Divi Essential Is A Useful and Time Saving Plugin

I just got my license for Divi Essential by Divi Next, and it may be my new favorite go to Divi plugin. (yes, I still love Divi Booster and recommend everyone get it).

Sure, you could manually do most of the things Divi Essential offers, but not with the speed and lack of hair pulling that this terrific plugin offers.  Divi Essential is a set of modules that makes using Divi, not only easier, but better.

As of the time I’m writing this, 64 modules are included in the Divi Essential pack, however there are a few that are listed as coming soon. So by the time you read it there probably will be more.

Some modules I will never use, but some I cannot imagine never not using.  My favorites are Next Logo Carousal, which to be honest within an hour of trying out the plugin I was logging in to my advertising / pr agency website and using it to display some of my client logos (luckily, I have the Divi Essential license that allows me to use the plugin on multiple sites).

Another favorite is Team Social Reveal, which I can’t wait to use on a new client website to showcase their employees with social media contact info.  You can stylize it like it’s a standard blurb with employee information, but when the user mouses over the info the social media contact information is revealed underneath.  See my example below. (but you should picture it with your much better looking employees.)  Right above the bio you will see a fun little module called Next Text Glitch.  It’s another really cool effect from the plugin that when not overused can add some excitement to a website.

Divi Business Hour is a terrific module for displaying business operating hours in a grid.  No more having to insert tables into a webpage, because this easy to use module does it for you. And another module in the same vain is the Divi Price List, which makes doing restaurant menus in Divi and WordPress a breeze.

Another tool I really like is the Next Text Animation. Again, you can do this in Divi, but it’s soooooo much easier to do with the Divi Essential plugin.  I love using the effect in restaurant menus for the section titles … such as Lunch or maybe something more specific like Salads. It adds a little bit of flair that is reminiscent of the good ol’ Flash days.

The Next Button offers some really cool looking button effects.  I added one to the button on this page.  When I have time, I will start going through this website and changing out the buttons to use the cool effects from the Divi Essential Plugin from Divi Next.

And installing Divi Essential was really timely for me too.  Because just last night a client emailed me wanting to announce voting was now open on their website.  In part, she wrote: “…then put it somewhere at the top of the page and illuminate it with flashing and or a vibrant color so you can’t miss it.”  Well, luckily Divi Essential had me covered, as I just used the Text Color Motion module and then had to figure out if I should bill the client for the 5 minutes it took, or the 1/2 hour it could’ve taken had I not had the plugin.

Since I originally wrote this article, I have used the Text Color Motion module on the home page of DiviDude.com to add a little flair.  I did a little bit of custom CSS to reverse the direction of the animation as I feel since we read from left to right in the USA where I’m based it should animate in that direction. But that’s just my preference.

In addition to the button on this page, I used the Blurb Module to create the modules on the Helpful Divi Plugins page on for this website.  I also redid the blurb modules on the home page using Divi Essential. But I kept those pretty simple, not nearly as fun as the ones on the plugins page.

Another module that I added to my agency website is the Divi Twitter Timeline.  I had embedded the Twitter timeline into my page using another method, but it was difficult to control the number of Tweets that would display and the space it took up on my site.  Divi Essential’s Divi Twitter Timeline allowed me to control the number of Tweets and how much space it takes, and a few other custom settings.  My site looks much better now.

Here’s an example of using the Twitter module displaying just one Tweet. (I don’t do a lot of Tweeting … which is why you should follow Divi Dude on Twitter.) And yes, Divi Essential has a module for that too. It’s below the Twitter embed and it’s called Next Twitter Follow Button.

These are just a few of the modules offered, but there are many, many more.  Like I wrote above, at the time of this writing, there are 64 of them.  You can see them all on the Divi Next website.  After I finish writing this article, I am building a website for an actress / model friend of mine and I already have ideas of how to use many of these modules to really bring that website to life.

And before I forget, when you click on the link above (I’ll make it easy, this one), and then you click on the module example, Divi Next has included json files for many of their modules (not all) with the settings used for the example.  So you can recreate what you see and then play with the settings to your liking.

If you only have one website, then you’ll want to do the single license, if you are a designer then you’ll either want the unlimited or lifetime (if you make a living designing websites, you’ll want the lifetime.  Fun fact: If you do this stuff for a living, you always want the lifetime licenses, spend a little money upfront to save money in the long run.).

The price at the time of this posting is $49 – $199 depending on license.

And just for fun, let’s finish this review using one more module: Next Text Highlight.