Feature Requests and Bugs

With the introduction of gradient text in the title element, there is a problem. If the gradient color option is enabled there needs to be a change to the way text-shadow is applied. Either disable text-shadow altogether or change the shadow setting to implement filter:drop-shadow().

When you add a container to a page that is either draft or hidden due to scheduling, all subsequent containers have the content shown at full width (100%) even when set for site width. The only solution is not to use this feature.

I noticed two problems with the newly added news ticker element. The first is an improper aria attribute. There is no such thing as aria-role - it should just be role=” marquee”. Also, in Safari, there is a problem when a border radius is applied. As the text approached the title the border radius is removed and as the text disappears there is a flash of the text before it restarts. This can be seen on https://awb4wp.com. This does not impact Chromium-based browsers or Firefox.

When using the accordion element with long content, the screen does not jump to the top of the active panel and set focus. This is especially problematic on mobile and represents a possible accessibility issue. I am assuming it is the same issue on tabs in the mobile view but have not tested it. The ideal behavior can be seen on the US Web Design System site - https://designsystem.digital.gov/components/accordion/.

When using the off-canvas features there needs to be a focus trap so that hitting the tab key stays within the confines of the active canvas (modal). https://uxdesign.cc/how-to-trap-focus-inside-modal-to-make-it-ada-compliant-6a50f9a70700

Inactive tabs within the tab element are assigned a tabindex of -1 making them inaccessible to users that rely on the keyboard to navigate the page.

When writing custom CSS at the page level, the content is rewritten on save. This happens when trying to add a unicode character which requires a backslash to be rendered correctly.

.title ::after{
content:'\f105';
}

becomes

.title ::after{
content:'f105';
}

This does not happen in the global CSS, just the page level. I have tested on two sites - one with a variety of plugins and one with no plugins other than Avada - the results are the same.

This is a bug in my opinion (at least the labeling), but probably needs to be a feature request. There is no way to style the text of a person element. The setting in the global options titled "Person Style Color" only applies to the image even though the helper text states "Controls the style color for all style types except border."

This is a very strange bug and only impacts posts created with Gutenberg. Using post cards to display related posts, an empty paragraph <p></p> is injected before each <li>. When using an accessibility scanner, you will get an error showing Lists do not contain only <li> elements and script supporting elements.

When a new post is added, the query loop in the post cards does not get updated until the post cards are edited. This appears to be some type of caching issue but started with 7.7. Fixed with 7.8 release.

With the release of 7.7, the post cards behavior changed. The column count field is now being filled with the number 4 breaking single columns layouts that used the empty default.

Per the Theme Fusion team, this was a change made by the developers and is the new, expected behavior.

I am not entirely sure if this was an intended feature, but in the typography heading settings, if you put a clamp function in the font size, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. This seems to be different between sites and there doesn't seem to be a reason why it would work in one and fail in another. It also may work in an h2, but not the h1. Since this is a valid CSS unit, it should work. It does seem to do better if you create a custom typography setting and then apply its size to the heading level, but that seems like a lot of custom settings and unnecessary variables for just a font size.

If you change your default page template to 100% and create a new page, the option to set the interior content to 100% width is not available in the live editor. It is available in the backend. Everything works as expected if you leave as the default (site width) and switch it manually. Fixed in 7.8.1

The custom CSS interface is unusable when using the dark mode because the coding theme doesn't change to a brighter color. Fixed in 7.8.1

The new position sticky does not work correctly on mobile. If enabled on mobile, it acts like position absolute and travels the height of the container and if it is disabled, the offset is not removed and it acts like a top margin with the content overlapping the adjacent column.

Offset issue resolved 7.8.1. Mobile does not work like sticky should (per the spec), but apparently, it is the way Avada does it.

When using the new sticky column setting, the overflow options are changed when using Safari, and this renders menus with dropdowns unusable. In the link provided, the menu at the top works as expected because it has position absolute applied. The menu in the title bar doesn't work. In the Facebook group, I posted a video that demonstrates the difference between a page without a sticky column and a page with one. https://www.facebook.com/602107197/videos/1496737017491785/

YouTube element is not visible when margins are added. When you add a margin, the generated code has a typo - a missing semicolon between width:100% and the margin values. Fixed in 7.8.1.

New Post Cards filter's outer div has an aria role of menubar, but this should be applied to the ul. Accessibility scanners are picking this up as an error. https://www.digitala11y.com/menubar-role/

When creating a post card with nested columns, if one of the columns is set to "auto" width, the live builder will throw an error when you try to edit and will not allow you to render the post card in the post cards element when working on a page. I have tested this in three different environments, and they all throw an error. You can work in the backend editor, and everything is working as expected.

Since 7.8.2 (maybe sooner), the connection to Instagram has repeatedly failed. Numerous folks are reporting the same behavior in the Facebook group. Update: this has been confirmed, but it is not an issue that the Avada team can fix --- API issue.

When using Lighthouse to inspect a site using the filter options, it is giving the following accessibility error:

Elements with an ARIA [role] that require children to contain a specific [role] are missing some or all of those required children.

I believe this is because you have both role="menubar" and role="menu" and only one of these is needed as both require menuitem as children - menu is not a valid child of menubar. I also think the role menuitem belongs on the link (<a>) and not the list item (<li>). Reference: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility/ARIA/Roles/menu_role.
UPDATE: Team confirmed. Fix released in 7.9.

When adding a background image, it appears Avada is placing a placeholder image into the container (not sure why). This image does not have an empty alt (alt=""), so accessibility scanners are detecting a violation. I added CSS to hide the image by class (img. fusion-empty-dims-img-placeholder) with no impact on the design, so I am not entirely sure why it is there. Please add an empty alt if the placeholder is required.

After updating to 7.9, menu descriptions are no longer visible in submenu items. Resolved in 7.9.1 release.

Any attempt to change the h2 styling in elements that allow a choice of headings (tabs, toggles, etc.) does not work.

This is resolved in the first 7.9 patch

Not sure if this is a bug or a feature request, but there needs to be a way to change the default behavior of tabs in the new megamenu builder. With a click-activated submenu (required for accessibility), when you click on a tab, the submenu closes. Updated in 7.10.

Font search not returning Google Fonts if an Adobe Font ID is present.

In a footer layout, if the parallax feature is enabled, it overrides the z-index settings (resets the z-index to 2 or 10) in the header layout, breaking layouts that use a dropdown menu. The z-index setting in the header elements has no impact, and custom CSS with !important is required. Resolved in 7.10

When using Gutenberg for content within an Avada website, if you add a paragraph block that includes brackets <p>[some text]</p> the <p></p> the is stripped off, leaving only the bracketed text [some text]. I have tested this in plain Gutenberg and another block-based theme, and this does not happen. In the legacy editor, you had to escape the bracketed text using double brackets [[]] so that it would not be interpreted as a shortcode. This approach does not work.

• Add Column HTML Tag selector like the container feature. We should be able to select at least div, article, and aside for semantic correctness. A container is almost never an aside since it cannot be aside other containers. (Released in 7.7)
• We really need the ability to have sticky content within a column. Whether this is a menu, text element, a nested column, etc., to have the content stick in long-form content for desktop and tablet-centric websites is a must-have.

There needs to be a way to set the page builder to use the 100% layout by default. This would also fix some issues with layouts if you drop use a content element in a page. 

For dynamic data please add conditional statements for the before and after text. If the dynamic data is blank show before and show after options (yes/no) should be available.

Please consider adding an option to include first and last as well as a layout similar to the US Web Design System. https://designsystem.digital.gov/components/pagination/

As part of the update for performance and to improve privacy, please provide the ability to turn off Google fonts completely and use system fonts. System fonts are not the options currently available. Reference https://systemfontstack.com/.  There should be the ability to choose either the sans stack (default for most) and the serif stack. Possibly use the mono stack for code. 

Ideally, in the typography section, there should be an option for "Use only system fonts" that disables Google and the custom section, but the ability to add weights and other styling needs to remain.

As you are looking to streamline and improve performance, I would like to recommend revamping the animation capabilities. The AOS library appears to be pretty popular and performant. Related, it would be nice to be able to set the trigger based on the position of the element before or after the target element. This is done in other builders and it helps produce a better result.

I think a new university, newspaper, or intranet demo would be great as these have a lot of content that is usually divided and subdivided. Regardless, in the next demo website please create complex menus (dropdown with multiple levels and mega menus) that force you to fix the problems in the menu element in custom headers. The layout is painful and the mobile menu is horrendous compared to the default menu system.

• Please add font setting to all text-based elements (e.g., meta, breadcrumbs, tabs, accordions, etc.) as the body font should not dictate the font styling in all cases. (Implemented)
• Add additional global typography controls specific to the content areas of pages and posts.  This should allow a unique font family, size, letter spacing, URL text decoration (should not cascade to other elements such buttons in a content area). (Implemented)
• Add capabilities to use font services – typekit, typography.com, and the sub-setting of google fonts (not added yet)
• Add text styling controls for mega menu headers (Implemented)
• Remove any inline font styling that cannot be overwritten with custom css.

Please add reading time and word count to the meta elements. I am still having to use a separate plugin.

Please add the order field (flexbox attribute) to columns in the desktop and not just tablet and phone responsive design mode. This is an important addition for accessibility.

The background image settings for a container/column do not give us the ability to change the background size and it is assumed we always want “cover” – this is not the case. We need the ability to set the background size (cover, contain, custom size). Also, because of the way the background image is applied, there is no way to target it with custom CSS. This requires manually coding everything about the background if we need something different.

This is a request to consider adding the capability to have posts that show in the Related Post list based on tags, categories, or both. Currently, it is only category based which is very limiting for organizations that want minimal categories. In our case, we use categories as sections (Healthcare, IT News, Technology). In many cases we have posts that we only want to appear in one section, however may be related by tags.

One of the powerful features of WordPress is the idea of creating a navigation menu and being able to use it in multiple places. Avada extends this usefulness with the horizontal and vertical navigation widgets, but unfortunately, the Avada Options for menus is not available anywhere except the header. Please enable the header behavior everywhere. Please make sure if a user chooses icon only, that either the label or title is mandatory. If the former it should be added as <span class=”sr-only”>{label text}</span>  to ensure WCAG compliance.

Now that Font Awesome is deprecating the CDN, please update the Font Awesome feature to be able to use kits (kit id).

1. Please consider adding the ability to set the font, heading level and font size of the title and excerpt in all feed based elements (blog, recent posts, events, etc). In many cases the default structure breaks the document structure (h2 when it should be an h3) and the global heading and body sizes are not often appropriate for a feed. This would eliminate the need to write additional CSS.
2. Please consider a shift to a flexbox and grid based model. In most cases these are supported byIE 11 and almost every other modern browser. The inability to create cards, flexible navigation and modern layouts is going to force people to move away from Avada sooner rather than later.
3. Lastly, is there any plan to extend or update jquery, or move away from it completely? At a minimum Avada should be running the latest version.

As much as I like the section separators in Avada, they can be huge and very limited in feature options. Please create a capability similar to the section separator controls in Divi - https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/divi-resources/how-to-recreate-elegant-themes-section-divider-examples-with-divi. This feature alone almost made a customer switch – lack of WCAG compliance in Divi saved the day.

As much as I like the section separators in Avada, they can be huge and very limited in feature options. Please create a capability similar to the section separator controls in Divi - https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/divi-resources/how-to-recreate-elegant-themes-section-divider-examples-with-divi. This feature alone almost made a customer switch – lack of WCAG compliance in Divi saved the day.

Sub-menus and mega menus do not inherit the typography settings of the menu options which can create some challenges when the menus and body typography are very different (sans serif and serif). Please consider adding typography controls for the mega menu and standard sub-menu items, or at a minimum inherit the menu settings.

I submitted these in a single feature request

• Please add the ability to change the "load more" button text when selecting this as the pagination alternative.
• Please add the ability to apply padding, margins, and borders as a single setting AND the ability to do each side individually as it is now.
• When using a custom header and menu with the drop-down or megamenu click enabled, allow the menu to collapse when clicking anywhere outside the menu. This appears to be the preferred WCAG behavior - https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-practices/examples/disclosure/disclosure-navigation.html (implemented in 7.9.2)

Please move the color naming field in the new global colors ahead of the color picker. This should help the flow. I have already found myself entering the name in the color field multiple times. Implemented in 7.7.

Please separate the styling of the icon box from the text. There should be a normal, hover, and active state, Add the ability to change the border radius of the panel and the icon box in the accordion.

I love the new global typography and color features, but it is really inconvenient if you need to add a new value and cannot move it to the right position in your listing. Please consider adding a handle that would allow you to drag values up and down the list. It would not need to reassign the variable name (maybe that could also be a user option), but it would have to track the sequence in the settings.

Please add the option to choose the post type in the related fields loop. Currently, it is assumed that all related posts are the standard post type, but no ability to choose a custom post type.

Please add a text option for the off-canvas close button. I need to be able to use "Close + icon" for accessibility purposes.

Please update the custom CSS capabilities to use modern CSS syntax without showing errors. It would be terrific to have line numbering, SCSS support, and type ahead. I am now using Scripts Organizer from DPlugins and mirroring their CSS/SCSS support would be amazing.

Please add a table of contents element. This has been a growing need based on the post in the Facebook group and helps with SEO. The Kadence Blocks for Gutenberg have the settings that would be needed for proper implementation.

As part of the optimization process, it would be nice to have the ability to turn off Avada image generation completely as well as the various sizes in the performance settings. I realize some of this can be done with code, but it would be better as a setting.

It would be really a nice feature to have post cards launch an off-canvas element that is populated with the post content. The off-canvas element should only need to be created once in the same way we build layouts, but with a destroy function to clear the content on close so that it is available to load content from the next selection. This would be extremely useful for team member biographies, custom post types, or product details.

The Blocksy theme has a really nice feature that allows an admin to see the hooks and hook locations for the theme. Additionally, each hook has an edit function that allows the user to begin editing that hook within the editor.  I would like to request a similar capability with Avada.

When creating a content section layout, the content element is governed by the parent container and it is not possible to add page contents that are 100% wide in one container and the site width in another. What we really need is the option to add a content container that has no settings or styling options that simply loads the content of the page. This would allow us to create content layout templates with all of the power of the page builder within the page.

Separate the privacy settings for Font Awesome and Google Fonts to allow the local/CDN setting to be independent.

Right now there is no way to set the inner content of an off-canvas container to 100%. This can be a roadblock to adding panels at the top and bottom.

For the carousel post cards, add the ability to move the controls above or below and right or left. Similar to the related posts found on the WWII Museum website (responsive medium and small) - example https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/great-patriotic-war-russia-invasion-ukraine

Please add a special menu item - dynamic text - that can be used to show a title or other value. Also, this element must have the option to turn off the link. My use case is to create a menu that looks like a breadcrumb. I have versions on this website, but there is a much better example on https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/research-veteran/wwii-research-services/terms-conditions.

Make all event calendar fields available in the post card builder or provide a tutorial on how to pull in the data. I can create duplicative custom fields, but that is not ideal.

When using a box layout, add a settings to set the box width apart from the page width. Example- setting the box to have a max-width of 2000px and the page to be 1400px. Concept in practice https://www.nationalww2museum.org/. I have done it with Avada but it requires the use of a customized container.

Please add support for Adobe fonts. Using their api token system would be the ideal solution.

Please add font weight options as these typically have more than just the 400 and 700 weights available.

Please add "Additional Attributes" to the image element - like buttons. I often need to use aria-labelledby="" for images and this does not appear to be possible for the image element. In fact, almost every element should have to ability to add aria-, role, and data- attribute values.

Back in December, I submitted a feature request to include a post type selector for related posts since the query loop only chooses from the default post type. Related to this would be the ability to pull data into a post cards loop based on a custom value set on the post/page. Here is my scenario:

I am building a biography layout (which could be either page, post, or custom post type) and I need the ability to use three or four different post card features using distinctive post types - articles, events, speeches, or others. These need to pull data based on the person or other value - likely a custom field or fields common in each of the related post types.

Allow all settings fields that create CSS values to accept a CSS variable. This includes the global colors and typography setting (font size and font weight). Ideally, it would require var(--my-value) as the indicator that this is a variable reference. After experimenting, I found that this is already a possibility to a certain extent.

Please provide state design settings for the various states for links, menus, buttons, etc --- :active, :hover, and :visited. I think every other builder does this because the active and hover often need to be different. The current method used in Avada makes it impossible (as far as I can tell) to target these with custom CSS because hover and active use the same . I know this was probably by design but it is a bug if the user can't change it.

The image caption option is useful but please add the ability to pick whether to show the media library title, caption, or both, or custom text.

In the post loop filters (blog, post cards, etc.) please add the ability to select additional criteria.

Example 1 - the ability to select posts by a category and with certain tags. Or posts in a category and exclude one with a tag

Example 2 - add a date range.

Social network element needs the ability to stack, sequence, and custom networks to be named and have the ability to be added individually (not all custom apply in all cases).

Please modify view counting to exclude selected roles. Maybe this should be added to the branding plugin, but should at least exclude admins and editors when they are logged in.

Having just seen this video on the Advanced Query Builder from Cwicly (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRS5V34NwvU), I am requesting the same functionality from Avada. This would take Avada to the next level.

Please consider adding a static fade transition for flip boxes so that it is merely a hover box or possibly a new element. On the JetEngine page "Explore Dynamic Features" is an example. https://crocoblock.com/plugins/jetengine/.

For the event post cards, please add the ability only to show past events. It would be very useful to be able to do something like this https://digital.gov/events/

Three Feature Requests:

• Toggles - Please add the ability to set the default icons in the toggle element. Also, add the same content area settings that were added to the tabs element.
• Post Card Filters - Move the design setting for the filter to a new tab when enabled. Add spacing settings.
• Post cards - For the parent div, add padding, background color, border and border-radius

Please add total views and views today to the post cards Order By options.

Add the ability to set the width and coloring options of the dropdown search separate from the dropdown controls

The max-width setting of the dropdown menu settings is wrong. It sets the width of the dropdown, not max-width, and adds an !important flag, making it impossible to change the width of the search dropdown. It also doesn't force the text to wrap but overflows the dropdown if the text is too long.

An addon for Bricks Builder added a dynamic lightbox feature - https://youtu.be/cFnf5ejym6o. Please add it to Avada

Please update Avada to use Font Awesome 6+. icons (All styles) and add support for the Font Awesome 6 svg script (has a conflict with off-canvas close).

Post cards either need the ability to work like a container with a multi-column layout, or nested columns need to be extended to allow nested columns inside of nested columns, or do away with this restricted concept and allow unlimited columns similar to newer products (Bricks, Cwicly, GeneratePress, breakdance, etc.). The latter would solve several problems, from the nested column limitation to building complex layouts within a tab or accordion element.

Please add the ability to either sort library elements alphabetically or make this the default. Currently, any element I save is stored either in date sequence or id (not sure).

This is a documentation request first and foremost. There needs to be a CSS reference for all the containers, divs, elements, and common classes used to allow developers (and general users) to easily figure out how to override styles when the options are not available in the settings.

As an enhancement to the builder, it would be nice if there was a way, in the live editor (rendered content), to right-click and get the option to copy CSS and then paste CSS either to another element or into the custom CSS areas (page or global), or both elements and CSS area.

Remove the abbr tag from the required form field indication (* asterisk). The required fields already use the correct syntax to be accessible (required aria-required). Alternatively, please add styling to get rid of the default browser styling of abbr (abbr.fusion-form-element-required).

Create a way to inject various post card designs into a single query loop based on taxonomy or other variables. GeneratePress has a way to do this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8byA37OTBRg), and this would be a really nice feature in Avada

Please add the ability for background position to be based on a custom field or a Fusion page setting in a layout. Not all images are created equal, and the ability to position them at the post level or based on a custom field value would be very helpful.

Please add paragraph (<p>) to the available options in the HTML heading size in the title element. This would allow for semantically correct, linkable text using dynamic values. Generate Blocks and Kadence both offer a similar feature --- headline block and advanced heading block, respectively. Implemented in 7.9.

Please add min-height and flex controls to the nested column row. CSS is required to have a 1/2 column set to justify-content:end and to set the minimum height of the column.

Please consider adding a URL option for the image element and logo fields. In our multisite, multi-theme environment, we do not need every site to have a copy of the same core images. This is especially true for branding images and certain stock elements.

I know there is a plan to extend dynamic data, but if they are not on the list, please add custom field support for video and audio elements.

Please add title and title styling options to the new Table of Contents element. Not all pages or posts will always have headings that require a TOC, but since a normal title element isn't connected to the element, there is no way to have it not render if there is no TOC. This limits its usage in custom layouts. For advanced users adding a custom field and rendering logic could be used, but not really convenient.

UPDATE: Support stated this was by design. New conditional formatting (heading tag count) will likely resolve this for most people.

Please add the ability to use a different taxonomy for the Post Card filters. My scenario: I have a custom post type called Document with a primary category of Library, which determines where the documents should live. Then I have a secondary taxonomy (document category) for the library section where you would find this item.  Using the current features, I can only choose one or the other and this makes the filters useless (Library) or allows content from another library to be included (document category). The ability to choose which taxonomy drives the filters should allow for the correct layout. Using a post type of document, pull all the documents in a given library, and filter by the document categories.

Please add a tab builder and an accordion (toggle) builder capability. I would like to be able to create an accordion similar to the ones found on https://digital.gov/resources/required-web-content-and-links/.

Please extend the sorting function of the post cards to include custom fields.

Please add responsive settings to the flexbox controls. The ability to change alignment, gap, and direction based on screen size would be extremely helpful.

This is a bug, in my opinion, but it may need to be categorized as a feature request. For accessibility, landmarks and in particular nav elements need to be named so those using assistive technology can tell the difference between menu items. Currently, all nav elements have an aria-label of "menu" which is not helpful. I recommend adding a feature to name the menu element under the general tab for the greatest flexibility or at least the menu name in WordPress.

On the table of contents element, add borders and active borders so that an active heading can highlight just the border. Similar to the one seen here - https://quicklanenorth.com/how-often-should-you-change-your-tires-tire-maintenance-tips/.

Please update the Accordion element so the background colors are split out for panel heading and panel content, and add the option for a different state color (normal, hover and focus, and active). Emulate the settings of the new GerateBlocks accordion block.

Please add the ability to change the heading level on post card design within the post cards element or add an option to have it automatically assigned based on the page it is loaded in. The latter is a feature of wpGridBuilder. This would eliminate the need to create duplicate cards just to assign a different heading level.

Group and move all the spacing features (margin, padding) to a consistent location in all elements

Please consider creating a facet system like wpGridBuilder or create a native integration with wpgridBuilders facet system that allows for using the themes query loop - https://docs.wpgridbuilder.com/resources/guide-filter-custom-queries/.

Please add support for all the ACF field types to include a repeater. Almost all modern builders and block tools support this.

Please add date parameters to the conditional rendering logic. My scenario: I am required to maintain all posts and pages, and I need to be able to show a column and notice if the page or post has a published date over 3 years old.

Please add support for Comment Edit (lite and Pro) or add similar functionality.

Please update the breadcrumbs to be accessible using the nav markup, ordered list, and aria- settings as outlined on the W3 website https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/patterns/breadcrumb/examples/breadcrumb/

When using the breadcrumb element, add a feature to allow the starting point to be chosen - website home or parent page. This would be tremendously helpful when building stand-alone sections within a website.