Disappointed by the lack of customisation for Elementor/WP in general

[Simon]

I have purchased the Hotel Booking plug-in and I have to say I’m quite disappointed by the options for customisation here.

With just a few extra shortcodes and a few more options on existing shortcodes, you could have provided the ability to easily create complex custom layouts in visual editors but instead it seems one must resort to altering CSS, overriding theme PHP files and using filters, all of which can be extremely problematic if updates start changing things.

For example, the search results page:
You could easily have given a shortcode for the recommended accommodations top section of the results only. Alternatively you could have just given the option on the Search Results widget/shortcode to only display this, or alternatively to not display the looped accommodations section, which would allow outputting just the “x accommodations found…” bit.

Similarly you could have allowed the shortcode to call a page as a template for all the individual room types in the loop, so that when I have a beautiful page (or even MotoPress defined custom post type as a template) already set up in Elementor (could have been Gutenberg blocks editing also) I can use this to display the rooms here. Unless I’m missing something I must now go in and manually style everything using hacky overrides and CSS manipulation when this could with just a modest effort on MotoPress’ part have been beautifully flexible and integrated.

The Search form is another prime example – why are there no input fields for simple things like number of adults or children? You can set the number in a hidden non-customer-editable field with either the shortcode or the Elementor widget, why do I have to do things like mess with the core files (even if in an override file in my theme) to get simple things like this? Again you could have defined a custom post type (or used pages) in WordPress which allowed users to create a template for the search form, using shortcodes/widgets for each element of the form and allow the user to style and layout using simple WordPress tools such as the Gutenberg blocks editor or Elementor.

Unless I’m missing something (in which case my bad and please point me in the right direction) it seems that the Elementor integration really is only a minimal effort and is simply a basic integration of the shortcodes so that instead of typing them in to an Elementor shortcode widget, you just select them from the MotoPress section… there doesn’t seem to be any customisation not offered by the standard shortcodes and it would have been so easy to do. I would even have considered paying on top for this. Disappointing.

[Andre Flores]

Hello, Simon!

First of all, I would like to thank you for your feedback, it is much appreciated.
I regret that you feel default plugin functionality does not offer enough customization options and flexibility.

On the Search Results page you are able to either enable or disable the recommended accommodations section under Accommodation ->Settings. If you would like to hide the rest of the accommodations and leave the recommended section only, you may do that via custom CSS.

I would recommend that you check this article on how to manage single accommodation type pages layout, if you have not had a chance to yet.

If you are referring to the standard search form, which is used on the single accommodation type page, you may enable Adults and Children fields for it easily by selecting the “Show price together with adults and children fields” option under Accommodation ->Settings ->Direct Booking Form option: https://prnt.sc/u0slca (the option is available in the Hotel Booking plugin starting from version 3.8.3).

The Hotel Booking & Elementor Integration plugin indeed allows the possibility of adding Hotel Booking elements via widgets and performing minor styling changes to them via Hotel Booking Styles add-on.

If you face some specific issues with the plugin configuration/editing, do not hesitate to submit a request to our Help Desk, we will gladly assist you further.

Regards,
Andre

[Author]

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