Hey there! Mike here from Ollie. Thanks for your interest in trying out v1 of Ollie Pro! I’ve put together a few resources to help you test out Ollie Pro and see what you think of it. Below, you’ll find a rundown of the key features to look at, and an InstaWP template where you can test everything in a live environment.
I’ve also created a video walkthrough where I briefly show off some of the highlights of the Ollie Pro pattern library and what to look for while testing.
Create your Ollie Pro test site
To help you get started quickly, we’ve created a pre-made WordPress site with the Ollie block theme and the Ollie Pro plugin. Simply click the button below to generate your own website for testing.
Create your Ollie Pro test site
Your website will last 7 days from when you create it.
About Ollie Pro
The initial launch of Ollie Pro focuses heavily on patterns. Patterns are an incredibly powerful tool for building out beautiful WordPress websites. So we built a ton of them.
Patterns save you a ton of time in the editor, they’re easy to customize, and with Ollie, they’re fully responsive out of the box. Plus, with upcoming features like “partially synced patterns,” they become a critical asset for every modern WordPress creator.
We’ve designed an extensive library of hundreds of beautifully-crafted WordPress patterns that can be browsed with our powerful and intuitive Ollie Pattern Library block.
Ollie Pattern Library Block
Our pattern library interface let’s you easily browse our pattern collections, sort and filter patterns, copy patterns, add them to your page, and more.
All of the Ollie Pro patterns are stored in our cloud library, so they are remotely loaded to save you valuable disk space. This also means that we can update the pattern library with new patterns without needing a plugin update.
To browse the pattern library, add the Ollie Pattern Library block to your post or page. You can find it in the block inserter, or, on a new line, type /ollie to bring up the block and hit enter to add it to the page. Click the Open Ollie Pattern Library button to launch the pattern library modal.
The Ollie pattern library interface
We’ve designed the Ollie Pro pattern library with WordPress UI components so that the design feels familiar to the WordPress pattern interface. On the left side of the library, you’ll see links to navigate pattern collections and pattern categories.
On the right side of the library is a grid of patterns. Using the action bar at the top, you can change the column view (to 2, 3, or 4 columns), filter and sort the patterns, search, and bulk edit.
Each pattern in the grid also has an action menu where you can view the pattern, insert the pattern into the current page, download the pattern to your theme, and add it to your favorites.
Clicking into any pattern takes you to a full live view of the pattern. The sidebar shows you pattern details, pattern actions, and related pattern categories. You can also change the viewing area to preview the pattern on desktop, tablet, and mobile views.
Pattern Collections
Ollie Pro ships with three pattern collections — Creator, Startup, and Studio. Collections are sets of patterns that are all designed with the same aesthetic, font style, spacing presets, colors, etc. Pattern collections have full page designs, as well as individual patterns that can be used to create unique designs.
Each collection uses a different style variation from the Ollie theme to define its typography, spacing, and colors. So if you wanted your site to look like the Startup collection, you’d want to switch to that style variation. To change the style variations on your site, you can go to Appearance → Editor → Styles and choose the matching variation.
Even though patterns are assigned to specific collections, you can mix and match patterns from different collections. For example, you could add patterns from both the Startup and Studio collection to your page, and they would both take on the same styles (because of the style variation) and work together harmoniously.
Page templates
When building full page layouts with patterns, you need a page template that will allow the patterns to stretch the full width of the page. Ollie includes a page template called Page (Full Width, No Title). This will allow the patterns to stretch the full width of the page and also remove the page title from the top of the page so patterns can fill the vertical length of the page as well.
How to test
To get the full experience, we suggest creating a new page, applying the Full Width, No Title page template, adding the Ollie Pattern Library block, and start building out a page design using Ollie Pro patterns. Your beta testing site will include a page called Ollie Pro Beta Testing with the template already applied.
For this beta, we’re looking for feedback around the pattern library experience.
- Are you experiencing any bugs or quirks when browsing or working with the pattern modal?
- Is there any part of the flow that could be improved for your workflow?
- Are there any key features missing? Or features that are getting in the way?
Send us feedback, please!
After you’ve had some time to play with Ollie Pro, we’d love to hear your thoughts. You can use the form below to send feedback as a quick note. Any and all feedback is helpful, no matter how brief.