# Visual Composer

## Intro

Thank you for purchasing Visual Composer WordPress plugin.

Visual Composer is very unique plugin, it will help you managing your content at the WordPress sites and create stunning layouts in few minutes without coding. Nowadays many websites have complex grid layouts with columns, tabs, sliders and etc. In the past, to create that type of layouts you should be HTML guru or Shortcodes operator ninja.

But not anymore! We have prepared a short video for you to get you up and running in no time. See yourself how easy it is to create and manage complex layouts combined with professionally designed plugins made easy!

## Support and Resources

In this section you will find list of useful resources related to Visual Composer WordPress plugin, including link to official support, CodeCanyon sales page and official website.

- Official website
- Official sales point on CodeCanyon
- Video Academy
- Official support
- Facebook page
- Twitter account

## Licensing

First of all, we would like to thank you for your interest in Visual Composer and we are happy that you are considering purchase of our amazing plugin or get detailed understanding about licensing terms. Here you will find all necessary information and resources related to licensing terms.

In the terms of licensing we rely on Envato marketplace and their copyright terms. At the moment Envato, so as WPBakery, offers 2 types of licenses:

1. Regular/Single license
2. Extended license

You can read more about licensing on CodeCanyon here: http://codecanyon.net/licenses

You may also be interested in such questions:

1. Can I include Visual Composer in my theme?
2. Can I include Visual Composer in my end-product?
3. Can I use Visual Composer on several WordPress sites (Multisite/Developers license)?
4. Can I get white label version of Visual Composer?

## Plugin Installation, Activation, Update and Content Types

### Plugin Installation

Visual Composer installation doesn't differ from any other plugin installation process, so you might be familiar with this process already. If not, please follow instructions below.

1. Login to your website
2. Go to Plugins -> Add New
3. Click Upload link
4. Browse to the plugin's zip file (it is located in the archive you've downloaded from CodeCanyon) and choose that file.
5. Click "Install Now" button
6. Wait while plugin is uploaded to your server
7. Click "Activate Plugin" button

Visit our Video Academy for detailed video tutorial on how to install Visual Composer.

### Activation

If you have bought Visual Composer directly from WPBakery it is necessary to activate your copy in order to have direct access to latest updates and official support page. In order to activate Visual Composer please follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings/Visual Composer/Product License
2. Fill in Envato username
3. Fill in Secret API key
4. Fill in Visual Composer license key
5. Press “Activate” button

Important: If you want to remove Visual Composer from your site for any reason, do not forget first of all deactivate your copy, so you can install it on another WordPress site of your choice.

Visit our Video Academy for detailed tutorial on how to activate your copy.

### Update

Starting from version 3.6.9 Visual Composer have auto update option. Visit Settings/Visual Composer/Product License and fill in required credentials. After that you will be able to use automatic WordPress updating mechanism. When new version of Visual Composer will be available, you should click "Update Visual Composer now" link under Visual Composer in WP Dashboard/Plugins page.

Please note: this will work only for users who purchased Visual Composer directly, if Visual Composer came integrated in your theme, then ask your theme provider to update Visual Composer for you or purchase license directly from us to get free automatic updates.

To update Visual Composer from older version, please follow this steps.

1. First, login to CodeCanyon and under your profile click Downloads link.
2. Re-download Visual Composer and extract it.
3. Now navigate to the Plugins menu in your WordPress admin area.
4. Deactivate Visual Composer, delete it.
5. Upload new version that downloaded few seconds earlier. Activate Visual Composer.

### Content type

Now you can go under Settings -> Visual Composer and choose either you want to use Visual Composer for pages, posts or both. Moreover, you can also use Visual Composer for custom posts too. Watch video on how to edit Visual Composer usage settings.

You may also be interested in such questions:

1. I keep getting this error: "The plugin does not have a valid header"
2. There's a new version of Visual Composer available, how can I get it and update it on my site?
3. When trying to update I receive message ‘Update Package not available’
4. Can I update Visual Composer if I have purchased it in the theme?
5. How to deactivate and reactivate license?
6. Where can I find my purchase code?

## Concept

After installing and enabling Visual Composer plugin you can start creating your layouts right away.

By default Visual Composer is active for Pages, in order to activate Visual Composer for posts please go to Settings/Visual Composer and choose either you want to use Visual Composer for pages, posts or both. Moreover, you can also use Visual Composer for custom posts too. Watch video on how to edit Visual Composer usage settings.

There's one concept/design pattern you should know - in the Visual Composer editor mode you'll have "Add element" button, which you should click or drag to the working canvas, to add content block or row to your page. If you are adding row element to your page pay attention that it will automatically add column element within row. You can later add more columns within row and change their behaviour. Read more about rows and columns in Elements section.

Clicking the "Add element" button will show the content element selection menu. Content blocks are divided into categories (Show all, Content, Social, Structure, WordPress Widgets, etc.).

Watch video on how to work with rows and columns.

You may also be interested in such questions:

1. Can I insert 3rd party shortcodes?

## Content Elements

This is a list of available content elements that can be placed on the working canvas or inside of the columns. Think of them as bricks. With those bricks you are building your layout. Most of the content elements have options to set them click pencil icon. To save changes click save button.

There are currently following content elements available:

1. Row
2. Text block
3. Separator (Divider)
4. Separator (Divider) with text
5. Message box
6. Facebook Like
7. Tweetmeme button
8. Google+ button
9. Pinterest button
10. FAQ (Toggle)
11. Single image
12. Image gallery
13. Image carousel
14. Tabs
15. Tour section
16. Accordion
17. Posts grid
18. Post Carousel
19. Posts slider
20. Widgetised sidebar
21. Button
22. Button 2.0
23. Call to action button
24. Call to action button 2.0
25. Video player
26. Google maps
27. Flickr widget
28. Raw HTML
29. Raw JS
30. Progress bar
31. Pie chart
32. Empty Space (since 4.3.0)
33. Custom Heading with Google Fonts (since 4.3.0)
34. + All default widgets that comes with WordPress

### 3rd Party Plugins Support

Occasionally Visual Composer is extended with support for popular third party plugins. Currently this third party plugins are supported:

1. Layer Slider
2. Revolution Slider
3. Contact Form 7
4. Gravity Form

After placing content element to the working canvas (page), click pencil icon to see options available for this particular shortcode (content element).

## Settings and Configuration

Settings and configuration of Visual Composer can be made in your WP Admin Panel - Settings/Visual Composer.

### General Settings

General Settings allows editing of general configuration:

1. Define content type for which Visual Composer is available. In order to use Visual Composer for specific content type be sure to have it checked in General Settings. See how to define types for which to use Visual Composer.
2. Define user groups access rules. If you want to restrict your users to access some of Visual Composer content elements you can do it under user groups access rules. See video on how to manage user groups access rules.
3. Disable or Enable responsive settings. Check this checkbox to prevent content elements from "stacking" one on top other (on small media screens, eg. mobile). See video on how to control responsiveness.
4. Control Google Fonts subsets. Choose which subsets you want to load for your Custom Heading Element. Take into account that each subset will have impact on page loading.

### Design Options

Design Options allows you to apply custom visual appearance to Visual Composer content elements and also control responsive width. By default content elements "stack" one on top other when screen size is smaller than 768px.

### Custom CSS

If you want to add some custom CSS code to the plugin and don't want to modify any files, then it's a good place to enter your code at this field.

## Templates

Templates allows you to save predefined sets of elements as a template and then reuse it when you'll need it next time. By using templates you will be able to save tons of time in case you need to create specific layout on and on - all you have to do is create your layout and save it, after that you will be able to reuse it whenever you need it. Read more about Template System of Visual Composer.

Starting from version 4.3.0 Visual Composer offer to quickly build your layout using predefined Custom Templates

To take full advantage from template system, we suggest to check awesome Templatera addon for Visual Composer. Templatera is template system on steroids. It allows you to place pre-build templates as an independent blocks on your pages. When you modify your template, all pages that use “Templatera” block will be populated with new content automatically. Awesome!

You may also be interested in such questions:

1. I have a layout that I created with Visual Composer and now I want to "clone" it for use on the other page/post, how can I do that?

## Visual Composer Add-ons

Visual Composer offers 50+ premium class add-ons developed by Visual Composer team and 3rd party developers covering large scale of necessary functionalities which you may integrate into your WordPress site.

Important: In order to add Visual Composer add-on you required to have original Visual Composer installed.

At the moment there are following add-ons available to Visual Composer users:

1. Templatera – Template Manager for Visual Composer
2. Easy Tables – Table Manager for Visual Composer
3. View Full List of Add-ons

If you are a developer and looking for a way to create your own add-on then hooray! You can extend Visual Composer by developing your own add-ons - read more about our add-on development policy.

## Theme Integration

Looking for a way to make your WordPress theme top seller? A lot of theme authors has already included Visual Composer into their WordPress themes so can you. If you are theme author and looking for a way to integrate Visual Composer into your theme, please take a look at this theme integration example page.

Wondering about licensing? You require to have one "extended license" and apply for transform it into "In-Stock" license for each single item you place on ThemeForest. Find out more about licenses and terms for theme authors.

## For Developers/Extend Visual Composer

### For Developers

In order to support 3rd party developers and expand borders of Visual Composer we had developed our unique inner API which can be used by 3rd party developers. In this section you can find pages that are posted under the Visual Composer developer category.

Please visit "Visual Composer for Developers".

### Extend Visual Composer

If you are looking in to this section - that means you want to extend Visual Composer plugin and use its UI to control your own set of shortcodes. Starting from version 3.5 Visual Composer can be easily extended with 3rd party plugins or themes. Read more advanced stuff here. Please note that this is something that requires PHP knowledge and you should be confident in what you do, errors can break the plugin.

Please visit “Extend Visual Composer”.

You may also be interested in such questions:

1. Can I insert 3rd party shortcodes?

## FAQ

Here you can find answers to the Frequently Asked Question about Visual Composer.

1. I keep getting this error: "The plugin does not have a valid header"
2. There's a new version of Visual Composer available, how can I get it and update it on my site?
3. When trying to update I receive message ‘Update Package not available’
4. Can I update Visual Composer if I have purchased it in the theme?
5. Can I insert 3rd party shortcodes?
6. How to deactivate and reactivate license?
7. How to reduce vertical space between rows?
8. How to manage CSS with Visual Composer?
9. I have a layout that I created with Visual Composer and now I want to "clone" it for use on the other page/post, how can I do that?
10. Can I add my own shortcodes sets?
11. After clicking Visual Composer button I see spinning icon for indefinite time...
12. I'm trying to install Visual Composer, but WordPress is saying "The package could not be installed. No valid plugins were found."
13. Content is not saved after the post/page update
14. Call to undefined method WP_Error::resize()
15. WP Admin menu looks bad (distorted)
16. How to insert Google Maps?
17. I can not use Visual Composer on Posts and Custom Posts
18. Can I include Visual Composer in my theme?
19. Can I include Visual Composer in my end-product?
20. Can I use Visual Composer on several WordPress sites (Multisite/Developers license)?
21. Can I get white label version of Visual Composer?
22. Where can I find my purchase code?

If you have any questions which are not covered in this FAQ sections, please review other chapters of knowledge base by using Table of Content or use our official support system at support.wpbakery.com

## Outro

Thank you for your purchase. If you have any questions that are beyond the scope of this help file, please use our Support system to open support ticket.

Michael, WPBakery

Don't be shy - join us on Facebook. WPbakery website · Portfolio · Twitter @wpbakery

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