UPDATE (6-6-2018)

It has been several weeks since Elegant Themes released the new API for developers in Divi 3.1. Since then we have received several emails regarding the status of our plugins and a time frame for when they will be updated and compatible with the Visual Builder. Let me begin answering this question by giving you my promise that we are 100% committed to this and have been working around the clock to make it happen. Unfortunately, there are issues with the API that are out of our control.

While we are grateful to Elegant Themes for the API and excited they have embraced the development community that has risen around Divi, the API is simply not ready for all but the most basic plugins. Our plugins are not basic. They are very complex plugins with a lot of great features. Many of these features are not compatible with the new API.

Until Elegant Themes is able to update the API to allow complex plugin development, I’m afraid we are left waiting to finish updating our plugins for Visual Builder support. We have been in contact with Elegant Themes and their developers and have alerted them to all of the issues we’ve found with the API. You can track these issues along with issues submitted by other developers yourself here.

As soon as the API is updated to provide a path for our plugins to become compatible with the Visual Builder, we will resume working around the clock to update all of our plugins.

UPDATE (4-22-2018)

Divi 3.1 has been released! You can view the documentation here. We want to give everyone an idea of our plans here at Divi Plugins with our plugins.

We released an update to Portfolio Posts Pro and Owl Carousel Pro to maintain compatibility with 3.1. If you are experiencing any issues, please update to the latest version of each plugin. If you continue to have issues after updating your plugin, please contact us.

Over the next several weeks, we will be diving into the developer API in 3.1 and rewriting all of our plugins to conform to Elegant Theme’s suggested methods. With these updates, all of our modules will become fully compatible with the Visual Builder and the live preview when making changes to the module options.

In regards to the Divi Module Builder, currently modules created using the Divi Module Builder are compatible with Divi 3.1. Custom modules can be viewed in the Visual Builder and options can be changed. However, changes made to the module options in the VB are not visible in the live preview. Once we get a firm grasp on the new API and React.js, we will have a better idea of what level of compatibility we can add to the VB. Our hope is to make custom modules fully compatible with the VB and live preview.

Please stay tuned. Lots of exciting updates in the near future!

Elegant Themes announced the upcoming release of Divi 3.1 last year, and since then the excitement from developers has been building. Coined as “The Developer Release” by Elegant Themes, this update has been promised to deliver a clear path for developers who want to extend Divi by modifying existing modules or adding new modules to the Divi Page Builder and Visual Builder. Here’s what Elegant Themes had to say about Divi 3.1 in their blog post:

“Divi 3.1 will be remembered as one of the most important updates to Divi ever, laying the groundwork for a vibrant development community.”

Elegant Themes doesn’t appear to be holding back on their hopes for Divi 3.1. “One of the most important updates to Divi ever” is strong language. We at diviplugins.com have our fingers crossed that they can deliver! It’s important to note that Elegant Themes made it clear this update will not bring any new features to Divi, going as far as to say most people probably won’t even notice any change at all after updating. So why are developers so excited about Divi 3.1?

Developer Documentation

Currently the only way to create a custom Divi module is to reverse engineer the built-in modules that come with Divi (or use our Divi Module Builder plugin). Many modules have hundreds or even thousands of lines of code. Creating a module that actually works and displays correctly in the Page Builder is no small endeavor.

Divi 3.1 should change that. This is what Elegant Themes had to say about developer documentation:

“We will be adding more hooks and filters, documenting all functions and creating clear paths for extending modules and creating custom modules. We will be taking all of these updates and creating developer documentation that anyone can use to learn about Divi and how to customize it.”

Developer documentation is sorely needed. Without it, we as developers are left to implement our own best solutions for extending Divi. Once the documentation is released, we can all get on the same page and Divi and third party plugins will benefit.

Visual Builder Compatibility

Anyone who has attempted to add custom modules to the Divi Visual Builder can attest that it’s not possible without changing core Divi files. And anyone who knows anything about WordPress and maintaining compatibility using child themes knows that editing core theme files is always a bad idea. In the next Divi update, all of your changes would be overwritten and your custom module would no longer work in the Visual Builder.

For many, custom module compatibility in the Visual Builder is not that important. In fact, many developers prefer to work in the Divi Page Builder. However, if you have clients using the Divi theme, it won’t take long to realize most users LOVE the Visual Builder and are completely lost without it.

If Divi 3.1 brings nothing else but compatibility with custom modules and the Visual Builder, a lot of developers would still be happy.

Preparing for Divi 3.1

We know 3.1 is coming soon. We know it is built for developers. And we know it will provide documentation for creating custom modules that will work in both the Page Builder and Visual Builder. But what can we do to prepare? Nick Roach recently gave us a clue for just that in a Facebook post on March 6th, 2018. Here’s what he had to say:

“Calling all third party Divi developers! If you haven’t noticed, it has been 3 weeks since our last feature release. That’s because we are busy working on Divi 3.1, the focus of which will be creating a clear path for developers to easily build third party Divi Builder modules that are compatible with the Visual Builder (including new APIs and new developer documentation). This will be a really important part of the Divi community moving forward, and it’s just the first of many developer-centric updates that we hope to release in the future.

Creating Visual Builder modules will require some effort from developers (current third party modules won’t automatically work in the Visual Builder completely). However, we are working on some creative ways to automatically enable “limited support” for modules that have not yet been updated with Visual Builder support. This would mean that custom modules without “Visual” support could still be rendered in the Visual Builder in “block” mode and their settings would still be editable. There will also be an option to enabled “partial rendering support” which will let unsupported modules re-render using an Ajax request.

Ideally all developers would learn to create Visual Builder modules, but we wanted to add a buffer while people brush up on their Javascript and React skills :)”

It sounds like the Elegant Themes crew is doing their best to maintain compatibility with current third party modules. But Nick threw us a bone in his Facebook post in the very last line, recommending developers “brush up on their Javascript and React skills“. So if you’re interested in creating custom Divi modules or if you already do and want to add Visual Builder support, we would recommend following Nick’s suggestion!

Will our modules be compatible with Divi 3.1?

If you are a diviplugins.com customer wanting to know if a plugin you downloaded from our website will be compatible with Divi 3.1, rest assured. We have submitted our plugins to Elegant Themes so they can review them and help with maintaining compatibility with existing plugins.

We believe the biggest question in the upcoming developer release is not whether existing modules will still work, but whether they will work in the Visual Builder. It’s encouraging to hear that the Divi developers believe most third party modules will work and be editable. They just won’t render live on the page until developers integrate React JS code.

We are doing everything we can to prepare for the update so our modules are compatible in the Visual Builder. This has been a highly requested feature we’ve wanted to deliver for a long time!

Thank you Elegant Themes and Nick Roach for your openness and willingness to allow third part developers such as ourselves to develop and extend the Divi theme. Going a big step further and actually providing documentation and clear paths for module development is above and beyond. I think I speak for the entire Divi developer community – we are very grateful and excited for Divi 3.1!