Oxygen Builder 6.0: UX Issues, Bugs, Workflow Constraints, Usability, Improvements Wishlist [ Video: 23.00]

Also published on YouTube.

Hey everyone, welcome back to another Oxygen Builder 6.0 video. So in this one, I thought it would be useful to share with you my recent experience I’ve had with the new Oxygen now that I’ve been toying around with it for a few more days. I want to highlight some issues that I’ve found with regards to the UX, as well as bugs, workflow constraints, and lack of customizability of some elements. This is not a video bashing Oxygen Builder 6.0, but things I think could and should be improved upon.

So, once again, guys, I’ve spent the past few days really trying to figure out Oxygen Builder 6, and for the most part, I still find the UI pleasing. It works for me, though, I cannot speak for anyone else, we all work differently.

That said, there are certainly some things that need addressing which I’ll talk about shortly.

You may continue this post by watching the video below –

For the team at Oxygen, once again, I want to say thank you for giving us Oxygen 6 and the opportunity to continue this journey, and I’m very much looking forward to some updates coming hopefully soon, I know it’s early days yet but there it is.

Some of the bugs I’ve encountered are what I’d consider critical—not in a catastrophic way, like the builder crashing entirely, but in terms of usability. These need fixing fast. Otherwise it’s going to be hard to try and build any meaningful website let alone create content using Oxygen And I really want dive in and start thinking about creating a framework, workflow, etc. But that is not possible until some of these bugs have been squashed.

I’d also love to hear if anyone else have experienced the issues I have with this version of Oxygen as they continue testing.

That said, no one should be using Oxygen 6 to build live websites! That’s a definite no, no. Testing only is what Oxygen 6 is currently good for, hence the name beta phase 1, and so we’ve been doing just that.

OK, so let’s get started.

Shameless plug… – By the way guys, if you want to get access to expert WordPress design tutorials, Oxygen and Bricks Builder mastery courses complete with class-based projects, code snippets, design sets, templates, check out my membership options over at Van Marciano Pro! I’m currently having a Spring Promotion where you can save 33% off your membership or lifetime member deal! Link is in the description of this video, let’s continue…

Potential Bugs I found

These are some of the potential bugs I’ve encountered. I say potential because for all I know they could be undocumented features! That’s meant to be a joke by the way. OK, so here we go –

So Breakdance Elements! As you may know, Oxygen 6 and Breakdance share the same builder engine, we can use breakdance elements inside of the new Oxygen. By the way, if you’re installing this for the first time, as I understand you don’t need to add any license keys or anything like that, it SHOULD work straight away, once installed.

But.. here’s the thing

1. Elements from the BD Elements Library has an issue where you cannot fully customize the design using the settings and options. For example, the heading element (Cannot modify font family, font-size) Unless I use some CSS, for instance, to change the font size. But this only works if I add an important tag. There must be some other CSS somewhere in the builder that is taking priority, that is my guess, but it’s not good. For now, though, it seems to be just the font size and font family. By the way, these can be successfully modified inside of the global settings.

   Next we have the button. Here we have a related issue with styling. We cannot change the background color, font weight, font size, etc. However, if we go into the global settings, we can modify everything we cannot do at the class level or inside of the editor if you like.

   I’ve not tested other elements from the BD library, but I imagine there will be a few in there with similar issues.

2. Header tags does not change. What I mean by this is, we have six headings from H1 to h6… However, if I navigate to Global Settings > Typography > Advanced > Headings… and change the font size for the H2… they all change! Strange. I beg the question to maybe someone with more web developer knowledge than me, am I doing something wrong?

So to summarize, I’m sure some of these issues will be fixed in the next updates, but I do hope they get fixed quickly so that we can continue exploring and testing Oxygen 6 further.

UX Issues

So next I want to highlight some UX issues. Now these are going to be personal preferences more than anything, but one or two definitely need some redefining.

1. Different UX for Spacing when you add a class. The UI for some tabs change completely. It’s very confusing. The same icon for different uses! Play icon, inspired by Webflow, for animations and the same icon for previewing. I would recommend removing this completely and adding a preview option in the drop-down arrow menu.
2. Font family preview. Font family doesn’t show preview of font-type in the drop down menu. This might not be an issue, but maybe it’s because I’m used to seeing it inside of Webflow.
3. Back key. Accidental deletion of elements or entire page structure if you hit the back button. Be careful. Luckily the undo and redo buttons work without a flaw.
4. Accessibility 1. Active class/token color too dark against the dark grey background.
5. Accessibility 2. Accordion name tab and styling indicators could be a different color for better accessibility? Personal preference. Let’s try and modify this inside of chrome tools as an example.

Feature improvements and additions I’d like to see

OK, so next I want to highlight a few feature improvements as well as additions I’d love to see in the next update. Again, these could be seen as personal preferences more than anything else but let me know what you think!

1. Structure panel icon – Moved to the right of the top bar.
2. Stylesheets – Better stylesheet management (Naming folders, code snippets, Emmet support, numbers etc) What we have currently is just not good at all. Since Oxygen 6 is leaning towards devs, these need to be included in the IDE.
3. Highlighting – Better highlighting (Active class/token, HTML tag, Accordion tabs)
4. Workflow – Breadcrumb navigation would be useful. Disable delete option using the keyboard back key!
5. Panels – Resizable left and right panels.
6. Better security control around code execution

These are just a few things, but I’m sure you guys can think of many more. Plus there’s a host of features that are missing that I’ve not talked about in this video. But there is not point going over these as I said in the previous video, I’m sure these will come in the future.

OK, that’s all I have for now, I’ll keep testing Oxygen 6. I’m really looking forward to updates in the coming weeks hopefully, hopefully sooner. Until the next video, take it easy and happy building.