to Divi Builder used in Divi. We are working as hard as we can on this suite of products, and I am confident that we have made the right decision in our plans to develop them.
Hello Nick!
Would you consider the functionality of a competing product? When we disable the Beaver Builder (which might happen due to some circumstances), it leaves the text on screen, instead of
1) some shortcode – Visual Composer
2) nothing at all – Thrive Content Builder
No worries if it is too much to achieve at first try. We’re already proud of what you’ve done and achieved 🙂
Hey Nick!
Would you consider the functionality of a competing product? When we disable the Beaver Builder (which might happen due to some circumstances), it leaves the text on screen, instead of
1) some shortcode – Visual Composer
2) nothing at all – Thrive Content Builder
No worries if it is too much to achieve at first try. We’re already proud of what you’ve done and achieved 🙂
I really hope this theme comes out in the next number of weeks, I have a new project I would like to begin and would hate to have to buy an outside theme. Everyone that uses Elegant Themes TOTALLY understands how hard the team is working to produce a top notch product, but a weekly ‘progress update’ post would be nice, or like I read from one comment, a beta version would be nice too, even if it was one page with a few features. Anyway, some new info would be nice and I am looking forward to what this theme can do and has to offer.
Don’t count on it. 🙁
Nick seems to think that less information is better for customers, that problems arise when he provides some. The problem is that we’re kept completely in the dark and expected to be happy about it, Nick acts like he’s offended when we’re upset that he won’t give us any news or updates.
I’ve decided to move on from ET. 🙁
Absolutely.
This place has gone downhill to such an extent that I’m almost certainly going to cancel my subscription next time it comes around. What exactly am I paying for? It feels like I’m paying for a blog a couple of plug-ins and, with all due respect, there’s a million of them around that I don’t need to pay for.
If ET wants to retain an honest policy over this, it should end its subscription service and just charge for its themes and plug-ins individually. It feels, however, as if they just want the best of both worlds at the moment. I’ve been hanging on for a magazine theme for about eight months or so that this site promised, and the only things I know for certain about it are that it hasn’t been forthcoming and that no-one knows when it will be. And this is just one theme!
The membership isn’t just about new themes, it’s about accessing our current collection of themes, plugins, updates/improvements to those products and support. Extra has been delayed, and we are terribly sorry for that, but luckily the work we have been putting into Extra has already been manifesting itself in Divi. Divi 2.4 includes a ton of updates that come directly from our work on Extra.
As this post explains, Extra has been delayed due to our new vision for a unified framework, and Extra cant be released until we finish our work on the Divi Builder (which powers Extra).
Give us an update. Just tell us one of the following:
a) Days
b) Weeks
c) Months
Typing one letter would make us all feel so much better. Can you do it?
+1
+1
+1
Hi Nick, i would install Disqus on my website but when Extra will be released i will be install it. So, it’s a good idea to use Disqus and Extra? Extra will have a good system for comments?
Wow, people are fired up about this.
I just recently signed up under the Developer plan and I’m impressed with Divi but it doesn’t fit my needs right now – something like Extra would though.
I understand getting it right before releasing – maybe the tease last July was little much for people really needing a solidly designed and highly customizable magazine theme.
I know Bloom just launched which looks awesome – looking forward to trying that out .. so maybe an Extra update or launch next month? Any info would be great.
Cheers .. and keep up the great work guys.
-W
Longest…… Wait….. Ever…..!
Extra sounds amazing so far, the only thing thats missing is some sort of post builder. The ability to customize each post and make custom layout templates for posts would make the theme perfect.
Keep Up the good work ET.
-Luke
Did people even stop commenting? march 12th to march 18th no comment at all?
Think we all got fed up asking 🙂
It will be good. It’s got to be good to have taken this long.
Keep the faith.
For the love of god please release this already.
Here is an idea, release a beta version so we can at least play around with it and you may find your loyal customers can help with bug reporting.
Nothing is perfect 1st round. Just get the main features finalized and get it out there.
Then run a survey to see what features the majority of your users want and focus on them.
+1 for Tim’s suggestion – smart to get some involved now so they can provide feedback from a customer/user/client perspective. As mentioned above, it will be a few solid releases before it gets to where Divi is now.
Hugs for Nick for taking a beating on this thread, he must be sore given the theme was announced on June 11, 2014 – hopefully we don’t have to wait for the 1 year anniversary.
With as much cash that these guys have made- I can understand them just sitting back and not pushing much out over the last year.
Doing the simple math 261,586 users at $69 each is 1.8 Million dollars.
Even if we cut that in half – that is a nice chunk of change.
The fact that when we purchased our membership we thought we would be given additional themes – and that has not happened is disheartening. The fact that we held off on a project waiting for this theme also is.
I really wonder how relevant ET is now… I really wish they would phone home, return to the planet and get their act back in the game.
Glenn, buddy, you’re slightly off on your math… it’s not 1.8 million… it’s 18 Million… annually. Cut that to a tenth, and it’s a nice chunk of change. I could hire 100 top notch programmers for that, and still retire on the beach of my choosing. It’s making me wish that I had the time and money to do a simple startup that would put out these kinds of templates.
I used Archive.org to get this info…
Feb 2009 – 20 themes… (base)
Feb 2010 – 30 themes… (+10)
Feb 2011 – 55 themes… (+25)
Feb 2012 – 72 themes… (+17)
Feb 2013 – 80 themes… (+8)
Feb 2014 – 87 themes… (+7)
Feb 2015 – 87 themes… (+0)
I have one question regarding the EXTRA theme:
Will it be released within the next few weeks or months?
I need to know so I can make a decision on my next project. I think it’s fair to at least let us know how close (or far) this theme is from shipping. I know it can’t be years away, but weeks or months; that’s a fair question.
Who agrees?
Agree – I just hope what is released lives up to the anticipation and hype generated here.
I’m eager to see what Extra will be – but based on the limited information, I’m not sure why anyone would hold off a project in anticipation of using this theme. What if it doesn’t work for your project after the release? – we have a few screen shots and a high level understanding that it will be a magazine style theme. Even after release it will have to go through the community scrutiny – It took Divi a long time after to get the enhancements in and a major revision as more features (user needs) were added.
People have been wanting to know the answer to that question for the past year. Having seen the company line response enough times, let me reply for ET so they don’t have to stop development to give us an update:
“We have a lot on our plate, and we just want to focus on making great stuff. Great stuff takes time. We are working as hard as we can, and as soon as it is ready, we will let you know. ”
Close?
Well, I still remember when this was going to be released in November 2014. If they still don’t know how close they are to releasing it then they’re likely months away.
I used to work as a designer in the video game industry so I have some idea as to how long software takes to make. I respect the process. Make it great. Make it amazing. All I ask is some idea of how close or far away EXTRA is from being released.
Transparency goes a long way to keeping customers supportive along the journey.
I was wondering if Extra will be compatible with Woocommerce?
Lisa this text is from the article above:
“WooCommerce Integration
Extra will be fully compatible with WooCommerce and will allow you to easily create an online storefront that integrates perfectly into your website.”
After so many months of waiting, I finally had to pull the trigger and purchase another magazine theme. I had a defined timeline and content that needed to be in a news/magazine style with current technology, and *had* to do it. The good thing about that is that now I’m not so stressed about Extra. I still can’t wait for it to come out, but meanwhile, even if it’s not ET, I have something that’s functional.
By the way, there are a lot of news/magazine themes out there that aren’t good – too busy, too sparse, too difficult in the admin area, etc.
Yep me too, I went out and paid $56 for a magazine theme, which kind of hurt because I was sure all my needs would be met here.
May I ask, meanwhile we wait for Extra, which theme did you use?
Hi, I am not comfortable posting a link to a competitor site on Nick’s site, however I am including my contact website (click my name) where you can reach me and I will be happy to share.
Hi,
In Extra would be possible to change layout [background color or background image, sidebar, maybe top menu or header] based on category?
In example, all post in category-1 styled in red and custom menu sidebar, post in category-2 blue etc…
Thanks!
Hi Nick
The look and ability of Extra looks fantastic. Really hoping it will be available really soon. In the meantime I will have to use another magazine theme to be able to start my project, however just wondering which one you would recommend to use that will create minimal work when updating and changing over to Extra when it becomes available?
Nick,
Thank you for your honesty with the development about this theme. I wish it were finished because it looks like an amazing product, but I am really thankful that you all are taking the time to keep producing amazing products with high quality and phenomenal usability.
Keep up the good work!
Hey Nick!
I was wondering if the Extra theme will have the ability to display large, full-screen images in posts? (for example: articles on https://medium.com/)
It will have some great layout features for posts, although not exactly like Medium.
Nick, would it be possible for you to release some more screenshots of Extra and some of its features / page structures?
It would be so helpful to know a little more about what to expect from it, as magazine themes vary so much as far as form and function goes. It helps us with planning for when it is released if we know whether or not we will be able to leverage it for this project or that.
Thanks!
Mel
Nick
This theme was announced on 11th June 2014 and there is still no sign of it. Much as I like Divi I was really hoping we might have seen Extra before now with all the great layout opportunities it will deliver. Do you have a rough timeframe in mind when we might be able to at least beta-test this solution?
Have a feeling, it’s going to be most awesome!
John Malloy
http://www.thecanadiandaily.ca
Is Elegant Themes going to be relevant in another year?
I have, for one been watching the goings on here over the last year and, as others have observed, commercial output has come to a virtual standstill.
Then, I stumble across this question in the wordpress.org support pages…
https://wordpress.org/support/topic/elegant-themes-no-longer-commercially-supported
I checked the Commercially Supported GPL Themes at …
https://wordpress.org/themes/commercial/
and, yes, Elegant Themes is not listed. I don’t know if they ever were, but the poster at that first link states that they, in fact, were listed.
Lack of activity here and elsewhere ( I mean, wouldn’t you want to maintain a presence on WordPress.org. Just think of the link juice… hmmm maybe that’s why my inbox is full of blog post notifications from Elegant Themes…) back to point– seems to indicate an erosion of business basics. This is way past a marketing goof e.g.”New” Coke but, I would suggest, a “jumping the shark” moment e.g. “Happy Days”. That is to say, possibly, a fatal error which may not be reversible.
Oh yeah, please do something Elegant Themes. Go ahead and design a new theme on an old framework. Throw us some crumbs.
WordPress.org requires a certain amount of contribution to the WordPress.org community to be listed in the “commercially supported” section. So it’s not as black and white as it looks. We make great themes, they are coded well and they are all GPL. Basically in order to be listed there you have to make a certain amount of free themes, and right now we are more focused on our own products for the ET community than we are at making products elsewhere just to get a link-back. That is not our priority right now.
I am a Lifetime Access, I have to wait long enough, I hope to release soon. I really need it!
Very well put Derek, your comment is the nutshell of 462 comments above 🙂
The biggest problem here isn’t the quality of work or how long it is taking to finish Extra. I think we all understand that and are perfectly willing to wait for something good.
The problem is communication and not keeping members updated. I think thats all people really want.
It seems so simple to do another blog post that shows more screenshots from Extra or a post that says “Here’s something cool we’re implementing into Extra that we think you’ll love.” A simple post like that would keep all the frustration at bay yet ET seems to be unwilling to do that.
Why? I don’t know. You could say communicating too early got you in this mess but continued communication throughout the process would go a long way to keeping members happy and avoiding all the negative posts.
I’m happy to wait for Extra but a simple update from time to time instead of radio silence would mean a lot to the members.
Derek – I want to click “Like” on your comment!
I for one believe DIVI has totally changed the way websites can be built and maintained by clients. Well done! Extra looks amazing and I too can’t wait for this theme. Perhaps, given the delays it would have be better to build a Mag/News module into DIVI for its next release…. instead of going down another theme path? Just a thought but I do agree good Mag/News layouts with flexibility are in demand and a necessity
Im a big fan of ET, I don`t mind that they are taking longer to release better things, however I think the communication could improve, when extra was announced I figured it would be released before the end of 2014 and it still hasn’t, so that was a bit unusual, im sure the team is making great stuff, but it would be nice to have more updates on the progress of new themes
keep up the good work 🙂
Do we have a release date for Extra? I’m not complaining, but just wondering.
As you can see above there is no release date.
I agree with Rob’s post above, and while I totally understand Nick’s new philosophy of quality over content, the rate of output is far too slow to justify a yearly subscription.
ET strategy this year appears to have been more resources on blog postings to increase the sites SE visibility and bring in more new customers. – and less resources on it’s core role – theme output.
I have been waiting so long for this magazine theme that I did something that many other members will have done too – started to look elsewhere and that is dangerous for ET. Why? Because I saw other themes I really liked, and I saw themes that specifically target ET premier theme Divi, and *exceed* what Divi can do. That HAS to be a concern for Nick, and the nly way to counter it is to release more themes.
Nick I am sorry but you are wrong to say you should not have posted the sneak peak and you are wrong to say that you will not post a release date.
You should post a roadmap for the development and release of new themes and this will serve as a guide for your paying customers and also a target for your Devs to work towards.
For me, I have waited too long for this theme, you give me the impression that there are not enough resources dedicated to its release, so I have to look elsewhere, and that makes me sad because I want to stay loyal and I want to keep the convenience of familiarity with your themes.
PLEASE, put more resource into this theme and release it soon.
Thank you for reading.
I have to agree with Alistair. I have already chosen a news magazine theme and if I don’t have Extra available to me within a set time frame, I will have to pull the trigger and purchase the alternative. At the time that Extra was announced (this announcement, not the one before!), I thought I could make-do with the Divi theme. It did not work out, and in November I started looking at news/mag themes that could meet my needs. I have found one, but because of how much I like the ease of use of ET’s theme, have been reluctant to buy. It has 95% of everything I need, and just a plugin or two will fill in the gaps.
I appreciate that it takes time to develop excellence, but well over half a year from announcement to nothing is pushing the patience of even the most devoted of customers.
I agree with everyone who’s commenting about the lack of updates on the bells and whistles that will be included. *Even that* would be great, along with a viable, realistic target date of release would keep us out of other theme publishers’ offerings. It’s really that simple.
I agree with Irene, I’m not going to cut and run, either. But, seriously, this post is dated July 30. If I didn’t know about Extra, I wouldn’t be disappointed with how long it’s taking to get it. But since you told us about it, can you understand why we might be just a little impatient?
I’ve found another theme developer that has several great magazine themes, while I wait, and I think you have to realize some people will be looking elsewhere when months go by without new themes showing up here.
I, too, am enjoying the blog posts. But every time I see an email telling me there’s a new post here, my heartbeat races just a bit and I can’t help but hope it’s going to be a post saying Extra is here, or even, Extra will be here and a firm date of release.
I have been a member of ET for many years, and don’t plan to change. While many of the themes work perfectly for sites that I build, for *my* site, a News/Magazine layout is crucial. I will not cancel my membership, and I will continue to wait for good themes that are well done. It’s just that as time ticks by, I will do as I have in the past and purchase another theme to fill in the gap until Extra is released. Extra means a lot to me since Divi just didn’t quite meet my needs.
While I’m frustrated at the long wait, that doesn’t mean that I’m going to cut and run. I’m staying for the long haul because I love the themes and the support. ET is more or less a hangout place.
And by the way, I like the blog posts, too.
ok, lemme say that i have alot of respect for you Nick writing the same answers over and over again for the last 6 months.
problem with most people is that they dont read because they live in there own world.
anyway please take your time with development. i totally agree that quality is so much more important than quantity. it is in my opinion the only way to go !
good luck and thx for the already great work on divi which helped and is still helping me to make great websites.
I think it’s okay that it takes time to create totally new allround theme and it’s fine. I’ve been a satisfied ET client for two years and I’m happy ’cause my happiness doesn’t lie on one or two themes.
Divi is something what I still try to learn better but when I’m comparing that to another ET themes, I understand the difference between simple theme and Divi theme. Divi isn’t just a theme, it’s more like a framework to me.
And if Extra is some kind of framework to me, I happily wait it as long as it takes.
Keep up the good work.
I’m with you Matti,
And besides, where does it say in our yearly subscription (or even the life time one) the we are entitled to new themes throughout the year? No where!
Nahhh …There is still plenty of “food” (for the money) on the table!
…
“…I’ll happily wait it as long as it takes. Keep up the good work.”
Dido!
Nice to see Nick back and responding on the post. Nick perhaps releasing some overdue updates to the page builder stand alone plugin, more layouts for Divi and Monarch child theme would sustain us (or at least some) while we wait anxiously and patiently for Extra.
Divi is a great theme and I’m excited to see the updates to it as well – there have a few great spin-off plugins developed to accommodate missing and additional functionality that should be in the core theme in my opinion – kudos to the FB group that is harmonious and helpful to all that join with support and solutions (unlike the canned “this is outside the scope of support” responses) we see on the ET support area.
Simple things like renaming the Projects Post Type to something relevant for our business (niche) to adding support for builder on all post types has been done via generous and genius developers who have figured out a way.
If I had one wish, it would be to have a new section in the Themes Documentation on how to do stuff for common and repeated questions instead of sifting through hundreds of topics and solutions without knowing which one is the one endorsed and supported by ET. How to support videos for common requests would be a huge win for all. I know you’re on the group and see the developments from talented folks all the time. I would be lost without it.
Intrigued by the 4 new plugins but save the sneak peaks until 15 days before launch 🙂 – hopefully two of them is the new page builder stand alone version and mobile plugin that we’ll be able to use on ET and other themes as well.
Thanks again for coming back to this post and reminding us it’s worth the wait.
Looking forward to your response and the launches soon.
“Hopefully one of them is the new page builder stand alone version.”
Maybe 😉
Awesome Nick! thanks. Now we don’t have to worry about not having the Page Builder as part of Extra 🙂
Nick, really you don’t write anything? we are so frustrated!
Hi Peter,
It’s hard to give an update that is different than the countless replies I have given above to the same exact question 🙂
I know that people are eager for this theme to be finished, and I am excited that everyone else is excited, but the only thing we can do is our best, and that’s exactly what we are doing.
We have a lot on our plate. We are trying to make great stuff. Great stuff takes time, and there is no magic wand I can wave to change that.
Hi Nick,
Hope you and your team must be doing great.
Let me just tell you that even I am eagerly waiting for Extra to be released but that does not mean I am not getting a fair deal from ET.
I think Divi (even though its just one theme) is the solution to almost all of my web designing needs.
Installing Divi to all of my new WordPress installations have become a common practice for me since its release. It hardly happens that I look for any other theme.
Yes, there are times when I want a faster implementation but even that gets fulfilled most of the time by the rest of 85 amazing themes. So, I really don’t understand why there is so much of cry for ‘extra’ or not getting the ‘value’ for money.
No one knows exactly what extra is going to be delivered with ‘extra’, so why everyone is trying to show that all hopes to save the world are lying with extra.
We should ask ourselves that what are we paying for? To get increasing number of themes by ET or highly innovative solutions like Divi that enables us to be more creative, efficient and productive, even though they come once in a year.
Man, I am willing to wait as much as I can for such an amazing product and I suggest the same to everyone else.
I believe motivation does much more for anyone to perform better compared to complaints.
So I suggest, you guys should take your time, space and the peace of mind to provide us with great themes.
We trust you and know that you are working hard to deliver us right in time.
Cheers!
How can you not understand the problem? We bought a SUBSCRIPTION. The new business model is based around individual products. The two philosophies are totally incompatible.
They are charging like they are a newspaper, but releasing like they are a publishing house. They are charging like a cable company, but releasing like a hollywood studio.
Would you subscribe to a newspaper, paying them every month, only to get one or two papers a year? Or would you rather just save your money, and buy an issue whenever it came out?
Elegant Themes had a large and loyal base, and they are losing a lot of the goodwill capital they built up with their cavalier attitude toward their customers.
When extra comes out, no doubt it will be good. But it will have taken a huge toll on the business.
These are the issues I see:
1. ET did a bait and switch on customers regarding the business model. You can’t sell a buffet and then not bring out new food.
2. ET failed with transparency and communication. The customers would have understood and been sympathetic had we been kept in the loop.
3. ET created an adversarial relationship by stopping updates. This is Nick’s fault personally. The right approach would have been to keep people updated. Instead, the approach has been, “I should never have done the sneak peak.”
And addressing that point… REALLY? You should never have done the sneak peak?
Then what, stay silent while you deliver a plugin over the course of 6 months? With no clue as to what’s next?
It’s really frustrating to see this company make so many avoidable mistakes.
The business model has not changed, just our product strategy. You pay $69 to get access to our entire collection of themes, to use on an unlimited number of websites, and for continued compatibility updates and tech support for those products. The difference is, instead of making a lot of tiny new products, we are making fewer products that are bigger and better than ever. This is because we already have 87 themes in our collection, and to add true value we need to do more that just reiterate on the same stuff we already have.
The price is yearly, not monthly. So yes, you pay yearly for access to these new products we release each year, and for the continued update of those products (FYI, we are on version 2.2 of Divi. These updates take time. Other themes are on version 4 or 5, meaning dozens of updates over the users). That is our offering. If the themes we have available are not worth $69, then we havne’t done our job, and i do apologize for that. All I can say in response is that we are working harder than every to make great new themes. I think we made something really amazing in Divi, and I am excited about making similar products in the future, and continuing to update and improve those products for years to come.
As always, we have created an amazing deal in Elegant Themes, giving our members access to our entire collection of themes for the price of one. We are continuing to make great products, and with each product the value of the membership will only strengthen. Making these products takes time, and so we are investing that time each and every day.
Your deal is amazing. Even better than $69 a year is a the one-time lifetime. Now I never have to worry. I know I’ll always have the best available. And at no extra charge.
Really, folks. We’re not talking about taking out a loan, here. $249 is incredibly inexpensive. I spent far more than that on $47 shiny objects over the last 2 years and I have nothing to show for them but a bunch of crap that’s now out of date.
Nick is building quality products and cementing them with relationships.
Keep up the good work.
The fact that Nick does not answer or update here on a monthly basis should tell everyone something.
The fact that this theme has been delayed for near on a year should tell everyone something.
The fact that the daily blog posts are mainly generic bores should tell you something.
Why would anyone subscribe for one new theme a year?
Why are their so many themes not updated?
I thing ET has outsourced most of the work from the original team who have left.
Even if Extra comes out tomorrow it’s too little too late.
There’s bad business going on here. There’s a ship sinking. Time to move on.
Sorry to see you go Dave. Our team is bigger than ever, and everyone that we have ever hired onto the product team is still with us. I know that we used to create simple themes very quickly, and that our new product strategy is a big change for some people, but I am 100% confident that creating amazing themes like Divi and Extra will be more useful to our customers than creating the same generic themes over and over again (of which we already have 87).
Of course, this times takes, and we are spending 100% of that time on building something special
Hey Nick, no worries 🙂 I’ve took up a temporary theme off TF for the time being. Take your time, I’m sure Extra will be worth the wait.
And yes, thanks for the awesome plugins in Bloom and Monarch. With Divi, Bloom and Monarch, a lifetime subscription is so worth it. Will try to get our readers and friends to sign up before you change your mind to yearly renewals!
Just a few requests 🙂
1) With the focus on producing great content for even ecommerce store owners (Joe Pulizzi’s book – Epic Content Marketing), the focus for ecommerce store owners would be shifting from just uploading products and buying Google Ads (doable for high margin drop shippers, not doable for the rest of us), to creating great content.
As such, would you consider having it easy to place banners and ads within the post, below the post (immediately after/before the related posts by Jetpack) and even other strategic spots as you deem fit?
While not all of us would want (nor qualify for) Adsense, we could put in some product banners that we might want to convert.
2) For the WooCommerce product pages, kindly ensure extensions like recommended products, wishlists and waitlists does not go to waste. 🙂
I’ve spoken to some theme experts on WPChat.com and they said the issue was due to themes overwriting the WooCommerce template 🙁
I can pass you my copy of these 3 extensions if you would wish to test Extra with them.
Looking forward for the great news!
Leo,
WPStarters
Six months later and you’re still right on! I Love the new Divi. Can’t wait for it to be a plug in to use on your other themes.
And Extra? Looking forward to it.
Next a story-telling option and all is perfect.
Your business choice is sound. Stay the course.
ET, many of us have supported you from the moment you launched your business. We have expressed excitement, offered feedback and commitment. Back in July you teased us with your proposal for Extra – we still wait in anticipation.
Please reward our patience with an update. I’m sure most will appreciate that projects evolve – for good and bad. If you’ve hit a snagging point or taken a different direction then let us know – perhaps some could offer feedback to resolve any issues you’re facing.
Until then, we continue to wait, patiently – but with a little frustration – as we plan our own workflow; with the hope that maybe this theme may be the ideal solution for our ‘next’ project…
There were no snags, or changes of direction. The project just ended up taking a lot longer than expected. I regret giving this sneak peek so early, and we will certainly delay our sneaks peeks in the future to avoid this problem.
As for updates, you can take a look at the dozens of replies I have give above. To keep a long story short, we are spending more time on our products now so that we can make even better things, and I am confident that these new products (while more complicated to build), will end up adding more value to our membership. We already have 87 themes, and continue to build different variations on that same “theme” wasn’t providing enough value from my perspective.
Even though Divi, for example, took over 1 year to build, it’s not being used by 90% of our customers. That’s because, even though it took us 10x as long to build, it’s actually 100x more useful than anything else in our collection!
That’s the kind of products we want to build moving forward.
Well done Nick! Divi is amazing and should def be the direction ET follows. I dont know where we would be without DIVI. Maybe add a kickass New/Mag Feature (like the idea of EXTRA) into DIVI?
Nick, really i don’t understand your silence! Please write something. We need and we deserve an update!
Talking is what got me into this mess in the first place! 🙂 In all seriousness, we are simply working as hard as we can to finish this theme, as well as some really great updates to Divi, Monarch and 4 new unannounced plugins.
We have our heads down, and we are trying to build some great stuff. Of course, it takes time and that’s why Extra isn’t ready yet.
You people are amazing.
Thanks for the news.
Happy to read your messages 😀
“It’s taking a long time, but we want to do it right. Creating a bunch of new themes is not a priority for us. Rather, we want to create a fewer amount of themes that are all extremely versatile “.
If its going to be the end of the world day, please let us know.
While none of us , who are members, depend upon your services entirely for WP themes, Its us the little 1 member drops that has created this ocean for you and the reason this ocean got created was your famous tagline which is removed now “Frequent theme additions and upgrades” . Remember this line nick ? I know the answer that maybe coming my way, that , ask for a refund and go elsewhere but let me tell you, read posts above me and you’ll notice rebellions who are sure that they would not renew in upcoming months.
Perhaps its time to do a SWOT to see if there has been a loss of revenues due to this delay and maybe change the strategy to ensure an early release of Extra for if its not done sometime soon, there may not be too many drops left in this ocean of members.
Spending time to build great products is not something that will loose us revenue. It’s creating uninspired, cookie cutter products every month that don’t add value that would hurt our membership and its subscribers.
We have seen customers rally behind Divi. The usage of Divi has all but eclipsed our entire collection of conventional themes, and this product is not something we could have created without adjusting our strategy.
We have a very unique offering here, which allows users to get all of our plugins and themes, and use them on unlimited websites, for the price of a single theme elsewhere. Even if you were to use one theme on one website in one whole year, you would still be getting the same deal that you would find on ThemeForest.
Putting that into perspective, I have come to realize that the amount of products that we create is not as important as the quality of products we create. This is a philosophy that is not likely to change, and represents a paradigm shift in the company that will keep us strong for years to come.
We wont be creating new themes every month, but each new product we create will add true value, but truly useful. Every product we create will, on it’s own, be worth the $69 for unlimited usage, updates and support 🙂
The products may be worth $69 but the plugins you have created or will be creating are not included in the $69 plan.
Agree to what you said but here are my 2 Cents, Few bugs here and there would’nt hurt (never hurt microsoft become a giant with even their crappy products), However, a delay like this would ! Please consider the fact that the reputation that you built over the years, should not be compromised or brought down for a single theme, no matter how versatile it is.
That being said, themes would come, maybe better themes than Divi and this upcoming Extra but the reputation that has been built over years delivering products and giving a good customer service should not be brought down. So in my opinion, release the 1st beta sometime soon so that people know whats coming their way. In my opinion, bringing extra to that “perfect” level would raise too much expectation standards for you too from the 1st release and if there are bugs then, it’ll be more troublesome. So why not have the 1st beta release with a few bugs here and there and then let the things come as they develop. Do think about it.
Thanks !
Nick. “You gief us update and we love you long time”. =)
Hi Nick,
for my travel blog http://www.empfehlbar.de I would like to use Extra.
It would be great to get it soon. Are there any news around?
All the best,
Oli
We are working hard on Extra, and I hope it wont take much longer. We won’t be announcing any release date, as that has already caused too much frustration.
Like everyone else I’m waiting for the Extra theme that has been announced more than 6 months ago. You could at least give us some update…
Yeah, my subscription is up in a few months as well. If Extra is not out, I will cancel for sure. Even if Extra is awesome, I’m not sure that the one theme / one plugin a year justifies the expense.
If it’s going to be one theme / plugin a year, the subscription model does not work. They should just sell these things at a reasonable price as a one-off and offer different licenses and free updates for what you buy.
Our subscription as an all-inclusive theme package is already cheaper than buying a single theme.
Not only that, you can use our themes on unlimited websites where on sites such as ThemeForest, you have to purchase a new license for every website you build.
Elegant Themes is leaps and bounds cheaper than our competitors offering comparable products.
Nick,
when i buy a life time membership, i don’t expect you to build a lot of themes. However, I expect to see at least 1 or 2 themes or plugins an year. As you are doing this already, I don’t have any further complaints as others do.
Furthermore, You people are incredible at job but remember that you have a lot of competition these days. Famethemes, Teslathemes, Theme-Junkie, Themeskingdom are just a few to name. Whenever you state we are better than our competitors or we have more themes or we have less license obligations, no body cares!
It doesn’t mean that your old themes work for the growth of your business. You should probably be aware that 70% of your older themes match-up with the similar free themes that are available from other developers.
When you talk about your less license obligations or about less fee, of course that is what made me become subscribe to your club. If you didn’t use this strategy, I bet you wouldn’t have got as many customers as you have now. Further, if you want to improve your growth, theme-productivity rate, then may be you should change your strategy with your new incoming customers. To state some of your strengths as your weakness such as in making rapid themes or in making free-lifetime themes weakens your growth in the market.
After all, may be your at the the top as you have some 30% of unique themes with respect to your competitors; but to remain there, you should be more dynamic in productivity and also with change in strategy.
You’ve got my points !!
Nick, please, write something! 😀
I will not renew my developer package in March if the theme is not released by then.
Why not just remove the posts that mention “Extra”? This is not good business.
I have been happy with ET’s themes and service so far but I will be converting to a Genesis framework if Elegant Themes cannot deliver.
Sorry to see you go. You can always cancel your subscription and sign up again later if we release something you find useful.
Extra was announced in July. February is next week. While I’ve tried a couple of different themes (Elegant Themes and others), I realized that for my site, a magazine theme is key. I will need to make a change soon and I’m hoping that Extra will come along in enough time to save me from Themeforest.
Our subscription ends in march. I hope Extra comes out before my subscription ends so I can decide if I will renew.
I Edwin.
There is no risk in simply canceling your membership and then renewing later on down the road if you find Extra to be something you want to use.
Extra Waiting
it’s a very long time we wait for a new theme now….
Hi!
I’m waiting for Extra since the day it announced, because i find out it very interesting theme compare to other WordPress themes available today. Looks like i have no option left but to wait for extra.
Nick, really you can’t say if you need 1 month or two o three months to finish extra? I think we only need to know this 🙂
If you would read Nicks posts here, then you would know that Nick wrote at 15th of August this: “Extra should be ready within 1-2 months. Hopefully closer to 1, but you never know.”
I am sure he doesn’t feel best about saying that time and after this experience he will probably not repeat the same mistake 🙂 But anyway if you would know how is it goes with large projects, then you would understand that you will never know what time it will be finished. You can have a guess, but it is mostly really far from reality.
If you want to know how is it with timing in other IT companies, then look at very funny and famous Valve Time – https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_Time 🙂
Lol I’m so excited for the extra that i become impatient 🙂
How about some more blog updates that shown us how to get the most out of our themes…… like you did here;
http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/?s=tricks&x=0&y=0
Yes, more theme tips and tricks!
Man! This comment feed is out of control & I can’t wait for Extra too, that’s why I’m checking this thread.
But hey… Honestly, I bet it’ll be as cool as we all hope. Whatever these guys are cooking up, it’s obviouly not a repackaging/redesign of an out of the box Divi… which is what I think everyone is really thinking when they say “new theme” and what everyone wants right now, a new “child-theme”, basically. Has anyone noticed that’s not what ET has been doing the past year? Just re-designing themes using the same old ePanel system. The product value has increased, not the product quanitiy. That’s worth more to me. Do you really want these guys to be wasting their time tweaking css or developign cool stuff for us to use?
I’m still having a hard time figuring out what I can’t make with Divi, or any of the other newish awesome themes, lets not forget nexus, that theme is still fresh. ET’s page templating extention (Page Builder) is dope. I’ve used others & I’m not talking about VC, paid. Plus it’s easy for clients to understand if you have to show it to them. It’s clean. I’m frustrated and eager too but… Everyone chill! It’ll be cool.
I’m confident they’ll release a premium product. Look at Monarch.
Please, we deserve un update 😀
I think a little update now and then to users that have been shown a sneak peek isn’t too much to ask – once the theme has been shown to us as a teaser it does get a little frustrating not knowing another thing about it for months and months – It’s a bit like a man winking at a girl in a dark room, you know your doing it but her and everyone else doesn’t – so my recommendations are please continue to release sneek peeks, they keep me hungry, but send out a small progress report occasionally to allow us to understand that it is in fact still ongoing – I do really enjoy your posts and find the very interesting and occasionally very useful, but they weren’t the reason that I personally signed up for – the quality of your themes when they do eventually pop out and the support you give are the two main reasons I stay with you x
I agree with Michael, it has been almost 6 months since the announcement of “Extra” being developed, and no real updates on progress. As a loyal member and fan of Elegant Themes I feel like we deserve some sort of status. Maybe another estimate of release or a beta for ET Members to play with. Anything at all would be great, even if it is 6 months more. Hell, ET could even UPOD (Under Promise Over Deliver) the release, tell us 6 months and deliver in 3 months. You guys do AMAZING work but this has been very frustrating. ET obviously has some very loyal members otherwise we would pack up and head over to one of the other 150+ WordPress Theme companies or 2000+ indy theme developers out there and choose one of the 10,000+ themes available.
Dag Nabbit! We want to stay on the ET ship, but we need a status report, Captain.
Hi Dean,
UPOD is something we may do, or simply refrain from doing any more speak peeks, as it obviously got us into trouble here. Estimating a release date at the start of the project is not easy.
As of now, Extra is coming along nicely and we hope that it wont take too much longer.
I have to say the themes you deliver are second to none, I think the sneak peak thing maybe best left in future allowing you more time and focus to do what you do best. looking forward to seeing the new theme very much and appreciate you making sure its the next best thing.
I’ve looked at competitors. I tried Themify and, more recently, Tesla Themes. I was discouraged by the complexity of everything. The Visual Composer thing plugin is utter shit…at least when you are used to ET standards of simplicity. I ended up using… Divi! And tweaking it a little to look more like the Tesla theme I liked.
I subscribed to ET for less than 20$ when I was still in high school. I remember using my boyfriend’s Paypal account because I didn’t have a credit card myself. It’s one of the best decisions I have made.
Félicitations,
I’m excited fot Extra but I will wait patiently. Quality takes time.
Yes one theme since 2013 is unacceptable. If Elegant Themes made blog post saying “hey guys this is out new strategy – one theme a year or focusing on DIVI” then that would be fine.
As it stands we were just given Divi and then nothing but a plugin. I might add WordPress has plenty of good plugins and I prefer the wordpress directory than anywhere else.
Lastly: before DIVI or when it was in development there were still themes being developed and released here. What’s the difference now?
It’s clear Elegant Themes has taken a new direction as we reach 400 comments on this post. A shame.
The blog posts these days are filled with cheap content. Nothing you can’t get else where. It’s not what I paid for.
I paid for themes. Not just one called DIVI. I want quick to set up themes like FOXY which worked.
I’d like updated old themes.
I’m not getting any of these here anymore.
I’m now looking for a new company that delivers themes on a regular basis.
Hi Dave,
I’ll admit that we can’t make everyone happy, and that themes like Divi might not be for everyone. But right now, this is or focus. We want to create two themes that are incredible flexible and add true value to our membership. Much like Divi, which took over a year to create, Extra is also a big theme that needs time to mature.
Once Divi and Extra are released, I think people fill find that they make it easy to create just about anything.
Remember when ET used to actually come out with new themes??
They’ve turned into a content marketing engine instead of a theme development company. Regretting my lifetime membership purchase, that’s for sure.
I understand divi is versatile and all, but one theme since 2013? Completely unacceptable.
I am glad that most people here don’t think same as you Max and Nick fortunately knows it.
Anyway I will never understand how somebody prefer to have new Chevy every month than new Rolls-Royce every couple of years. I also owns lifetime and these are my first money that I ever paid in WordPress and I don’t doubt about value of this deal at all!
On a serious note, I think subscribers deserve at least a little information. Perhaps a snippet regarding any future theme releases. These are paying customers, and unless there is any content coming from Elegant Themes, I doubt many subscriptions will be renewed.
I think that paying customers deserve some news on whether Elegant Themes will be releasing any more themes or not. It’s been over a year now since the last theme release, and it’s starting to look like a bit of a Ghost Town.
Divi was released December 11, 2013. That’s well over a year now since the last theme release. Technically, anyone who’s signed up for a years subscription since that date, has paid the yearly $69 fee for only the occasional theme update of existing themes, and a gazillion blog posts.
This is a website about wordpress themes, so I think that ET needs to spend a little bit more effort on content regarding ET themes, rather than just a content management blog, in which this seems to have turned into. Even 2 themes a year would be sufficient, I feel.
Hi Matthew,
We didn’t release any new themes per say, but we certainly worked hard on the themes we have. Divi was released in December 2013, but Divi 2.0 (which actually took even more work to create than Divi 1.0) was released mid 2014. We have continued to update Divi throughout the year, and we are working on more features for Divi as we speak. While we are doing this (and working on new plugins, such as Monarch and 4 additional unannounced plugins), we have been working on Extra. It’s taking a long time, but we want to do it right.
Creating a bunch of new themes is not a priority for us. Rather, we want to create a fewer amount of themes that are all extremely versatile. We are seeing our customers using Divi 90% of the time, and that only re-enforces our new product strategy. In one year, Divi as a single product has become more useful to our customers that the other 86 themes combined, which took us 7 years to create.
You also have to realize that while Divi – Divi 2.0 took over a year to create, while creating Divi our entire team was focused on it. That’s not the case with Extra, and it’s simply going to take longer because of it. We have been working on other great things while Extra has been under development (Divi 2.1, 2.2 and current 2.3, Monarch, and more stuff we haven’t talked about yet as we are trying to avoid the early sneak peek problem we have here).
I hope that makes sense, and illustrates our thinking a bit more clearly. We want to make incredibly themes, and we want to maintain those themes. It’s not something we can do quickly.
Nick, it totally makes sense and I think that your strategy is just right regardless some negative comments from people who obviously do not understand and see the power of DIVI. As a matter of fact you could have only DIVI on your portfolio and it would be great. Nothing out there beats DIVI potential. EXTRA will probably be great too but possibilities are endless with DIVI and it allows to develop an outstanding website in an extremely short period of time. I also wanted to mention your blog that ioffer unique resources and a high value content. Thanks for the great work.
Hi Nick,
Thanks very much for taking the time to write – it’s very much appreciated.
I think Melodie (in this reply) summed it up quite well. The regular theme releases isn’t specifically what we are after, nor were the “early” sneak peaks (that you regret) the problem. If ET has a change in business scope to concentrate on 1 robust theme over many simple themes, that’s fine. I also agree with everything you wrote above, and quality over quantity is always more respectable.
The problem has been the lack of news, and progress updates. People don’t know what to think or conclude when the radio goes silent on it. So please, PLEASE don’t kill the sneak peaks (as we love them), just reassure us every few months that the project is coming along nicely and things are progressing slowly… maybe with a nice little screen shot 🙂 We love hearing about it!
Thanks for the great work! I can’t wait for further updates and sneak peaks 🙂
Hi Nick,
Thanks for the update. You raised the bar with Divi. It was a game changer. Divi is exceptional and I am looking forward to Extra and the new plugins.
It seems like this is a transitional time. Trust your vision. Your thinking makes sense and it seems pretty clear that the path forward is a good one.
Hi Nick! Thanks for the update! My two cents is that the problem wasn’t the early sneak peak – we love hearing about the things you’re working on – it was posting a sneak peak and then not offering any further news or updates for several months until people started asking. When the blog is updated daily, but never talks about how the theme is coming along, it leaves us to wonder if it is because development has stalled and you’re focusing more on being a resource aggregate.
We all love ET so much, we simply like to hear what you’re up to and how things are progressing. 99% of us don’t mind waiting for another outstanding theme like Divi, we just want to be kept in the loop.
Sending many thanks and well wishes!
Hi Nick,
I am looking to update a website that currently uses your “TheStyle” theme, I’m in no rush! I was wondering if there were plans to have a similar grid blog option in Extra? I’m happy waiting, and would save me the hassle looking for a new theme from elsewhere if it were an option 🙂
I hear a lot of the Extra Theme and the waiting…
Ok, its took longer to finisch the new Megatheme.
But i found, the great Fault from ET is, that they even not Update the older Themes. A lot of the older “responsive” Themes dont work pretty.
Personel or SimplePress – the Headlines dont go right on Smartphones, only the “default”Menue is aktive on Smartphone etc etc etc….
Other Themes have great Problems with BudyPress and/or BBpress and so on…
It would be a good idea to solve these problems.
Extra, extra, extra….extraordinary! 😀
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeDlWFjIowM
Take all the time you need. I got my money’s worth with the first theme I used here – so take until 2017 if you need 🙂
PS – Your email field is not setup to accommodate the new non-.com domains.
We are all “waiting” for Extra but as far as I can see the only mistake, if that’s even the right word, that Elegant and Nick have made is offering a sneak preview and the development taking longer than expected. Oh well let all have a massive hissy fit and complain. Elegant are a small company producing stunning products for a years subscription that is less than a very cheap night out. How many massive corporations with substantially more resources than Elegant have made the same mistake, Apple, Motorola, IBM ….. seriously does anyone not have any patience anymore! No one’s perfect so give them a break. The internet has turned a huge swathe of people into moaning ingrates. Chill out it’s just a WordPress theme.
Actually it’s not “just a WordPress theme”. Many people paid money to join Elegant Themes because of their excellent themes and because they were receiving more than one a year. And just like Apple, Motorola and IBM, when products are introduced/promised, stakeholders expect answers, even if it’s, “this has become a bigger task than expected and at this time we do not have a delivery date”. Save the ingrate stuff for the free themes.
Hello Elegant Themes Community.
I dreamt las night Extra was released, i was so so so damn happy..
Too bad is was only a dream, but i trust you guys in ET, i just cant wait anymore!!
Happy new year, pleas emake my dram come true soon.
Best regards.
ps:
The dream was completely true
hahahahah 😀 Same Here.. but let them have their time..
Oh boy … can’t remember anymore how long i waited for this already, i want this theme so bad.
There is any news?
http://imgur.com/kpmkqo3
😉
Any news on Extra? I don’t mind the wait, but it has been seven months since Extra was announced with no real word on how it is coming along. Are we to assume that development has halted? It is now beginning to feel a bit suspicious that no updates have been offered…
It would be nice to know something, or perhaps get some more information about what features Extra will have that will set it apart from the many, many, many other magazine themes available on the market right now.
Keep up the stellar work, and please please please keep us in the loop! 🙂
I hope it will be something functional, very modern, very advanced…and soon. Otherwise it is a waste of time when there are sooooooo many other magazine word press themes out there and some of them very good too. Just curious to see how different the Extra will be.
I feel that the primary reason for the complaining is because the new theme was announced a pretty long time ago, and nearly six months later, nothing else has been updated about it. I know that this takes a long time, but, just like everyone else, look forward to updates.
Hope this drops soon. Have no doubt it will be what I’m looking for.
I think we need to understand what’s going on here. Nick and Elegant Themes are making more sophisticated products and they take longer to produce. Monarch and Divi are in a whole different category from their earlier themes.
I’m sure that ET could crank out lovely but ordinary themes quicker than major new products like Extra. We have to adjust our expectations accordingly. In my opinion, fewer better products is a good thing.
I’m using Divi and Monarch. I can wait for more good stuff.
It probably would be a good idea to update the non-responsive themes, but who knows? Maybe that’s in the works too?
Either way, Elegant Themes is a great company with great products and strong service. I’m pretty happy with the blog, too!
They used to “crank” out very good themes here about once every 3 months. now it’s once a year.
I’d like to see them “crank’ out the type of themes they were doing before instead of one Divi update and one plugin… a year.
BREAKING: Extra to be released whenever they feel like it.
Prediction: This year (2015) Elegant themes will release 2 updates to Divi (possibly one will include a useful audio post addition-just as useful as the video module update). And, one update to Extra. Maybe a plugin-though doubtful.
2015 will also be the year that no other theme here gets an update. Especially the current non-responsive themes that need updating.
Meanwhile they’ll continue to blog post reviews of plugins.
If anyone can suggest another theme maker similar to the way elegant themes was 2 years ago please reply with a link.
All these members complaining, I am sure Nick will not release any news about a new theme/plugin development until an absolute launch date. Also, Elegant themes are some of the most easy to modify and use themes. The blog itself is also absolutely very helpful…. Elegant Themes encouraging blog has pushed me take the risk of jump start my own web business. Maybe you should try not to complain so much and take note of the quality of the products. I haven’t had a site broken or hacked yet… Kudos to the Elegant Themes Design Team for not rushing. A lot of gamers are upset HALO-5 didn’t make its release date, that includes me and my sons… Just saying!!! #sidenote #lifetime-member
The problem is managing people’s expectations, the preview of Extra was shown over 5 months ago and it is human nature to expect a release in that time. Very little info from ET has not helped one little bit and despite all those who point to the dozens of old themes that are available to download it is new, cutting edge themes that will be the lifeblood. Divi is excellent, but Extra is now a ‘long-overdue’ new theme release that was suggested would be shortly behind Divi 2… it hasn’t been.
Many thanks for the good work you’ve done so far and best wishes for 2015 to your whole developer team. In my opinion, Divi has already been worth to stay with elegantthemes and I’m convinced, that Extra is worth waiting for….
Is there any reason why Extra had to be a completely new theme and not just additional modules for Divi? Just wondering.
I had assumed that Elegant Themes would transfer over to being a 1 theme company that developed more of a framework to do everything than multiple themes. That looks to me like the future of WordPress, but I’m only making an assumption.
Nick, keep up the great work. Take your time and do it right.
Since you’re clearly working hard on Extra, I assume you’re not going to release a page builder for custom posts or posts inside of divi?
If not, I’d like to make a humble suggestion: find some way to incorporate these two themes together.
I love page builder as the heart of displaying site content. Since a blog or custom post type is the blood of a site’s content, creating an entirely new theme that focuses on that content makes me, as a divi user, feel a bit left behind.
Regardless, keep up the great work!
I normally don’t comment on many posts, if any…
However there is something about this one I find so annoying that I feel the need to speak up… it’s many of the people commenting on this post. I don’t know why they feel so entitled to receive this theme on their timetable. When you sign up for elegant themes you get everything you pay for right away. You pay a moderately low price for a ton of themes. There is no promise of future development other than if they do release something or update an old theme yours will be included. The complaining is not justified.
To those who said they had a project waiting on this theme, I can identify. It looked like a good fit for a project I have had on the back burner… however it was one of my personal projects. I would never try to base a professional project on a theme that is not released yet. If you found yourself in that position I feel empathy, I too thought about starting at the proposed release month, but in the end elegant themes owes me nothing.
I think there are many like me, who silently support elegant themes. The complaining parties are always the loudest. We believe in what you are doing.
Some of the most successful software developers take a similar approach to the one Nick is taking here. It is done when it is done is a powerful strategy for quality control. Think of successful companies like Blizzard Games… they release previews for their games well in advance but nothing stops them from sticking to their own schedule and working on a project until it is truly finished. The other “developers” talking about how this is “out of control” may have their own experiences, but that does not make them definitive experts on development. I’m a firm believer that development takes time and it is done when it is done.
I doubt they will offer us sneak peaks in the future… which is really too bad. I find them interesting and useful for very very very tentative planning.
I guess what I’m trying to say is:
ET: keep up the good work.
Haters: quit complaining.
@Mike–We’ll stop “complaining” i.e demanding that we get what we PAY for when YOU pay our membership fees for us! If we were getting the themes for FREE you’d make at least a little sense, but you sound like an ET employee. It shouldn’t take a seasoned developer more than half a year to build a quality theme! I have a membership with another developer of premium WordPress themes and they’ve released TWO new premium themes in the past two months already, and new plugins! And as for those other themes that are part of the ET “membership”: THEY NEED TO BE UPDATED just so you know, and it’s not our job to update them! People like you are many points below the negative when it comes to common-sense IQ levels I can tell ya that much.
I have not doubt about Mikes common sense, but I am sure that there is something wrong with you Oiya Poppala… People like you cause that there is so much rubbish on the market, because you want just more, cheaper and faster, but I don’t care about quality, so I what are you doing here? Go complaining to companies what makes new rubbish theme every other day, if that makes you satisfied…
Anyway I am sure that you are kind of that lazy guy that just sitting all day and looking for opportunities to troll others, otherwise you would have some sense about what it takes to get to end some really good IT project.
I will glad to wait for Extra a year or two, or as long as it will be needed. There are thousands new themes every little while and I don’t care about any of them, because none of them is so fabulous as Divi and I don’t need more than one lovely theme same as I don’t need more than one great car, PC, phone, etc…
Nick: Keep up what you started with Dvi and followed by Monarch. And don’t release Extra until you will be 100% satisfied. Only thing that would make me and many others more happy for sure would be if you could bring more sneak previews or at least a little info about that great work you doing. Like little pieces about Extra at least once a month or two. For example when you finish some exciting part or module on Extra, just let us know about it a little something. Share more secrets with us and we will love your work even more 🙂
(I know you think that you shouldn’t even bring this sneak preview out, but you wrong – problem is that you haven’t come with any other blog posts about Extra for such a long time)
PS: Sorry for my English, it’s not my first language.
I think the people on here complaining have a real nerve. The fact that the delay of the theme is “holding up their projects” shows that they are not very skilled or capable to taking matters into their own hands.
If you do not like wait……….build your own themes.
Divi knocks the competition out of the park by a country mile and it more than worth the wait and is also worthy of only one theme a year. The membership fee is the cost of one decent theme, so I do not think having a membership is a waste of money.
All the complainers on here need a real wake up call.
@Terry O’Connor
Well said! The people commenting are feel so entitled, it’s ridiculous.
Nick your themes have tripled my business in 2 short seasons!!!!! I really do not think there is anything more I need to say!! but
T ` H ` A ` N ` K ~~~ Y ` O ` U !!!!!
@Terry O’ Connor… you said it best. I wish I wrote that myself.
Taking matters into your own hands is like a basic requirement of life sometimes. Like knowing where your shoes are and how to tie them all by yourself. Basic life skills people.
Development is hard. Anyone who’s done real work on a real website (not used a prefab template as-is, and called themselves a developer) knows that. The first 90% of the work takes the first 90% of the time. The other 10% takes the other 90% of the time.
And sometimes the edge cases, the user experience issues that turn up in real world use and the advances the technology and competitors have made along the way take still another 90% of the time…
The details ET is still sweating to get right will make the difference between a theme you want to use and they can support long-term, and one that only looks good as a preview and you won’t use. Leave ’em alone to do good work.
If you’re looking for something to read while you wait, I highly recommend the second answer on this page, by Michael Wolfe (startup founder, no relation to me): http://www.quora.com/Engineering-Management/Why-are-software-development-task-estimations-regularly-off-by-a-factor-of-2-3
Why is this theme for so much people sooooooo important?! Be patient or search somewhere else on the internet. Making themes is just lot’s of work…. ET, keep up the good work ;-)))
Understandable and the reply goes a long way to help any frustrations. I think most who post here only wanted a detailed reply more than anything. Thanks.
Hi Nick,
first of all quality is more important than speed. Take your time to release a good product. I was also searching for a magazine theme and decided to use one from a different vendor instead of waiting for Extra. After Extra is finished i will probably move to it.
On your last post, you said “When I say that I don’t know when Extra will be ready, that is the most honest update I can give you”.
I am managing a team of software developers and such an answer tells me the following: The project is out of control, too much features for one release, quality issues, too less resources, no appropriete project management, ….
You should always know where you stand, i.e. 100 features in total, 40 done, 60 to go. On average, we can implement 10 per month. Expected release date is…. If you want to meet a specific release date, you can skip some of the nice to have features at the end and deliver them in version 2.0. In my team, SCRUM project management method really helped.
You also wrote “I don’t know what information I could give you, or what information you are looking for exactly.”
In my opinion, your paying customers (i am also one) want to hear the following answer:
a) Full transparency strategy
In total 100 features, 60 is done. Expected release date is i.e.feb 2015. Show some screenshots of the finished features to keep the Extra-Hype running.
b) No transparency strategy
We exactly know where we are and with current progress we can meet the expected internal schedule, but it is ET’s philosophy not to announce release dates of unfinished products. We announce it, when it is finished.
I can really feel with you and you make awesome products, but with your answers, customers start to loose trust in your company.
Uwe
Nothing is out of control. We are a small team, and Extra is a very big project. Divi took 6 months for v1, and a whole year to get to its current state. Extra has now been in development for 6 months as well. The difference is that during this time we have also completed an entirely new product, Monarch, and released several new version of Divi.
Our goal is not to release Extra quickly, and the release date is not a huge part of the development process. We have a set of features that need to be finished, and as soon as the are finished and the theme is complete, it will be released.
In the meantime we are working on other products as well, testing all themes for WordPress 4.1, working on more Divi updates. We have a lot on our plate, and we are doing our best to make sure we get everything done to the best of our ability.
I regret releasing the Extra Theme Sneak Peek at all, but at this point as I can say is what I have already said many times. I am sorry that Extra is taking a long time. It’s a big project and we are doing our best to build it right.
Dear Nick,
All these members, complaining about the fact that Extra takes so long, have perhaps expectation you can’t prove.
I also was responsible for a team of IT professionals, developers and maintenance engineers. What I know is that good and regular information keeps your customers quiet.
If you work hard, and that’s what you telling, but you don’t give the right information, the majority of your customers will think that you don’t do enough. Or in this case think that you are out of control.
Giving information during a project, and that is what Extra is, is essential for your result.
Keeping your customers happy.
And happy customers will keep you happy. 🙂
Nick, ET is making wonderful themes. Your customers have all the faith in you.
But learn of all the complains who are made.
Don’t defend yourself.
Running a team is not the same as running a business. He has every right to defend the way he runs his business. He is a free agent and really doesn’t owe them anything. They got what they paid for when they signed up.
His customers didn’t pay him to develop this particular theme. He has more to consider than a few existing customers complaining about something like this. The same customers that are complaining may end up sticking around just because the project ends up awesome. The project will probably end up awesome because he’s not letting the complaints change his strategy.
Nick, feel free to defend your strategy. 😀
It seems to me that all the complaints are a backhanded way of paying Nick and his team huge compliments!
So congratulations Nick!
Obviously, all those (including me) who have checked back many a time, anxious to find a completed new theme have expectations of a really great product that we really want to start using.
Or there would be no rumblings and gripes. This blog page would have no comments.
We can rationalize all day why it’s not done, but in the end, we each have to make our own decision and get on with our days, factoring in unknowns such as launch dates and the actions of others in our own decision trees.
Venting is fine, but how about kicking something other than the ones we are expecting great things from?
We humans are rather strange creatures!
Paris and beyond proves we have real challenges ahead of us.
I would love to add that, even though I’m waiting with great anticipation for this template, I’ll wait as long is needed.
I’ve been a very happy Elegant Themes for many many years. Sure, you could argue that it has been a long time since Extra was announced, but try to ask yourself the following question:
What would you like best:
– A theme that has been rushed out to meet the huge demand for this specific theme?
– A theme that has taken more time, but upholds the quality of all the Elegant Themes plugins and themes we’ve all grown accustomed to?
Personally I’d pick the latter in a heartbeat. If Nick and his team just need some more time to get things just right, who are we to argue?
Remember Divi ? It sure took quite some time, but who can honestly say they are unsatisfied with Divi? For me personally, it has been a game-changer.
And I have every reason to believe Extra will be no different.
Brecht Ryckaert
a very happy (and loyal) Elegant Themes customer.
Nick,
Providing sneak peaks would be better if they are released only a few days or a month before release. Sneak peaks are the only hope that you are alive working on something really hard.
I’m having a bit of a hard time believing that ET has no idea when Extra will be complete. After years of theme development they should at least know how much more is left to be done. (I’m thinking at this point that Extra is actually complete but it’s more of a legal/financial/business reason for the delay.) But if they really don’t know then I’ve lost hope of of it being released before 2015.
That said, since Divi was released I’ve developed about a dozen websites this year on Divi and have not used anything else. When Extra is finally made available I’m pretty sure these two themes is all I’ll ever need for all my websites and that’s a really exciting prospect.
I’m a loyal ET follower and will remain that way. Keep up the good work guys and I will continue to wait patiently.
We are not holding anything back on purpose. Extra is a big project and it’s not finished. As soon as it’s finished, it will be released. It won’t be finished in 2014, but I hope it’s ready ASAP in 2015.
Hello,
After reading a lot of negative comments on this post regarding the release date and misunderstood concepts of creating a decent theme (or any good work for that matter), I thought I’d share my thoughts as well on the subject:
*I’d rather have a finished product than a broken one.. And always prefer quality over quantity.*
To ET Team;
I think you’ve been doing great, already have Divi updates and Moarch plugin released, I believe Extra will be another milestone.
To everyone who put their hope/project/client on hold waiting for the release of a theme by someone else, I don’t think you’re serious about your business to approach it this way.
p.s/ I always try to post suggestions in the forums for Divi (collecting what others have suggested and what I found missing while working on different projects) hopefully you’ll consider them at some point.
thanks & good luck
Ninos
It is really good business to announce a product over 7 months ahead and fail to provide any real information except “will release when ready and if not satisfied ask for a refund. Will your opinion be the same when a year goes by with the same information. Even Microsoft is not this arrogant. Best not even to release the news. What it really boils down is if you do not desire DIVA no new theme has been released in a very very long time.
I think it’s a valid point, and possibly Theme Sneak Peeks just aren’t a good idea at all. The point of the sneak peek is to keep people informed, but it only makes people angry.
Moving forward we will likely withhold Theme Sneak Peeks until the product is ready, or forgo Sneak Peeks altogether.
I can see the merits of both arguments. On one hand I think people are accustomed to a more rapid theme release from ET. On the other hand if Extra is anything close to the same level as Divi, it will be worth the wait. And if you release early, people will complain about a broken theme.
Maybe you should do like Netflix and just release a bunch of crappy themes and one great one every 6 months 🙂
What about hiring a small group of interns to work on smaller, niche themes? It seems that the scope and quality of your new themes is what’s holding back on release dates. Maybe have a small group update some of your older themes to be responsive and more in line with current web design. Just a suggestion.
monarch plugin*
I never comment on anything, but I have to say ET has a bunch of customers that are straight up ungrateful babies. I am shocked how many people rely on ET to bring them business and to keep there “blogs” afloat with a new design? Like it is the silver bullet to all the prayers they have. There are so many people that shouldn’t be in business if they rely on another business to make them successful. This is crazy first-world problems if I ever could think of any.
ET team and Nick please stay true to your direction of making less product that works great! It is probably best if some of the ungrateful babies cancel anyway because it is less maintain and less customer service to deal with. After all it is these sad whinny people that are going to be the most disappointed when you finally do ship Extra. Holy smokes this is just sad.
Really is that your business model.
Elegant Themes screwed the pooch on the way this entire thing has been handled. Lack of transparency, lack of communication… This is a textbook example of how not to do it.
There are a lot of professionals here that know damn well this kind of project management would never fly with our own clients: “No, I don’t know when it will be ready. I’m working as hard as I can. It’ll be ready when I finish it. If you don’t like it you can leave!”
Our frustration has been a result of the good will many of us felt for the company. But, with responses like Nick’s, there’s not much good will left. You want us to leave, we will.
I agree. I used to be a fan. But treating customers who pay like this is unprofessional.
I’ve yet to meet a developer who says “it will be ready when it’s ready”
If I said that to a client I wouldn’t have a client.
I think ET has lost its developers. These new blog posts are Elance type posts.
Transparency is lacking and ET is losing the great reputation it once had.
I saw Review the other day but had to pass it up as I no longer trust ET. We’ll be going with another companies themes.
ET has lost its way. In this day and age I just don’t get how a company can make mistakes like this. An honest update is all people are really asking for. It’s not hard. It’s something we pay you for.
When I say that I don’t know when Extra will be ready, that is the most honest update I can give you. We are working as hard as we can to finish the theme, and it will be released as soon as it’s ready. If I knew when it would be ready, I would tell you. I am not trying to hold back information.
Extra is not the only thing on our plate. We have released new version of Divi, Monarch, and various other theme updates. It’s a difficult balance, but I promise that we are putting a lot of effect into finishing Extra as soon as possible.
I don’t know what information I could give you, or what information you are looking for exactly.
Nick,
It’s like you really don’t get what we are saying.
Seriously. Ball park dates here?
Extra (completed): 3 months, 6 months, 1 year?
Aside from Divi and Monarch I don’t recall any other updates this year?
ET is truly an amazing WordPress themes club. We can’t expect anything more than your efforts that you keep. Thanks.
I have to say ET have gone downhill in last 2 years.
Divi is bug ridden and unusable. Last decent theme was Nova.
No idea what all the supposed new devs are doing other than writing blog articles that I could pick up elsewhere – I didn’t join for them. Makes you wonder if they are just relying on customers renewing. Sad I used to recommend them, but now I would not.
I am not – having seen my renewal just come up. There’s no communication and nothing new that I can use at the moment.
Over the past two years ET has grown as lot. As for Divi, it has become our most used product by a mile.
If you are experiencing any problems with Divi, please open a support ticket so that our team is aware of the problems and can work on fixing them. Each time we release a new version of Divi, we knock out as many bugs as we can.
Well, we’re all eager for Extra and disappointed that it hasn’t arrived, but to call Divi “unusable” is unfounded and uncalled for. I’m running Divi on at least four websites, all with completely different, advanced configurations, and it performs like a champ. I don’t even need to expand on that, because its virtues are literally world-famous.
Lots of complaining on this board. Guys, be cool. It’s a new theme. They’re excited about it, we’re excited about it, and it will be out when it is ready. There have been new plugins, new themes, continued fantastic support, etc. We were given a sneak preview a few months ago and people are acting like they deserve to have it as a stocking stuffer at Christmas. Just chill out.
We’re excited about the possibilities of the new theme, thanks ET!
Can’t wait to see this theme! I know it will be great! Take your time Nick, I know you guys will do an amazing job. I’d be willing to do some beta testing on my sites if you had a beta release….just a thought.. Anyway really looking forward to it!
So is this what we need to expect now from ET? One new theme a year? We’re paying a premium for _themes_ not one theme! It’s ridiculous. Please launch this already!
We are working as hard as we can, and that’s all we can do. I would recommend canceling your subscription if you don’t find it useful. Right now our focus is on creating fewer products, but having those products add true value to the membership.
Nick!!
Enough is enough friend. Constantly suggesting that the release will be soon but then not releasing anything is not working in your favour.
I don’t think you are realising people’s frustration.
Your focus is great, I like quality over quantity. But still the focus needs to have deadline otherwise the focus is meaningless.
So you suggest that we set and deadline, and if the theme is not ready by that deadline we just released it anyway in a form that is completely unfinished and broken? All we can do is work as hard as we can, and release the theme when it’s finished. There is nothing else we can do, and there is no magic wand that I can wave to make the theme complete. We need to spend the time to finish it, and that’s exactly what we are doing.
Furthermore, Extra is not the only thing on our plate. We also finished Monarch, and several version of Divi. Getting Extra finished is a top priority, but it’s not our only priority.
Did you read my comment? It would solve many problems
“Nick, can you just give us a season or month you are shooting for?”
Not asking for a timeline
We were shooting for 3 months ago, so obviously our estimates are a bit pointless. It’s almost impossible to know how long a project like this is going to take, but we are getting closer every day.
Well thats good information to know. I think the sneak peaks are awesome, just give some sort of update every 2-3 months to feed the theme addicts. lol
*deadline ^
I trust ET!
go on, guys!
Hi Nick. If you read through the comments, most people are upset with simply being left in the dark about the development process.
How about simply doing an Extra update on the blog each month, letting people know how it’s coming along, problems you’ve run into and are fixing, and telling us a little bit more about its features and capabilities?
I understand development taking a long time, I build themes from scratch for clients, and it is very difficult and time consuming. The difference, however, is that I keep clients updated on the progress (every week, in my case). That way, when I don’t meet previously stated deadlines, they aren’t surprised or upset, because they are aware of the progress being made all the time.
As a customer, it is hard to hand over money to a company that refuses to communicate or be transparent with you, and then when they do, they say things like “cancel your subscription if you don’t like it.”
Good products take a lot of time, effort, and energy – we get that. But keeping people updated and informed doesn’t. I think that is where most of the frustration is coming from.
(‘Well said’ referring to Marcus’ comment)
Nick(ET),
I agree with all the comments here. As we are in love with your themes, please don’t say to cancel our subscriptions. When a lead like you make such statements, it’s actually a very bad sign for ET itself.
However, take your time, if not now may be after two years and we shall wait; 🙂 but be sure of defining “the best theme on the planet”. If the theme doesn’t meet the requirement, quality shall no more be a surprise to attract new customers into the club.
with a hope to see your second theme for the year 2014.
keep up the good work.
Thanks and Cheers
Well said.
Excellent suggestion Marcus
Hello Nick.
I know it must be quite frustrating not being able to release the long awaited Extra theme while having people complaining about it and asking for a release date. My sincere apologies.
Is there any way we could help?
There are many among us who are willing to help beta testing Extra, providing the much needed feedback.
God bless and keep up the good work!
AGREE 100% with Sergio, I would love to do BETA testing during the upcomming holidays.
Same bere!
Maybe you could just release a beta version so we can start studying the theme and help you with debug…
We have received so much value from ET and we are still receiving great support. We can count on updates for the themes and plugins ever launched, all this for pocket change.
Guys let us put our focus on the great value we get from ET. Divi alone is like a 1000 themes. I understand the Extra theme is taking time to launch, in the meantime what can we do on our part to add value to the ET community? Let us share our ideas on to use the great tools we get from ET
Either business strategies, theme customization etc.
Thanks
The Divi1.0 theme has been released on 11th Dec 2013. So hopefully Extra will come on the same date this year…..
No! don’t bother about dates. let it come the next second of its completion..
Please let it come before Christmas! 😎
Please let it come before Christmas! 😎
For the people who’ve been postponing projects or delaying clients because of the perceived “delay” in the release of new themes by ET, I would respectfully suggest that no serious website developer relies on just one theme company. My wife and I are freelance developers for small businesses and use several theme companies because there is no one theme to solve every need. There just isn’t. Plus, the pricing structure of ET gives quite a lot of quality. Even if there is only one new theme per year, I’m not going to cancel the ET subscription. It’s a great value.
To be effective in the website business you need a wide array of theme options. There are many great theme companies. Get to know them, kick the tires on their products, and add the ones you like to your stable. A shallow theme bench is not where you want to be.
Regarding the perceived delay in the release of themes, the error ET made in my opinion is in announcing the release at all. It’s human nature to share with others when you’re working on something great. But, in the software business it’s not the best play. It’s better to keep a LOT of wiggle room in any announcement of a product. NEVER give dates or even projected time frames until after the product is already done. And, always over deliver.
I see a lot of frustration here, which is somewhat understandable. However, I think it’s important to remember that you’re paying for a higher quality of theme, an entire portfolio of themes, and support and continued updates for those themes.
Overall, I continue to be happy with ET, though I do find the lack of communication a bit discouraging at times. Nick, I think if you were just more transparent about what is going on with new theme development, we would all appreciate it. People shouldn’t be upset with a new product taking time, but sometimes we’re left to wonder whether or not progress is being made at all. And people also shouldn’t plan projects around theme releases, but it should make ET feel good that people enjoy your themes so much that they do so anyway.
ET is still by far the best value around. Theme support is top notch, and even though theme production has slowed considerably, the quality has also improved significantly. I hope Extra meets the high standards set by Divi, even if that means a couple more months of development. I look forward to (hopefully) many more themes to come.
+
Hi Nick, longtime customer here. Is there **any** news / update on Extra? Could we at least have a more detailed sneak peak blog post about it?
I know it’s tough, and we all deal with the same problems with our own clients, of not knowing quite when things will be ready. However, it is bad form to simply ignore customers and leave them in the dark.
Every time we have to seek out or purchase themes elsewhere, ET becomes less and less valuable to us. Every time we ask for updates and are ignored, ET becomes less and less valuable to us. Eventually, there is no incentive to subscribe.
You tell us not to plan projects around the themes you’re working on – but then why are we subscribing? Isn’t that the point of a subscription service, to have access to regularly updated content or material?
+1
+1 for the comment. I’m not talking about the service/support though.. but about how you are making things work. ET has two themes this year. Not even child themes with additional designs are released. For the same reason, I joined other life-time theme clubs for a much better price this time. 🙁 ET rocks but rocks are falling now 🙁 Hope ET looks into managerial issues and rectify them soon.
I think ET / Nick has really let this slip. ET 2 years ago was great. Since DIVI it’s just slowed to a halt.
DIVI is flawed. I won’t repeat what other people have said about it in the comments. But compared to other frameworks it’s lacking. I say that as a supporter of ET.
ET needs to keep producing regular themes. Most of what’s in the catalog here is dated now. So many old ones could be upgraded. But are not.
The lack of clear communication in regards to Extra or other new themes has clearly made ET Clientele annoying/sad/angry whatever.
Nick, in all fairness get the finger out.
Reply to every comment. Yea, there’s 300 but show some respect to the people who paid their hard earned cash into ET.
Tell us what’s really going on?
Have all the developers quit?
Is ET closing down?
Is Extra a mess that’s can’t be fixed?
No matter how many times you say it’ll be ready when it’s ready … it’s bad for business. You don’t tell clients that.
Anyone reading through the comments can see October, then in a couple of months, then the snarky comments from you.
Get over it. Just be honest and tell us what’s going on?
+1
I don’t mind that ET switched to developing bigger, more advanced themes instead of cranking one out every other month. I’m just upset about not knowing what is going on.
It’s like going to the movie theater, and the theater expecting you to buy a ticket without telling you when your movie starts. So you buy your ticket, you wait an hour, another hour, three hours. You ask the manager when the movie will be starting, and he says “it’ll start when it starts.” Do you continue to wait, not knowing if it will start in another hour or another eight hours?
Just wondering for those that have not been able to wait for Extra what themes (whether Elegant Themes or otherwise) they are using instead?
And does anyone have advice on how to approach use of an interim theme and hopefully make migration to Extra less painful if that happens?
I am thinking about using this for a project that can’t wait any longer.
http://demo.tagdiv.com/newsmag/
That looks great Andy. It may well be better than Extra turns out to be.
If Extra is anything like Divi there will be bugs at first, so my advice would be to go for it sir.
Hello Nick. Will Extra be released in 2014?
Nick, can you just give us a season or month you are shooting for?
+1
I so absolutely love ET themes, and have continued to hold back on projects so I can work with this theme.
I completely appreciate what Nick says about “it’ll be released as soon as it is ready” and that we shouldn’t plan projects around a theme with no release date. But from a business principle, can I recommend that ET follows some of its own advice? Don’t announce the “coming soon” arrival of a theme until it’s ready? That way you can build up anticipation but knowing that all you have left to do are tweaks – you can then answer questions and prepare your eager audience for what is to come. But to blindly announce a new project and then get irksome with the (after 4+ months) impatience is a little short-sighted. I speak as a loyal subscriber, but if I treated my subscribers this way, I can guarantee that I would lose a large proportion. My recommendation, don’t announce until you are ready – or on the very least give additional details as they come on board. I did not subscribe to ET for tips on wordpress usage – I can get that for free. I subscribed because I believe in your product. Sadly, I am unsure if I am getting that value. Before you say how we are getting the multiple themes under that value banner – that is all well and good (though a number are outdated) – but the function of a subscription site is to provide regular updates and keep subscribers interest going (your own wordpress advice leads to this). Don’t provide a teaser for something you cannot then fulfil in a timeframe, but rather manage your productivity and advertisement better.
All that said, I am really looking forward to finding out more details about this theme. But I hope you take on board your customer experience. Perhaps a change in your model to reflect your changes in product creation are I order?
A massive +1, Telstar! I passed on upgrading my account with the Cyber Monday discount, waiting to see how this plays out. I really want to upgrade, trust me, but theme announcements are waaaaay to early in my opinion based on the actual theme release.
+1
Yep. It’s getting ridiculous.
Didn’t Nick mention that it will be out in November? I think it was a comment somewhere…. but yep it’s been 4 months of waiting…. I am sure it is a great theme…
Unfortunately it’s been almost SIX full months. They made the announcement June 11, 2014. I don’t think we’ll be seeing “Extra” til 2015; a lot of people take time off from work around this time of the year.
+1 .. This is sad tho
Can you release a beta version, so we can start to work and set-up websites and then upgrade to full version when it’s ready?
Waiting for this theme. My blog needs all the extra’s. Hope the ETA will be in 2014
Perhaps we will see “The 12 Days of Extra” in December 😉
In all seriousness though, great themes take time, there’s just no way around that. I just wish we could get a status update every now and again.
You’re more likely to see “The 30 Days of Extra Waiting” in December.
It would be better if we never knew Extra was in the works. Having to wait four months without any word on a release date is torture. :'(
However, it does look good thus far. 🙂
Divi was so fantastic that we are impatience for know your new work! We have our hopes on Extra for a new job.
Are there any reason to believe it would make problems changing my template from Divi to Extra when it arrives?
I am just working on a live testsite with Divi. The content would suit best i a magazinelike template.
I do not expect pagedesign and special effects to be transferred, but I am just afraid Divis special way of doing things could leave me with any trouble.
An answer could influence how deep I will work on the existing testsite:
http://lysrom.no/
No, I did not ask when Extra will be finished 😉
Pages built with the page builder would not transfer over, but all of your posts would work great in Extra.
What about projects and project categories?
Has Extra fallen into a black hole?
We are still working as hard as ever on Extra, and it will be released the second it’s ready.
So dying for this to release! Monarch has been brilliant. We have some big plans for Extra and already 2 projects waiting on it!
I think the biggest problem with this post is that it was written nearly the last day of July.
So people can also count that month as when this wait started.
Which is coming up to 5 months.
Any time soon would be ace if it’s anything as good as divi.
Any news or estimation date?
We are working as hard as we can, as we always do, and the theme will be ready as soon as it’s finished. There’s a lot to do, and these things take time. I am always hesitant to give any sort of ETA since it’s never accurate.
Any word, Nick?
Anything?
Never let me leave Elegant themes again
I had to use another theme since extra wasn’t out yet. despite its great reviews on themeforest its slow. just plain slow. i never have these problems with any elegant themes despite using many of them and older ones
eagerly awaiting extra
YES, there is GREAT news about the release date of the new EXTRA theme!
Check for the BIG day here: http://elegantthemes.com/preview/Divi/countdown-timer/
(wink)
You’re kidding rigth? 😐
286 Days
06 Hours
05 Minutes
41 Seconds
It will be ready before that 🙂
Thanks for replying Nick. I keep checking my email everyday for the one announcing the arrival of the new “Extra” theme! I know, it will be worth the wait.
Hoping it will arrive this month.
There are news about Extra?
Let the countdown begins for Extra….
+1
+1
Sadly, I was now lost 4 project this year, waiting on Extra.
Really? I think you need to look at your business practices…… why would you base projects on something that’s not yet available.
Hi there,
Very excited to start building with the new theme! Is there already an update when the theme will be released? For a new project this theme looks perfect. But if it will take longer than a week, when Extra will be released, I sadly have to use another theme. Is there an indication?
Thanks in advance!
Keep up the good work,
Cheers
I would not consider Extra for a project until it’s released. We are working as hard as we can to finish the theme as soon as possible.
Ok, time’s up. Where is EXTRA?
Still in the works. There’s a lot to do, and we are working hard doing it. All I can say is that the theme will be finished as soon as it’s ready, and we are trying to make it sooner than later.
Hello Nick Roach
What are the new happy news?
^_^
will Extra have the ability to do podcast?
Thanks
It will be possible to create Audio posts using Extra’s Audio Post Format.
Hey Nick, any word on Extra’s release?
I’ve been a paying member of ET for several years, and have even referred friends and colleagues to your website, but am seriously considering not renewing next month.
The lack of communication is very discouraging. I don’t mind waiting 6 months – even a year – for a great new theme or product, but it is difficult to plan projects around a theme release when I can’t get anyone to communicate with me about how the project is coming along, especially as previous projection dates come and go without a word.
You do great work, and that’s what keeps me coming back. However, at a certain point, the inconvenience caused by the lack of customer service outweighs the benefits of the product, and when that happens, it doesn’t make sense for me to renew my subscription.
I am sorry that Extra is taking so long. It’s equally difficult to estimate the completion of a project, which is why we are always hesitant to give any ETA’s. We are working as hard as we can to finish it, and it will be released as soon as it is ready. I wouldn’t suggest planning a project around a product that doesn’t have a release date.
Nick, I just want to let you know how much I appreciate the hard work from your team and you. I personally would rather wait for a product that is built properly and not churned out before it’s ready because of demand. I’m embarrassed to say that I went to a WP site and bought a pretty snazzy theme for $65. and when I went back a few months later for updates… it was gone. No updates or help available.
$65. down the drain. Ugh! I appreciate the value and beautiful work you produce.
You guys are a class act! Thank you!
Hey Nick, no need to apologize for product development time. We would just appreciate an occasional update.
Would it be possible to do another sneak peak, giving more details as to how Extra will look and function?
I certainly don’t plan my projects around your releases, but when I can use an ET theme instead of building my own framework from scratch or taking a chance on a pre-made theme from Themeforest, I do so because I really do enjoy your work.
But lately I’ve had to move forward on projects that could have waited another month or so, simply because I have no idea when Extra is coming or what exactly it is going to do.
Can’t wait for this. Not sure why everyone is complaining though, good things take time 🙂
Good things do, indeed, take time. But when release dates come and go without any sort of communication or transparency as to how much longer we are to wait, it is frustrating. I don’t mind a great theme taking six months to develop, but when there are no significant updates or insights into the process, we are left waiting indefinitely.
My problem is that I have clients, for whom I hope to develop projects based around Extra, and they’re asking me when they can see initial mockups. If Nick and the team provided updates, I could pass them along to my clients. Sadly, however, I have had to move on with other themes for three projects recently simply because I don’t know what’s going on at ET. I could have waited four or five more weeks, but as far as I know, Extra isn’t coming out until 2015.
I don’t mind waiting, but I don’t like waiting in the dark.
All I can say is that we are working as hard as we can on Extra, and it will be ready as soon as it’s finished. It’s very difficult to give an ETA, and I am always reluctant to do so. As you can see, when I guess it’s almost never accurate.
True it’s been forever, I am so ready to switch to some other themes. ET is getting much less serious and this reminds me of that endless announcements of Duke Nukem forever that went on for years…
Good things take time. Much like Divi, which took over a year to get to it’s current form, Extra, is a very big theme with a lot of moving parts. We are working hard to get everything finished, and the theme will be released as soon as it’s ready.
Hi,
I’m really looking forward to the release of Extra, but have one question if you don’t mind – will the user review option be available for custom post types as well as posts?
I’m thinking of combining the theme with Easy Digital Downloads for a download site and this would be pretty useful!
Thanks for all the hard work
can’t wait to try it out !
What’s the latest on Extra? Can’t wait to put it into practice.
I’m waiting as well — Someday … ! 🙂
Has anybody asked about when this will be released … ? I was just wondering 😉
Well since Monarch is released, lets hope all the work now focuses on Extra, and maybe another new theme or so. Elegant Themes has become terrible about timely releases of new themes, as many agree on, more emphasis should have been put on getting Extra out before Monarch. Sure a cool social media plugin is important so many, but far more people are looking at this theme for their development and project needs. One theme a year is of little value, especially when you never have any idea if and when its coming, and not beta testing or good previews.
GW
I know the question of when this will be released is getting old. However, is there any general dates such as what Month at this point? I am trying to decide if I hold off on a project and wait for this theme.
Thanks!
— Dave
Hi,
I am with Dave, been reading up on this and it appears your social plugin will be released first however, it would be great to have a rough ETA as to when this will be released i.e 2014/2015.
Then, we can plan accordingly on projects and do wha we need to.
Nevertheless, the work is really appreciated and thank you very much,
G
I am always reluctant to give ETA’s on release dates, because they are almost never accurate. All I can say is that we are working as hard as we can on the theme, as we do with all of our products, and Extra will be released as soon as it’s ready.
Can i offer to help beta test it.
I think some of the wording on Elegant Themes needs to be updated. Great themes but the releases have slowed drastically.
I know DIVI is now the corner stone but the KISS principle can still be applied to several others who are just looking for some nice designs based on genres. I miss that on Elegant themes.
The recent blog posts are excellent though and I’m enjoying them. But really, some more themes within a year are needed.
Or a bigger update to DIVI. Custom Pages would really boost its standing. I don’t understand why it’s not a part of DIVI.
Meanwhile I’m guessing we won’t see EXTRA until Christmas?
Hey Nick, any chance of another sneak peek? The pictures from the sneak peck look awesome!….. any chance of seeing some more?
maybe a look at a home page and more from the up coming extra?
thanks.
Keep up the awesome work guys
I’m really excited about this new theme arriving, the timing will be perfect for updating my project.
Thanks to you and your team for putting a lot of time and effort into creating a tool that will be useful and purposeful for your customers. We appreciate it!
Any ETA on the release of the best damn Magazine Theme EVER?
It’s hard to say, but I can say that Monarch will be finished first, followed by Extra. Monarch should be ready in 1-2 weeks.
Hi Nick,
Any further news on Extra? I know you will be bugged out of all comprehension with how often this is asked, but it would be really good to know some further details. I have a project that needs to have some answers very shortly, and while I’m happy to wait for the theme, I need to know more details – especially about things like average page load time, author pages, page view counts, the new mega menu and how many levels etc. If I cannot answer these then I will need to work with Valenti over on Themeforest as this is the closest theme I can find. Personally I’d prefer not to as I’m an ET fan – but without any real insight to the new Extra theme, I am being forced into making decisions I’d prefer not to. Please provide an update, if only some REAL ‘closer look’ with DETAIL on the new theme.
Many thanks, and keep up the good work!
Hey Nick, thanks for the updates. Have you / ET ever considered developing a custom form plugin? There are some decent ones out there (Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms), but they’re all lacking in one way or another, or you have to pay exorbitant amounts of money.
One thing I appreciate about ET is your straightforward design, and I would love to see what you could come up with for custom forms.
Something to think about. Keep up the good work.
Use Quform -> very flexible and cheap 🙂
Use Quform -> very flexible and cheap 🙂
Personally, Gravity Forms has been the best investment I made after becoming a WordPress user/developer. It might be expensive, but what I’ve been able to do with it has saved me lots of time, money and allowed me to create applications that I never imagined possible.
What I’d love to see is for ET to provide default ET stylings for Gravity Forms. That would save time for me.
Hey Nick,
Excited about the new theme. I know it isn’t quite ready yet, but would it be possible to do another blog post showcasing a few of Extra’s features in a little more detail?
I certainly don’t mind waiting for the great quality themes you produce (Divi is fantastic), but I’m in somewhat of a holding pattern on a couple of projects where I think waiting for Extra is the way to go, but I can’t tell for sure without knowing more about its features and capabilities.
The more information we have, the better. It helps us plan for upcoming releases.
+1 on this idea, thanks.
Wait a second. Am I reading these comments right? There is no page builder to this theme, and there is no way to move your site from Divi to this theme in any reasonable fashion?
That is really really crappy news if I am understanding all this correctly.
That’s the case for now, but we are working on some ideas for allowing elements built with the Divi build to live outside of the theme. However, due to the nature of the Divi builder, which allows you to fully construct everything about your website from the ground up, it’s not exactly practical to have this “fully built” website exist inside of a completely different theme. Just by way of example, try imagining the whole Divi Demo website existing inside of the small content area of this blog post. The result would be something that looks out-of-place and squished, and the idea of “full width modules” make no sense outside of a theme like Divi, in which the page is actually a blank canvas. This is why the Divi builder was made part of the theme itself.
Eagerly awaiting this template so I can start my next project. I know great things take time to make, but my inner child wants to use this template soon.
Hoping the wait is worth it!
Hi guys, i think you could update your old themes with a builder like DIVI, meanwhile EXTRA comes out !!
Is it possible?
Nick,
What realy would help if you release 0.9 with a clear note this release is NOT for commercial/production websites purposes. In this way we can help you testing and we are able to learn better the new Extra theme in advance.
In the mean time you will get feedback about the quality of the product.
I think there are many people (me as well) who would love to help you beta-testing.
Estimated release date of the new Extra theme:
I have checked all release dates of the last couple of years. Except from the Explorable theme, all themes are announced on Wednesday/Thursday. But before the actual release date, there is also a ‘Countdown-blog message’ which is typically announced on Wednesday/Thursday as well. The ‘Countdown-blog message’ is most likely two weeks before the original release date.
So all in all this mean we are at least three weeks away from the final release date of the new Extra theme.
Of course take this post with a grain of salt, since Nick will know much better…
Extra is taking “extra” time. I bet is going to be a great theme. Nick said it might take between one and two months. Maybe around October 15-20?
But yes I agree with most people here. An update would be very nice.
All I can say is that we are working as hard as we can on both Extra and Monarch. Much like Divi, Extra is a very big project, and giving ETA’s is difficult to do. At this point I can say that Monarch will likely be finished before Extra, and that they are both getting pretty close to being finished. We will probably release Monarch this month and Extra early November, but I can’t say for sure. It really depends how beta testing goes, and what challenges we run into.
Appreciate the update. I’m hanginging on for Extra. Thanks, Nick
Hi Nick,
Thanks for the update on the release dates. I agree with some of the comments above. Transparency is important to customers. I’ve been using and enjoying your themes and plugins for many years now but the frequency of the releases is much less, even though we read you have growth in your team. Seems that site is becoming more a How-to resource for wordpress than a premium theme release site.
Also, setting expectations that are under-promise than over-promises is important. This gives you opportunity to exceed expectations should you deliver before timeline.
Sorry but as I am in the consulting field this is something that i’ve learned many years ago. If my techies tell me they can do something in two weeks, I will tell the client it will take 3 weeks, not the other way around. Anyway just a bit of constructive advise.
Still waiting keenly for this great theme and plugin.
Thanks so much for the update Nick!
Maybe it will be November then?
more than one year has passed and the only themes elegant themes has released is DIVI and divi 2? 2 themes in more than one year?
Where are the new themes?
????
Hello Nick Roach
I guess that October will be a beautiful month
Wallis as well as Nick? ^_^
Hi guys,
I was hoping ET would surprise all of us and launch this theme October the first. I’m very curious about the launchdate of this theme. I think we’ve been waiting long enough for this one. Please give us an update!
Cheers
While I’m waiting for Extra to be released, I would like to suggest a feature idea I saw a few days ago on msn.com’s new site. Their site design looks a LOT like your Extra theme (perhaps you “inspired” them –LOL).
But on some of their category sections, they’ve designed them to scroll. It’s an EXCELLENT way to organize a lot of content (my news site is extremely content heavy. I’m still with you ET, just tired of waiting for the Extra theme to be released). But take a look at msn.com’s new site design that they just debuted a few days ago (their design reminds me of Extra, but you announced your theme long before they updated their site).
http://www.msn.com/
I’ve been checking back on the progress of this theme, and four months later (yes, it’s October 2014) and still, NO theme. You announced this “Extra” theme in June! Oh well, at least it’s very easy to cancel the annual subscription considering you haven’t added any new plugins either (nor have you added any new features to the four plugins you offer). ET, you’ve slacked off.
What dimensions will the logo and featured images have. Editing images will give me something to do while I wait for the theme release.
I’ve worn my thumbs out twiddling them.
Come on – let us know – pretty please.
We’re all on our knees out here….begging for some information.
There’s a huge issue with transparency here, and I think it’s going to end up costing ET customers.
Obviously, we all love the company. But we have clients too, and we have projects coming up, and the lack of communication makes it impossible for us to plan projects or communicate with clients in any kind of professional way.
Other theme vendors do a much better job of communicating.
This isn’t a criticism as much as a plea. Your designs are great, but please up your communication game or you will alienate your developer community.
You design social widgets, so you should understand the importance of communication.
Communicate, please.
I agree. I am a recent Elegant Theme customer, and I have been waiting on Extra to start a new project because Nexus was missing some elements I’d like, but the lack of communication on updates, at least, on the release of new theme is not a favorable method for customers. I’m starting to feel as if I may have to result to purchasing a theme elsewhere, when I’ve paid for membership here which is a very unfavorable resolution to have to result to. This along makes me insecure about continuing my membership. With all due respect to Elegant Themes, I concur, not criticism, but a plea.
I agree. In most cases we get in “one to two months” type of answers. That timeline for Extra has already passed. I’m fine with waiting for them to get it right, but an update would do wonders for the community. I could respect Extra is going to take one more month because of some bugs found recently. It’s a lot better than complete silence.
Wait is too long…come on guys at least announce a release date?? I’m tempting to go for Valenti which looks like a great theme. http://cubellthemes.com/demos/?product=valenti
Bueller……..Bueller…….Bueller…..
I have a client waiting………and waiting…….
I want this theme for my website. when it is available please tell me.
A don’t often comment, but I now feel like a kid on x-mas eve.
Glad I am not the only one that has the itchy refresh trigger finger.
I have all these ideas and content ready for this theme.
So, I will ask like many other. Any new update or current sneak peak?
Just constantly checking this page and the member area for updates.
Thanks!
Yep, I keep checking every few days – is there a notification list?
I’m also checking every days this post with the hope of an awesome news but nothing… Hope to see the theme live in a few days or maybe a new sneak peek on it could be cool as the Monarch plugin too. Else Good job ET team!
I keep checking back up on this post… daydreaming… hoping this theme has released. OH, I WANT IT SO BAD!
hahaha, I thought I was the only one, but it looks I am not. What I do is check the blog every night before go to sleep, sometimes a couple of times within the same day.
I am excited about this theme and can’t wait. I hope it is released SOON!!!!!
Ha. I thought I was the only one who had this post on speed dial, stopping in every few nights to drool and dream and hope that Extra was being released. Theme tease!
While the wait is killing me, I can’t wait to see Extra launch. Pair that with Monarch, and I don’t think Im going anywhere but Elegant Themes for myself, current and future clients.
Here’s hoping there is atleast another update post about both products soon, just so we know whats what.
Yes, when *is* Extra coming out? Please give us an update so we have some idea. Are you looking for beta testers? \o. :::raising my hand:::
Yup.. Still waiting. It’s been about a month so since Nick said a month (or maybe two,) I’m hoping it’ll be soon.I hate to do it but I have to agree with the above comment from James O’Sullivan that Divi isn’t for all projects. Yes, it’s an extremely flexible theme, and it’s amazing for many different project types, but for magazine and text heavy sites, Divi isn’t the best fit. I’ve got two projects with which I’ve tried Divi, and I just couldn’t get it right. Extra on the other hand sounds like would be a perfect fit. Here’s to hoping it’ll be released sooner rather than later.
I completely agree with you. Divi is a very nice theme for a lot of sites, but some weeks ago, I tried to check the UI of my site with 3rd party people, and only 1 or max. 2 topics (out of 6) were discovered within 5 sec using Divi.
A magazine theme should push all the 6 relevant topic to the reader, without any search or menu usage.
We are waiting for the release 🙂
Awesome.. Waiting for release date. 😀
Hi Nick & Team,
Just went through the “Monarch” Plugin post and got reminded of this theme being currently built. Can’t wait for both.
Thanks for making the interweb a prettier space with your elegant and stylish themes.
Regards,
Kaavs
Nick, and the team at Elegant Themes.
You guys do fantastic work. Please take as much time as you need and don’t let the demands of other customers encourage you to release a half baked product. Quality takes time, and quite frankly I’m sick and tired of wadding through the complete crap magazine themes from other designers.
I need this to be good. Good Luck guys.
EXTRA looks amazing ! I am currently using Divi but I am really keen to move to EXTRA as I feel a magazine-style theme is more suitable to my website. I was thinking about trying out Nexus but quickly changed my mine after reading your original post on EXTRA. Can’t wait till you get it out. 🙂
Can I request a feature? Since this is going to be a magazine style theme, it will be nice if it had bbpress support, something like this: http://mightymag.djwd.me/forums/
I don’t know, maybe I am being selfish.
+1 – definately got buddypress in mind for this !
I am a big fan of the Explorable ET, I love what you did with google maps and the ability to sort maps according to built-in taxonomy (ratings and classification).
I see that in the new theme Extra you are introducing google maps as a Post format, will it also allow integration with categories and possibly custom taxonomies?
Can not the same as the increase Slider presentation and select it ?
I am working with a client and this theme will be perfect. Is it ready yet? Are we there yet? 😉
I am working on a magazine/news project.. about to start building. I would LOVE to know when Extra will be released, so I can wait.. or keep on looking for another theme.. please please let us know this look awesome!!
As I mentioned to William, Nick answered right above your comment. 1-2 months
I was going to ask about the release date for Extra but I see this question has been asked several times!?
Nick answered right above your comment. 1-2 months
Nagging on the when when when bandwagon. I’m slowly pulling all of the things I need for a site relaunch together, and would like to know when – at least the month! – the Extra theme will be released. All of the themes I’m looking at now – even on {{{shudder}}} Themeforest – are clean, magazine-style themes.
Please don’t make me go there! Please give us a release date!
We don’t give release dates because it’s often not possible to give one accurately. I can assure you that we are working as hard as we can on all of our new products.
Nick, I don’t think most people are asking for an accurate date. Many just need to have a ballpark timeframe for planning purposes. Days, weeks or months is more than adequate I would think.
If you were to say “Extra is about 6-8 weeks out” and it took you 9 or 10, I’m pretty sure it would be acceptable by most of us, especially if there is clear communication when you realize it is taking longer than expected. Of course you’re always going to get the idiots that complain but they will complain regardless, that’s just the way they are.
Speaking for myself, I’m in a position where I have a site that is in the works, I’m using Divi but Extra really seems to be a better fit. If i knew Extra is a month or two away I’d be able to make a decision as to whether or not to continue with configuring Divi or just put that project on hold, move onto something else and wait for Extra.
Extra should be ready within 1-2 months. Hopefully closer to 1, but you never know.
Nick thank you for the time frame. I myself have really been looking forward to using this theme on a non profit site I’ve ran for many years.
I appreciate that you are producing quality over quantity. That is the way of the future and we must forgive those who can’t see outside of the America culture of “more more more”.
Keep up the good work!
Hi Nick,
Looking forward to the theme. I think it would be good for you guys to put a roadmap together of up-coming themes and plugins. Of course timelines can change but still a visual representation would be nice.
Looking forward to Extra!!
Cheers
Harmeet
Thanks for the response Nick. Now if we can get people to read it 🙂
Thanks Nick, I am going to put off purchasing a competing theme and wait for Extra now that I know the rough time frame. And if Extra is delayed that’s ok, that’s my risk 🙂 Cheers!
With this constant waiting on promises to be delivered it is becoming a bit tedious talking about how many themes you have on offer. FACT – only one (ONE!!!) new theme has been released in the last year.
You insist on showcasing the upcoming theme (EXTRA), but after nearly 3 months from the first sneak peak still no sign of it?!?!?!?!
You need to get your act together ET – one theme a year is not good enough. Divi is OK (still too many issues) and could not realistically be compared to fluid template builders like Headway because the design is limited to the templates loaded by yourselves, so it is still a theme/template and the only one released since last summer!!!
I used to use ET themes for 80% of my WordPress sites. Now it is down to maybe using Divi if it suits the purpose of my client, otherwise I am using Headway or buying a more suitable template on envato or elsewhere.
I know many other developers feel the same way and are losing the faith. Many people have asked the question when Extra will be ready. I would like to know the same, but more importantly I would like to know if you plan on releasing more than one theme a year!
And stop trying to sell us DIVI as a one-size-fits-all remedy for developing sites – it has too many issues for that to be the case !!!
I am sorry you feel that way, but this is the direction we have chosen to take the company. We will continue to spend more time on our products that we have in the past to ensure that each new theme brings something new to the table.
We already have 87 themes in our collection, all available for less than the price of 1 theme at other theme companies. Pumping out new themes every month that aren’t significantly different than the ones we already have doesn’t improve the membership.
This looks like a fantastic theme! We can’t wait for this to be released. You guys produce some amazing themes and never fail to astound us here at Vivid Clouds. We are differently glad we to out our life time membership with you as it’s been worth every cent.
Keep up the good work.
Also looking for some feedback on our website around usability, content, design etc at http://www.vividclouds.co.uk all feedback welcome and appreciated. Please email us at feedback[at]vividclouds.co.uk
Nick any chance this will support masonry js?
Lots of people are asking the same question: What is the anticipated release date for this new theme?
Any chance we can get a response of some sort to that question?
Wonderful. When you are going to release this theme? I hope this theme will have flexibility like Divi. One thing I would like to suggest is to make the sidebar bigger in width so that square shaped image ads can be placed easily.
Will it be possible to export a page builder layout from Divi and import into Extra? Debating on whether or not to wait a little longer for extra to remake my personal site (a blog/magazine) site or if I could begin making it in divi and switch over to Extra without having to completely redo the layouts. Thanks!
Looks Great, but 2 Questions.
– Will there be a simple Way to “import” the DIVI Pages to Extra?
– Will there be an Option to save the “Divi Theme Options”? Means is there NOW a simple Way to switch to Extra, work on it and switch Back to Divi when its not Work?
i know you dont want to give any estimated time on arrivel- dates. but because of some of us are planning already to include this theme, could you not just give us a very very unspecified noncommittal undefined month of your estimation ??? just an around date….we promise we wont give you any negative things if you cant make it to this date….but please it is just about …this year, next year, december ????
This looks great. Just in time too, I think I can use this for a restaurant review site I am working on and the theme the client chose is beyond hopeless! Hurry up!
We switched a number of sites to Divi when it came out, even more with Divi2. We’er excited for Extra, because it’s appropriate for the sites we didn’t switch over. We have subscriptions to numerous other theme clubs and creators that we’ve been letting lapse because of your superior offering.
Divi and Extra will not be compatible, since Divi is built from the ground up using the Divi Builder. You can think of it like Divi is the Divi builder. If we have a theme that was compatibility with Divi, it would just be Divi 🙂 Extra is an entirely different theme with a different purpose, and switching back and forth between the two themes wont be feasible unfortunately.
PLEASE please please let me somehow select which widgets or widget areas show up in mobile screens versus full size. Right now my site renders not very good on tablets and I need to use WPTouch on smartphones. Thank you!
Really loving the direction Elegant Themes is moving towards with their themes. This looks amazing!
Looking forward for this new magazine theme.
I start a blog magazine a couple months ago with the Nexus theme but I was not so happy with the final look. http://freebeee.net/
I think the – Extra – theme will be the lucky winner!
Zisis,
Maybe if you remove one of the header logo’s. Because two logo’s is too much. Remove the horizontal background (behind the slider), and instead of the solid yellow color, use another background, which can be found as freebee on ET website. Make sure you add some clear/logic menu items in the main-menu, so navigation becomes clear to users.
Now start added some more content.
You can also wait for the new Extra theme….
Good luck.
Yes, I had the same issues with Nexus. Could not get it to do what I wanted – I liked the look, but it wouldn’t fit.
Love your logo!
Great!
I really thought you guys would flop and could not meet expectation after Divi. I was so wrong you guys have a great team and creative minds. I will renew my account soon and probably use extra; good job guys.
By the way is the entire menu fixed on this theme or do you have the option to just make primary or top fixed?
Nick
Awesome theme from what I can see from your article! I notice you are sidestepping all the comments prompting you for a release date. I cannot wait. I have started Whispergreen Photographic Weekly, and I believe this will definitely fit what I have in mind at least 90-95%.
So let me join the others, when is the planned release date?
I have only recently joined the members area, started using your themes. you documentation is superb, especially for me as a newbie.
Its great to see really good development from Elegant, being just joined a little around a month ago just for the Divi theme to test it out, to seeing this Extra theme being developed puts my faith in my money being spent well.
As for the Extra theme i think this will change the typical platform for magazine sites that everyone visualises as a standard. I really do hope that Extra can rip the field apart with new abilities and maximum freedom when setting up a site.
Yes Divi has its bugs and so does every theme out there, but with Development on Divi and Extra being built off that type of framework you are going to have two awesome themes / Frameworks.
Cant wait to test this out ET.
I look forward to playing with your newest creation, but my real reason for visiting today is to thank you for the amazing consistent content you create on this blog. These days my WP work is mostly a sideline but my email feed of articles from the ET blog continually gets my attention and keeps my head in the game.
Guys your free articles are every bit as good as most paid subscription content I’ve seen, better than many. They are certainly a value greater than my Theme subscription price and you just give it away .
Elegant Themes is not only the place to go for outstanding themes, but a great destination to learn all things WordPress. Thank you ET.
I can’t wait for it to come out! When will this theme be ready? I am looking to using it for a client’s website.
Nick, I’ve a project right now requiring a magazine template and EXTRA would be perfect. I’d love to put my client off a short bit. Any sense of release date?
I’m a fairly new member to Elegant Themes. The upcoming Extra theme looks like what I’ve like to build my site with because the others miss some aspect of what I’m looking for. As a friendly suggestion, I’d like to at least have some sort of indication when a new theme is coming. thanks!
Custom Homepage and Custom Category Pages…
Why not Custom Tag Pages and Custom Search Result Pages???
Will it be possible to export a page builder layout from Divi and import into Extra? Debating on whether or not to wait a little longer for extra to remake my personal site (a blog/magazine) site or if I could begin making it in divi and switch over to Extra without having to completely redo the layouts. Thanks!
90% of the magazine themes for WP have support for Buddypress. I hope that Extra will this integration.
Don’t know why ET does not like Buddypress
Ooh! Looks mighty interesting!
Ah! I can’t wait for it to be released. Just give it to us then make updates haha.
Hi Nick & The Team!
You just cannot fail to put a beaming smile on my face again and again! 🙂
Cannot wait till it’s released!
Thanks for all that you do!
wow! i was just searching a theme for my new website and could not find the right one i like. i am going to wait for this release – it looks perfect for what i need! love the flexibility, hope it’s coming soon!!
Two magazine themes that “Extra “may contend in modern magazine features with;
Braxton – http://themeforest.net/item/braxton-premium-wordpress-magazine-theme/5874984
Valenti – http://themeforest.net/item/valenti-wordpress-hd-review-magazine-news-theme/5888961
Anyways, I’m holding on to Extra release…
I’m glad to see that others are posting themes that they have been considering/are using because of a need for a “real” news theme from ET. The one that I like but won’t use because of several reasons, not the least being that it’s on Themeforest, is http://themeforest.net/item/extranews-responsive-news-and-magazine-theme/3102218. I love the adjustable grid because when I redo my site, I still want a slider function, but I don’t want it to overshadow the (very important) content.
ET is long overdue in making such a theme, but it seems to be coming at just the right time for many of us.
Of course, the question is WHEN!!
It would be awesome if members could get a beta to test with and then feedback to you guys.
Thanks Nick
I second this motion! I’d love to be a beta tester for Extra as well. I’ve been holding back to switch to Divi…now I know it’s because I’m waiting for a post-centric team like Extra!
You guys got me hooked when I read the line about Extra “will let you break away from the standard, prebuilt category pages, allowing you to create unique experiences on a per-category-basis. This is a killer feature. ”
As a blogger with multiple topic segments, showcasing each category in its own style would no doubt be so delightful. My gosh, I am so excited.
Thank you Nick and the Elegant Themes team! You guys know we are so excited already.
Keep up the great work,
Musank
edit: “…post-centric THEME…”
Too excited = greater probability of typos
Integrate SOCIAL SHARING buttons in the post grid ;D
This is the theme i’ve been waiting for. I’m glad the theme will have the mega menus and can’t wait for the release.
Is it going to work – like Divi – with the sidebar(widgets) element drag and drop on the front page?
And any other – besides the rating part – user features. Fx. Latest comments, most comments, last seen users, ect.?
How about BBpress integration? Any amazing ways to display forum activity like latest post.
Again. Can’t wait for the release.
Now I was forced to use Sahifa, for one of my sites. I hope your new theme will be better.
Great work waiting for release
From better to even better!
Great to see the development of this magazine theme!
I notice a great demand for this kind of themes in my environment.
Have you considered to include an offset option when displaying articles from the same category in multiple columns on 1 page?
This is the only functionality I was missing in your other great theme Divi..
Really looking forward to the release of Extra, it could be again all we need 🙂
Hi Nick,
It’s looking perfect for my site rebuild, is there a demo we can view?
You guys kick ass when it comes to value for money, Love Elegant Themes
Nice work. Love Divi for many of my sites but I need an article based theme for several other sites so I really hope this theme is comparable to Newspaper by tagDiv. Things like unique article types, block layout system and a superb ad layout system is crucial for a great mag/newspaper theme. Also since these type of sites tend to be large or get large quick, some of the code optimization tools like tagDiv uses to get good page speed scores would be a great addition as well. Perhaps some additional seo features geared towards magazine content.
Can’t wait to test it 🙂
Hi guys! Extra looks just awesome. Looking forward to try out this theme.
Extra looks charming and I will love it for her builder. Please Nick consider these in your first release;
Option for;
fullwidth and box layout with bg customizing
multiple page post slider
recent, popular comment tab
ability to feature any post in the slider using tag
allowance to use our animated layerslider using shortcodes
maga menu news ticker sticky widget
allowance to move carousel and even to the widget sidebar
Section technology used in Divi to allow us either make a sextion full or with sidebar
a test module like Divi should be integrated into Extra builder
bbpress and buddypress compatibility-Divi lacks this in styling…
or make a survey just like Divi to let us choose the features because we know you are vast in this.
Another elegantthemes to set the pace…
Cheers 🙂
Just awesome Nick!!! Can’t wait more for EXTRA. Can Marquee News ticker is built-in?
I love it already! Please release it ASAP 😎
This looks great!
The long-awaited, and this is what I want!
Hope to publish as soon as possible!
can’t waiting more….it’s awesome…
Nick, please make it compatible with WooSensei, to sell courses.
Way to go Nick, you rock! Cant wait to try this one!
This one I’m really looking forward to!
This theme looks wonderful!
Can you also make it compatable with Jigoshop?
Very excited about this! Definitely highlights the value of an Elegant Themes membership!
Will be interesting to see how you setup management of review criteria – e.g. whether criteria are added per post or whether criteria are centrally managed and then selected per post. Hoping your review module allows an ‘overall’ rating (for both editors and users) without having to specify criteria for simple reviews where multiple criteria and an average are over the top and / or not desired for commercial reasons.
And very excited to see if the theme supports any advanced loop ordering including assigning fixed loop locations to some posts, loop filtering on views or a manual ‘priority’ value that could be assigned to posts etc. etc. It cannot be understated how important this sort of functionality is in the publishing industry to ensure high value content is in the right place even while fresh content is added.
Re header / menus will be interesting to see how they would cater for a large number of categories which is required by some publications, we find few WordPress themes can handle this elegantly.
I might be a bit late for feature requests but one feature that we have only seen on a handful of WordPress themes but which is common on commercial publishing platforms is the ability to have featured ‘headlines’ (different from both the post name and url) that appear on articles typically on home pages and other featured areas.
Looks great! Can’t wait!
Another great addition to the already nice group of Themes.
While Divi is awesome, I have to say that feature to use videos as backgrounds was not so easy to use. It’s hard to find video with 1400px x 600px, and yet be clean enough for the title and button to be readable. Not a Elegant Theme’s fault, of course.
I’m looking something to replace my Aggregate Theme. I love its many features, specially the widgets in the homepage. Maybe Extra will have that touch too?
Thanks Nick and Staff!!!!!
All the support & The user friendly themes
Have taken not only my business to another level, but ALL of those I have built sites for.
Cannot wait to dive into this new them. Right now I am rocking DIVI & it literally has paid DIVI-DENS.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH! ! !
Well done Guys! Looks nice!
So with this theme is it actually an ecommerce enabled theme, or does it just allow products to be sold?
Can this theme be used for a shop with quite a number of products? Would this theme work better for this than DIVI?
I hope it will be a fast theme 🙂
Great Job … love your innovation.
My interest is definitely piqued! As a beauty+lifestyle and fashion blogger, having something that I can customize in any way is definitely something I am interested in.
I have a few questions, hopefully they can be answered here:
1) Are we able to use Ubermenu with this theme?
2) Are we able to use another page builder? Like Visual Composer as well?
3) What about options for in-built SEO so we don’t have to download extra plugins
4) Does it include a portfolio?
5) It’s fully responsive right?
Thanks for this sneak peek! Definitely beautiful 🙂
Hi Shae, I’ve been inside elegantthemes community more than a year plus and ET comes with a number of features you’ve listed. Since our latest theme is Divi which set a paradigm shift on how modern WP themes are built, I can attest that Extra will come with
-Strong SEO feature-Yes
-Visual Builder-not sure but you will be able to customize your mag home page with extra cat builder, probably. Check out Divi with her sterling Page Builder
-Ubermenu-not sure for extra, maybe loot in…
-Portfolio-always with eleganthemes and beautiful and I expect this in extra
-Responsive-first thing on the table with current themes
Although there are some semi-vital features left out in Extra at the moment but once suggested, it may be loot in the latter update.
Cheers
Thanks! I’m hoping Nick will also be able to confirm more about the Visual Composer and the UberMenu – because I love those two, and it’s nice to still have them as options.
Divi rocks so I can’t wait to see extra!o
I hate tantrums. But I want it now! I need it! I’ve been good! I really have! Please, please, please, please!!!!! Pretty please. I said PLEASE!
All kidding aside — this looks like an awesome theme and I can’t wait to work with it.
.. can’t wait 🙂 … thanks !!!!
I cannot wait for this to be released. I have been waiting for a magazine theme that would suit what I am looking to do with an online fitness magazine I am planning on launching. Loving what I see so far!!
It seems a good effort from your side but on the surface it is not different from many other news/magazines themes that are available in the market. I was expecting something more modern and ground-breaking from you, like Divi, not only with the front page layout but also with the single story pages.
We can’t pack everything into the first release, otherwise we would never finish it. Luckily, just like with Divi, we plan to continue to to update Extra with more and more great features. I could see single page stories being something we look at for Extra 2.0.
Single page stories means ability to mess with the layout of each blog post or something dofferent?
Awesome!! I can´t wait!! estimated release date? 🙂
This theme looks like it will be awesome! Do you have a rough timeline for the release that you can offer (weeks away, months away, etc)?
Will it run on ie8? A mess on Divi…
IE8 is no longer something we support. In order to build beautiful, modern themes, support must be dropped for very old browsers.
Let’s be honest, Internet Explorer (any version) should no longer be installed, on any computer, for any reason. It is a blemish on the entire digital world.
Those people who are so eager to hang on to it need to be aware that the future of the internet will not be taking them into consideration.
IE vs Chrome/Firefox/etc is the equivalent of MS Paint ’95 vs Photoshop CC.
Dan – Hahahahaha! I agree completely!
Start blogging about IE quack browsers and you will unleash another genius in Microsoft! That’s what we want…
Holy moses! its been long I viewed sites on IE what’s happening?
Just a teensy question. Will this theme be as in need of beautiful pictures as the other news themes you guys already offer? I was really digging the other ones, but as I don’t put thumbnails on most of my posts, I’ve gone off them rather quick…
Nick, Very cool! I hope buddypress and bbpress will be supported as well. Can you confirm?
That sounds quite amazing and if make assumptions based on what you’ve done so far with DIVI my only question that remains for now is: What’s the ETA ?
Kudos team!
Andre Foisy, eMC
Owner Publisher @
BloggersPal.com
I’m very excited about this theme now! I’m using Divi now, but it is technically a blog that would benefit from magazine layout. Can’t wait. The suspense is killing me.
I built my new book site with Divi, but this could be perfect for The Astonishing Adventures 2.0 later in the year, man you guys just get better and better 🙂
Nick – your site is *great*! I thought you might want to know you have a broken image; on your author page, the Kickstarter logo/image is broken.
Beautiful site!
Nicole
Many thanks for the kind words Nicole, and the heads up on the link, been busy writing and didn’t notice 🙂
Looking forward to it.. I am hoping to re-configure my news site when it is ready!!
Looks fantastic! Keep working guys. Can’t wait to see it in action.
There are a couple of features I’d love to see. One is a grid instead of a slider. I’m so done with some of the sliders I’ve seen that make your eyeballs spin. Kind of like nexus but with no wide border or sliding panels.
Another is a review system based on points (say, a 10-point system) rather than just stars or percentages. If the star system is used, then there will hopefully be 1/2 point options. Too many star systems I’ve seen don’t have room for half point. For instance, that restaurant that’s *not quite* perfect and deserves a 4.5 instead of a 5 rating.
Will a portfolio option be available in Extra?
I was hoping to go a minimalist style of theme, but I have too much stuff! I can’t wait for this to be released! I think I can remain “clean” but still be able to display content.
Again, like others…WHEN? WHEN? WHEN? 🙂
This is going to ROCK!!!!
Any estimate date?
Great! I just launched a webstore based on Divi with an integraded magazine. Would love to make a multisite with Divi and Extra combined!
Looks good, keep up the good work!
Really looking forward to this theme. Have used your themes for some time now, and they are very reliable.
Awesome!
Watching an ET sneak peek is a bit like watching a trailer for a film.
The difference is that the film trailers show you the best bits and the actual film can disappoint but the final ET themes never disappoint.
Looking forward to this one guys.
Sounds awesome. You guys rock my world!
Muito bom. Aguardando…
Wow this is really cool! Please when is it going to be ready. I do need something like this for my online magazine platform. Kudos!!!
This is amazing, just what I been looking for! When will it be released?
Looking great Nick, didn’t expect any less from your website ninja team!
I would like to see Social Sharing built-in for different media types.
So not just the usual ability to share a post, but the ability to share an image (hover over it and you see sharing icons). This would allow an easy way to share to Pinterest for example.
Or easily share a video once it finishes playing (again social sharing icons appear on the video).
This kind of sharing ability would be super awesome. Hope to see more of the Theme soon. Thanks Nick.
Yes, I totally agree! Please do this!
This is very exciting! You guys blow me away! Thanks!
Is there going to be a different type of page builder for Extra?
Is there going to be a “post builder” for Extra?
J. Duncan, VERY good questions! 🙂
Deb
This is the theme our next website is waiting for 🙂
I am just about to launch my website therealwinejulia.com, which is a makeover of my old site WineJulia.com. I purchased a membership with y’all and I’ve downloaded the theme Deep Focus, but I’m thinking EXTRA us the way I should go. I transferred everything over from my old blog (it’s been a nightmare because my old admin refused to give me FTP information and insisted on uploading everything into a zip file – which was missing months of work within a couple years; as well as, missing an entire year. Everything us in there and just about ready to go, but EXTRA looks like it’s just what I need, even though I’m not starting from scratch and I have over 420 articles…should I wait? When is the anticipated release date?? Please, please give me an approximate date so I can make a decision. Each day my site is down, I’m losing readership. Should I wait or launch with the Deep Focus theme? Help!!
Julia you don’t need ftp, your data is stored in a MySQL database. The easiest way to get your old data would be to install a data backup plugin on your old site, make a backup and download it locally. It’s a good idea to back up your data anyway.
Alternatively if your old site has phpmyadmin you can back up your data from there.
This is the type of leadership in innovation I have come to expect from ET. This truly looks like nothing I have seen before and to say I am excited for it is an understatement.
Hi Nick,
awesome theme but before you finish it it I would like to ask some features, valid for Divi too.
1) grid width at least 1200 px, more is better, screens now are large, even tablet ones and if you can make it fluid should be the best (fluid means that if the screen is over grid size it enlarges proportionally all content).
2) retina support
3) a child theme packed with the themes
the following isn’t for Extra but for Divi
4) a sticky bottom menu, equal the top one but at screen bottom.
Thanks and have a good work 😉
Marco
Hi Marco,
If you are interested in a Divi child theme, you may want to try my free Divi Children plugin. It has been specifically developed to create child themes of Divi, and its next version will be soon released with a lot of new customization capabilities. You´ll find details about upcoming features on my blog.
I tried your plugin out of curiosity Luis, Deactivated my own child and activated yours.
Totally broke all formatting, even after adding my own customs.
Is the plugin meant to give you an all fresh start, removing next to all formatting from the main theme?
Hi Luis,
thanks but I create childs by myself, anyway I’ll take a look to your plugin.
As this is a good practice for every theme and it’s suggested by ET too, I don’t understand why they don’t join a child with each theme, isn’t a big deal and it’s really useful for many ET users, so I asked for the feature.
Thanks anyway for the offer and best wishes for the plugin.
Cheers,
Marco
will it be possible using Page Builder abilities for constructing landing pages in Extra as it possible in Divi?
If you are looking to build landing pages, then I would suggest using Divi. Extra is not about pages, and it wont have the Divi page builder. Instead, Extra will be focused on what Divi doesn’t do as it applies to online publications.
Ideally, it would be perfect if the current (non responsive) page builder plugin was updated to Dive standards so it can be used in any theme. Although Extra will be for online publications, having a page builder that can be used to create other types of pages would be beneficial.
I hope Nick and team consider revisiting the idea of porting the page builder functionality into a new plugin that can be used for all themes. It would make life so much easier.
Not complaining :), after having used the Divi page builder, not having it on other themes makes custom page creation a nightmare.
Hopefully after Extra and Monarch are done the team can re-visit the stand alone Elegant page builder (over due for an upgrade) and the Hand Held mobile plugin too.
Will you be able to use the page builder plugin?
Thinking that Divi page builder (the no1 WP pagebuilder) should be mangled into Extra…another two-edge swiss knife!
Or you still want us to work with the first page builder to manage static pages for Extra? Many options…gash!
Please Nick, don’t left the advertisement outside the box, I mean, flexibility for that kind of module that can help to monetize a website.
Thank you
This theme looks FANTASTIC. I couldn’t use Divi for my project because I needed a robust magazine style theme. Valenti was the closest thing I could find to do what I needed to do… until now.
Any hints on when we might see this theme released?
This looks awesome. Can’t wait to try all the functionality you’ve put into this theme. I think I may be my first client to use it!
Mega menus? That’s awesome!
Looks fantastic as always Nick. I have some Genesis sites I will be switching as soon as that comes out.
This seems the right theme for my new travel projekt. YES!!
Wanted to start it 1. September.
Looks fresh! Love the new layout builder interface you’ve been using for these new themes. Almost like you took what you did with the Convertible theme and re-engineered to be awesome. I’m really looking forward to seeing what you cooked up this time!
Seriously, I can’t wait no more please, please release that soon 🙂
Looks like this might be a great theme for a content heavy Community site…? Any anticipated release date for Extra? (I’m in the site planning stage right now.)
This looks awesome. How long do we have to wait?
I’m already loving it and waiting for release day.. I’ve 2-3 sites running on WPMS wid lods of CPTs.. Wanna see how it work there.. Good luck guys..
When ? when ? when ? when ? Quick ! Quick ! Quick ! 😉
I want to say that it would be important for me that EXTRA has the same Top-Menu like DIVI because I would need to connect both themes this way. I hope this is possible.
Will Extra have any ‘Long-form’ content/design functionality that’s been adopted from the NY Times ‘Snow Fall’ design, and now seen in other magazine themes?
This isn’t something that Extra will support on release, but it’s definitely something we can loot into in the future.
+1 for this too. There are two aspects to this that matter to me:
1. An outstanding Snowfall/Medium/Aesop Story Engine style single-story layout, with any of their strong media features. That should not be a tall order, and would be brilliant.
2. Medium-style commenting. That might be a lot harder, but it really changes what a theme can accomplish, and someone’s going to do it and draw a crowd.
‘Snow Fall’ design is great for us story tellers. It’ll take story telling so much more immersive and powerful, granted that it’s “light” enough on the website to make it free of glitches. Regardless, I’d love to see a Snow Fall design incorporated to non-1.0 release of Extra, for sure!
What about snowfall can’t you achieve on Divi? I’ve found it to be incredibly flexible.
Ditto on the timeline request: I’m about to launch a new project and it would be great to know is this theme will be out in weeks or months.
Nick, it would be interesting to see how you balance advertisement placement for a magazine with content (text+photo).
Together my wife and I run a food blog, and we’re contemplating a change. However, just a thought… with EXTRA – can we place photos on the side of the content, instead of the usual above the content. Here’s an example… http://d.pr/i/URgD and how to place on the front page http://d.pr/i/sU5y
Keeping all advertisements (large square) & social media below the picture because people see that first (F-pattern)
I would also love to see a “Snowfall” option. I was trying to adapt Divi to do many of the same things for my interactive book but I will now wait for Extra – though I wish you could tell us whether it will be a matter of weeks or a matter of months.
Thanks for the consideration Nick! I’m looking forward to this theme for sure!
Notice the word loot. It made made my inner gamer feel good.
Haha, whoops.
Another big hit coming up!!! Looks great guys, congratulations and keep on spoiling us for many more years
OMG I literally can not wait! So excited! this is exactly what I am looking for for my next project.
Great job Nick(and all of ET as I know Nick has a great team behind him) Is it just me or do you find yourselves using only ET as your goto source for web development? I used to have to comb through many themes when I acquired a new client, not anymore… Keep building those walls higher Nick! I for one am loving it.
I can’t wait. Any hints on a release date?
Witing for Extra to be released, I am holding a magazine proyecto just wating to use Extra instead of Divi.
I hope we can add feedback once we get it, to add features missed (In case there is one)
Keep up the good work!
Damn Mac autocorrect! 😛
what is the link to the theme – i couldn’t find it…
This is just a sneak peek, and the theme has not been released yet.
Hi Nick,
Would you be able to provide a timeline or release date at this time? I was just about to go with the nexus theme for an online magazine that I’m building.
Hi Nick, can you still add the option of ‘color coded categories’, so the category menu, header font, links, drop cap and other elements can have a dedicated (easily assignable) color?
Hope you can!
+1, terrific idea
Oh you sneaky-pu you! 😛
That’s definitely going to be a sweet theme!
I’ve been putting off giving up our church web site in The Source for a year. And this looks like the reason why. Next week???!
I can’t wait to see it.
~d
Oh my goodness it looks amazing! I can’t wait to get my hands on this theme and start cranking out some websites!
Will probably redo my burger blog, as well as have a new option for all our partners that want a news time website.
yes….YES!!!
Very excited by all this and really looking forward to this new theme!
Awesome … is there an expected release date?
Can’t wait to test it hope we won’t have to wait for ever 🙂
Yes, is there a release date estimate? We have been waiting for a theme like this for a long time. We’re about ready to hire a wordpess expert to migrate a theme called Multi-News but this one looks like a much better option for us. Hopefully we can wait it out.
Yes, when?
This will be what I’ve wished Divi was…
Exactly. This is what I wanted out of Divi. I can’t wait until Extra is done!
Amazing! Really stepping it up… This was what I always felt Divi missed to be perfect…
Yet I still dream of a theme with this level of control for all post types (meaning a mix between divi and this), with minimal styling (and CSS documentation for custom styling), and flawless support for WooCommerce shortcodes… So close…
Agree 1000%
LOOKS SO AWE$OME (and yes would agree with this)! Y’all Raised the EG Bar to the POW!!$ level
Exactly! When will ElegantThemes come out with a theme that, not only does everything you listed, but will also write my content for me!?!?!
I should literally have to do nothing once I install an ElegantThemes, theme!
Also, the fact that ET hasn’t come out with a theme that can bake me an actual, vanilla cake with chocolate frosting, is pretty disappointing.
SERIOUSLY!!!!
-Kraymer
Aw yiss!
This looks great! Keep up the good work!
And yes … one day a little boy will scream “Extra, Extra! Read all about it”
OMG YES! This is exactly what i’ve been waiting for. Been modding the hell out of Divi to get this look and now you’re putting it in a pretty little package with bow on top.