Toolset Layouts

Toolset Layouts – Legacy WordPress Layout Builder

There was a time when visual page builders for WordPress were few and far between. Toolset Layouts, once a pioneering solution, made it possible to design truly custom website structures without needing to touch a line of code or wrangle with shortcodes.

If you built client sites, dynamic membership platforms, or custom WooCommerce shops before the Gutenberg revolution, there’s a good chance you leaned on Layouts for its rock-solid grid system and deep integration with custom post types and fields.

Today, Toolset Layouts is officially retired. While you won’t see new features, major bug fixes, or compatibility promises with the latest versions of WordPress and PHP, it still stands as a remarkable piece of WordPress history. For legacy projects, or for anyone running sites built before the era of full-site editing, it remains a practical, flexible tool and on DevTools Club, it’s now completely free for all registered users.

What Was Toolset Layouts All About?

At its core, Toolset Layouts gave WordPress users a visual drag-and-drop grid builder. Instead of wrestling with page templates, widget areas, and unpredictable theme code, you could lay out your site’s structure on an easy-to-use canvas.

Want a three-column landing page with a slider, testimonial box, and dynamic content pulled from custom fields? You could build that in minutes. Layouts didn’t just place static blocks it connected deeply with Toolset Types, Views, and Forms, letting you create dynamic, data-driven pages.

One of its biggest draws was the way it worked with your theme, not against it. Unlike other builders that overwrite your design, Layouts allowed you to control specific sections (content, sidebars, headers, footers) and inherit styles from your theme. This made it ideal for agency work—especially when combined with Toolset’s other plugins for custom post types, maps, and WooCommerce.

Should You Still Use The Layouts?

If you’re maintaining a website that already uses Layouts and it’s running smoothly, there’s no urgent need to rebuild everything overnight. Layouts is stable, mature, and deeply integrated with other Toolset plugins. You can keep using it as long as your WordPress and PHP versions remain compatible, and for smaller personal or hobby projects, it’s still a pleasure to work with.

However, if you’re starting a new project, or planning a major site redesign, this is the perfect opportunity to explore block-based building. Migrating to Toolset Blocks, Elementor, or even the native WordPress Site Editor will set you up for the future, with access to the latest features, better performance, and long-term support.

Features at a Glance

• Visual Drag-and-Drop Grid Builder. Design layouts visually with rows, columns, and content cells.
• Flexible Section Management. Control site-wide structures like headers, footers, sidebars, and content areas.
• Dynamic Integration. Seamlessly connects with Toolset Types, Views, and Forms to display dynamic data from custom post types, fields, and front-end forms.
• Theme Compatibility. Works alongside most popular WordPress themes, letting you apply custom layouts to specific pages, templates, or post types.
• Reusable Layouts & Templates. Create a layout once, then reuse it across multiple pages or posts for design consistency.
• Custom Cell Content. Add widgets, shortcodes, images, sliders, or even custom HTML to any cell.
• WooCommerce Support. Customize product, shop, and archive layouts by combining Layouts with Toolset WooCommerce Views.
• Conditional Logic. Display different layouts based on post type, category, or user role.
• Responsive Design Controls. Adjust column widths and stacking for better performance on mobile devices.