John Beima Comparing Monstroid & Monstroid Squared [TemplateMonster Interview. Part 2]

John Beima: Honestly I came out of high school, spent a few years working in the hospitality industry. I even wrote an accounting package for several of the restaurants in our group of establishments.

From there I did a year in retail, men’s sportswear, and then went into the IT sector.

As I mentioned earlier, I started doing web related work in 1996. Working with newly produced eCommerce tools. After writing a couple of online stores, I began working for a company who provided custom online solutions to the insurance industry. I was working on this project for probably 13 or 14 years before moving on to other opportunities.

I spent a little over a year working with a content production company that primarily provided content to Paramount Television, or what would now be The WB network. With this company, I worked on several very successful contests/promotional projects for several of their smaller market TV stations throughout the US.

When this project came to an end, I made a conscious choice to move away from big business to small business. I was looking for more stability, instead of working for one company at a time and have things abruptly end. I wanted to create a larger base of long term clients. Less of these one-off projects and more full-service management.

John Beima: My son Conner. I am not sure who the bigger kid is, him at 11 or me in my 40s. I get to enjoy all those firsts with him. From his first favorite movie (Cars), to playing soccer (Community League), to beating me at Skylanders, to seeing him grow into the fantastic young man that he is becoming. Biggest passion? Being a Dad!

John Beima: There are actually two parts to fully answer this question.

First to create something new for someone. Every time I work on a new project I try and pull new features or functionality out of Monstroid / Monstroid Squared. It's not limited to just what is included with these two themes, but in how they can be augmented with 3rd party plugins.

Second I use what we have learned to go back and improve on what we have done for our existing clientele. This allows us to distribute the costs to innovate new features into a site across multiple sites. Therefore keeping everyone’s costs down.

John Beima: Coffee! Sorry, but I couldn’t resist saying that.

My iPad and a good old fashion organic notepad. I am a big one for writing things down. I am often bugged about my lists. Simply line it up and knock it down.

John Beima: I am a huge one for planning things. I love schedules and agendas. However, the real world tends not to. I was raised by an extremely OCD mother, so yeah I guess I have that in me too.

Clients get busy doing what they do, and we need to work on their schedule and as they have time. After all is that not our end game? Helping our clients to be more successful? If they are busy, they then, in turn, keep us busy.

Delays and life events happen, I strive to do the best job I can for our clients; when, how, where, and as our clients need us.

John Beima: Doing an outline on paper and a skeleton for the website.

I like to compare this to Walt Disney developing a cartoon. You first need to write your story, then draw your cells, then organize everything, and then paint it. Finally, you film it.

Doing a website is not very different. You create the skeleton for it, populate it with data, start to organize it, and then finally you paint/polish it by adding colors and images.

John Beima: There are lots and it really depends on what you're doing. For example, if you are doing custom development, then a great text or more on point code editor. Like Sublime Text 3. I cannot tell you how much a simple code editor made my life easier.

To me, that is what Monstroid and Monstroid Squared have become. My “code editor” in WordPress.

Then when you're working in WordPress with one of the Monstroid themes, I think it is more about optimizing your workspace.

For example, I use two monitors. On the one in front of me, I have Firefox open displaying the admin area of WordPress. Then on the screen to my left, I have another instance of Firefox open to the website, so I can see how the page looks as I code it.

Additionally, on the monitor to the left, I have the same page in Google Chrome. Then to my right, I have my iPad standing up in its Bluetooth keyboard. This allows me to see three different views of the page of the website I am working on at any point in time.

My notepad sits to the left of my keyboard so I can always glance at my lists!

I find the “Inspect Element” feature in Google Chrome offers more useful information than the one in Firefox. Like being able to set a line of code to “Active,” “Hover,” or “Focus.”

I also have “vSSH” installed on my iPad, so I can quickly make an SSH connection to a server to edit a file on disk. Yes, I can just connect from my Desktop, but that is not always necessary.

The idea here is to make your life easier and to make the time that you spend on a project more productive. Don’t overly complicate or convolute your workspace or process with unneeded 3rd party services, tools, or gadgets.

John Beima: As mentioned above, I have my iPad with a Logitech Bluetooth keyboard. My iPad has figuratively become an extra limb to me.

I also use my iPhone to assist in checking for responsiveness to different screen sizing.

I use Slack to communicate with other professionals in my circle.

Now I do realize you were asking about 3rd party services and, to be honest, I find they over complicate things and slow us down. We have been slowly configuring a new client portal using SuiteCRM, but as of today forcing clients to log into a support system takes away from the personal attention we like to give each of our clients.

I find everyone wants to sell you a “tool” or a “service, ” but at the end of the day all of these “services” need to be paid for. Instead of using all these fancier services I would rather provide a lower price point to my clients. Think the “KISS” philosophy. Back to basics. Email works just fine.

John Beima: Yes I have. Still, do today.

John Beima: This question kind of covers a couple of concepts.

First, we use the Monstroid themes as the foundation for all of the “Starter Website Packages” we produce. Hands down we revolve everything around it. Often an entire product module revolves around having the Monstroid themes as the development platform for the websites we produce.

Secondly would be which one we use for which website and how we choose.

I think, from what I hear from the support team, TemplateMonster has made this decision for us.

My understanding is there is no longer going to be any development for Monstroid, only bug and/or security related fixes. Thus Monstroid Squared has officially replaced Monstroid as TemplateMonster’s flagship product.

This is a little disheartening to hear today since Monstroid Squared is not ready to replace Monstroid as of today. It is simply missing too many features.

Let me take a minute to explain this answer.

Monstroid Squared makes heavy use of the new Power Builder editor and the Cherry Framework 5, whereas Monstroid used the MotoPress Content Editor and the Cherry Framework 4.

With Monstroid we had direct access to all of the shortcodes that the Cherry Framework brought to the table. This does not appear to be the case, at least for today, with Power Builder and Cherry 5.

What does this mean? If I am fully using either of the Monstroid themes and thus the Cherry Framework I can take advantage of all the added highly customized “Post Types.” Those being Services, Team Members, Testimonials, Portfolios, Projects, and more.

In Monstroid, we have direct access to the placing and the settings of the shortcodes how and where we like on the page and in what “mode.” With Monstroid Squared and Power Builder, shortcodes have evolved into becoming “modules.” This system is a significant step forward in allowing the average person to build a website without coding.

Monstroid Demo Site

However, Power Builder is so new today that it is missing many basic features we had with the shortcodes of Cherry 4 and Monstroid. Like for example the ability to sort lists. Say a client has 50 staff members, or 50 services, or 50 testimonials. In Monstroid Squared, we have no ability to sort them; Power Builder simply displays them newest to oldest. Yes, we can break them into categories, but we cannot even alphabetize them or enter a value in the “Sort Order” page attribute and display them based on your predefined order. That is a significant drawback.

With Monstroid and the shortcodes, there are many “styles/designs/themes” we can apply to our lists or individual items to display it how we like. I believe there were around 15 different design styles to show your team members. With Monstroid Squared and Power Builder, there are around 3.

Now given time, I am quite confident this will all be added, but it simply not there today.

Unfortunately, getting a schedule or agenda from the development team at TemplateMonster in regards to when we are going to start to see this is nearly impossible. So for today I continue to keep existing clients in Monstroid, and weigh what is needed for new ones and if a delay from TemplateMonster’s development team will affect us or not. I have to plan for what is implemented now, since I cannot be confident that the tools I need will be added in time for my client's needs.

The lack of shortcodes does present another challenge. When we develop, we often like to put things like icons on our page. You know the phone icon next to a phone number, or the social media icon next to a link. With Monstroid, there was an icon shortcode. You simply clicked on “insert shortcode” selected what you want and clicked insert.

This is gone with Monstroid Squared and Power Builder, at least as of today. With Power Builder “modules” are inserted at a design, layout, or organizational level. Not in the content itself. So I can insert an icon say to the left of a text module, but not inside the text itself. For this, I have to resort to HTML hand coding. Programming in HTML and using the native HTML icon tag. Which means yes, in certain cases, with Monstroid Squared the users need to be able to program in HTML.

I am hoping for future releases that we will be able to embed certain modules inside of other modules. Like being able to insert an icon module inside the content section of a text or blurb module. Wishful thinking? Who knows? Only time will tell!

John Beima: Honestly, I like both of them. I am quickly falling in love with Monstroid Squared, but it just needs to have the polish put on it that is missing today.

John Beima: I am not sure if that would be a fair comparison today. I mean hands down Monstroid Squared is the natural progression of where Monstroid needs to go. It is also very obvious that Monstroid Squared has been entirely re-written from the ground up. New code base, allowing it to over time do so much more than Monstroid ever could.

However, for today, we need to be able to organize the data entered into our websites, and we need to be able to make them look visually appealing.

Missing something as simple as the ability to sort on a field and to have that sort be ascending or descending is a road block. Being able to insert icons into the middle of a text block easily is a road block.

Now I do see from sources that I have that TemplateMonster is not far from releasing Power Builder V:1.4.0. Today we use V:1.3.1. All of these things could already be addressed or fixed in it. Since there does not seem to be any way to find out what is coming, we never know what to expect.

For all, I know this could be a thing of the past when the next version of Power Builder is released.

John Beima: I like them, but they need to be flexible enough to allow us to override the produced page when we need to.

In all fairness to TemplateMonster, you can’t develop one editor that suits every need for every developer. Given this, today with version V:1.3.1 or Power Builder, it only needs to be more flexible.

John Beima: I do! I have several clients that want to be able to maintain their content. Power Builder is a huge and I mean huge step forward in having our clients maintain their page content.

With Monstroid it was very easy for a client to erase the shortcodes and mess up the pages. Simply erasing one row or column code would mess things up.

With Power Builder, more end users can maintain their own sites. Which then, in turn, encourages the client to update their site more often and helps to keep their costs down.

John Beima: This is another topic I could go on and on about...

Monstroid Squared Demo Site

With Monstroid all we had built in was WooCommerce. With Monstroid Squared we have bbPress, Booked Appointments by Boxy Studio, BuddyPress, Hotel Booking by MotoPress, The Events Calendar by Modern Tribe, Timetable and Events Scheduler by MotoPress, and WooCommerce with some TemplateMonster custom feature enhancements. I also hear there may be a photo gallery plugin in the works; I am looking forward to that.

These new additions allow us to produce a better end product to our clients. All of these plugins now are controlled as part of Monstroid Squared so they don’t appear to be an afterthought. They carry the website/company “branding” and identity.

There is also one feature I am very excited for. When I embed a “module” into a page, Monstroid Squared gives me a configuration screen for that instance of that module. What is exciting about this is, for each instance of a module I have a configuration tab for the “Cascading Style Sheet Code” (“CSS” for short) the design and styling code which is specific to that instance of that module.

With Monstroid, there is only one place to enter all of the “CSS” design and styling code for the entire site. Users had to spend the time to target their designs to a particular element on a single page and not affect the other instances of that element on the same or other pages.

With all the “CSS” in one location, it can lead to a very long page and sometimes it is hard to locate what might be affecting what if there is a minor error in “CSS.”

With Monstroid Squared, we can now store the particular “CSS” design stylings with the instance of the module we are applying it to. Yes, there is a spot for us to put general site wide stylings, so we don’t lose out on this option, but now it is much much easier to target a specific element in the output of a particular module.

This can and will drop development time on custom designs.

John Beima: Doing an automated installation with the wizard and installing a sample data set.

People new to Monstroid Squared can benefit from setting up a “learning” site with one of the sample data sets. We refer to them as “sandbox” installations. Meaning they install two copies of Monstroid Squared under two different URL addresses. One for learning and one for their final website.

This allows a beginner to physically examine a page or an element and see how the effect was done, and then re-create it in their actual website.

It allows for hands on learning, without needing to fill their final project with unneeded data that can never be fully deleted.

I even sandbox demo sites and point my clients to them so they can choose what styles of effects or designs they like.

John Beima: A couple, some of which we covered already.

Not being able to sort the custom post types and not being able to easily manage icons.

There is a learning curve when progressing from Monstroid to Monstroid Squared since the thought process to design, manage, and implement a site is completely changed. For the better in my opinion.

John Beima: In many ways Monstroid Squared is a brand new product from the ground up; which affords it the ability to do so many more things than Monstroid. TemplateMonster built Monstroid, released it, learned from it, and then completely redesigned it for the better with Monstroid Squared.

I am very pleased with the direction I see Monstroid Squared going; it just needs to have the missing features that Monstroid had added to it.

Hands down Monstroid Squared is a development platform to have in any developer's arsenal of development tools. Just remember it is less than two weeks old and does need a little more seasoning.

John Beima: I would like to share with everyone that I am in the process of putting together a Monstroid Users Group. A place where we can all get-together, share code, share styling tips, and openly discuss new ways of using the Monstroid Themes in the digital world.

This will also allow us to support each other with technical challenges that each of us has faced.

We can come together as an industry group and help each other out.

We already know WordPress is the most used Content Management System on The Net today, let's work together and make the Monstroid themes the most commonly used theme.

John Beima: I will admit this is an area I do lack in. There are only so many hours in the day, and so much you can do.

When I am not working, I try not to mix my recreational time or activities with being online. We all need a break and need to get away from The Internet sometimes.

For me, being on social media is no different than working on a client’s website.

I need some time away to recharge my batteries and go back at things.

Now that being said, I do have a Facebook page which is personal and I would ask that others respect that and it is kept that way.

I do have a LinkedIn profile for my professional side. I welcome anyone and everyone to add me and contact me on LinkedIn.

Also please feel free to contact me through our company website for CDCI Development Inc.

John Beima: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbeima

John Beima:

CDCI Development: http://www.cdcidevelopment.com/

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