Design Upgrade for LearnDash

Description

LearnDash is a powerful learning management system (LMS) for managing your online courses, but there are some areas where the design falls short. In order to provide your students with an exceptional learning experience, you need a professional design.

Enter Design Upgrade for LearnDash

Design Upgrade for LearnDash completely redesigns every aspect of LearnDash so that it closely resembles your existing WordPress theme. No settings or custom code. Just activate & enjoy!

Compatible with LD3 & “Legacy” Templates

We’ll automatically detect whether you’re using the “LearnDash 3.0” or “Legacy” template, and assign styles appropriately. If you’re still running LearnDash 2.x, all of the same design upgrades that you’ve always enjoyed will still be there.

See below for a list of what’s new.

Features

Tested with LearnDash 4.3.0.2

• NEW: Improved styles for the new LearnDash registration process/page
• Global: Larger clickable areas for all course content, navigation & Focus Mode areas
• Buttons: All buttons have matching rounded corners & increased font size
• Font Sizes: These will now be inherited from your theme, which should increase your font sizes across the board
• Focus Mode: Improved sidebar tray design, Course Sections, shadow added to mobile menu, collapse arrow flips to show current menu state, and more.
• Focus Mode: Top navigation bar received several small improvements
• Focus Mode: Improved styles for Focus Mode comments, which were added in LearnDash 3.1
• Animations: Subtle animations for LearnDash tooltips & the Focus Mode top menu
• Profile: Several styles were improved & standardized
• Login/Registration: Unified styles for all form fields
• Course Grid: Equal height columns & other small tweaks
• WisdmLabs Ratings, Reviews & Feedback design upgrades
• Design improvements for WisdmLabs’ LearnDash Group Registration plugin
• Improved print styles

Also: Small tweaks were made to assignments, pagination, the “User Status” widget and more.

LearnDash 2.x “Legacy” Features

Tested with LearnDash 2.6.6. We no longer support these features and highly recommend using the LearnDash 3.0 active template.

• Much improved course grid styles, equal height cards & no more weird spacing issues ??
• All fonts have been reset to use your theme’s default font family, size & color
• All PNG icons have been replaced with comparable SVGs
• All complete/incomplete icons for lesson/topic/quiz lists have been moved to the right for better consistency
• Spacing around & between elements has been adjusted to provide greater consistency throughout
• All LearnDash widgets now have more consistent spacing & sizing, including improvements to Course Info & Course Navigation
• Styling for the [ld_profile] shortcode has been completely revamped
• Completely revamped & restyled quiz elements ??
• Improved design of the statistics modal window (for quizzes), including row highlights on hover
• Larger pager navigation buttons to improve usability
• Full support for RTL languages

Who is this for?

Brand new LearnDash users: There is absolutely no reason not to try it out. At the very least, it will give your site a more consistent design. If you plan to customize LearnDash further, you can still do so using a child theme or Additional CSS in the Customizer.

Seasoned LearnDash veterans: If you have not made any customizations to your LearnDash design, but would like to improve it, give us a shot. You might want to try it out on a test site first, but you can deactivate it with one click and return to your previous design.

You might also want to give your students a heads up that you’re updating the design. But we feel confident that they’ll like it ??

LearnDash developers: If you’re a developer who builds LearnDash sites for your clients, this could save you hours (maybe even days) of development time. LearnDash’s markup & CSS is a beast to customize. This will give you a much easier baseline to work with.

We designed the plugin to be just specific enough to override LearnDash’s default styles, but not so specific that you’ll need to use a ton of selectors to override our specifity. All CSS in child themes and Additional CSS will take precedence over our styles.

Pro Version

Need custom styles? Our pro version uses the Customizer to bring you over 110 customizable design options. Completely customize your LearnDash site with just a few clicks.

Pro Features

• Achievements Add-On: 10 new customization options
• Show/Hide various course & profile features
• Disable expand/collapse links & show all by default
• Course Content Lists: Update background & text colors, hover effects, customize line separators, remove the list count numbers and more
• Progress Bar: Customize the color, border radius & height, add stripes, and animate the bar on page load
• Buttons: Add your own background & text colors
• [ld_profile]: Avatar shape, custom “edit profile” link, hide profile info, hide quiz information, and more
• Login/Registration Popup: 10+ design options
• Focus Mode: 20+ design options, including 7 for Focus Mode comments
• Course Navigation Widget: 15+ design options
• Course Grid Add-On: 20+ design options
• Alerts: 9 custom colors, plus a few other options
• Tooltips: customize the background & text color
• Uncanny Groups: buttons, border radius & improved styles are applied to many Uncanny Groups frontend elements
• Tin Canny Reporting: 12 design options for Tin Canny reports on the front-end

Upgrade to Pro Today ?

Theme Compatibility

Design Upgrade for LearnDash should work on most themes, assuming they have not customized the LearnDash markup in any way. While we can’t guarantee full compatibility, we have tested with the following themes.

Tested With

We have tested with the following themes, and they all appear to be compatible:

• Astra
• Divi
• GeneratePress
• eLumine (when using the “LearnDash 3.0” active template or eLumine’s “Elementary Layouts”)
• LearnMate
• Edufire
• Neve
• OceanWP

Incompatible Themes

• BuddyBoss Platform (released June 2019)
• Boss. / Social Learner (If you deactivate the “Boss for LearnDash” plugin, it will still work in “Legacy” mode)
• eLumine (when using the “Legacy” active template or any version of LearnDash before 3.0)

Incompatible Plugins

• LearnDash Visual Customizer by SnapOrbital: The Visual Customizer takes a similar approach to designing LearnDash components, and thus the code conflicts with ours.

Uncanny Owl Toolkit Compatibility

We recognize the Uncanny LearnDash Toolkit by Uncanny Owl is a popular LearnDash plugin that adds some nice features. We’re in the process of making our plugin fully compatible with theirs. Here’s where we are so far:

• Reset Progress button: Button styles upgraded
• Simple Course Timer modal: Button styles upgraded
• [uo_dashboard]: Styles upgraded
• [uo_courses]: Styles upgraded
• [uo_breadcrumbs]: Compatible; Considering upgrades
• [uo_lessons_topics_grid]: Compatible; Considering upgrades
• [uo_login_ui]: Compatible; Considering upgrades

NOTE: Uncanny LearnDash Toolkit styles are only upgraded if you’re using the “LearnDash 3.0” active template. Styles do not apply to the “Legacy” template.

Plugin Compatibility

Ratings, Reviews & Feedback plugin by WisdmLabs

As of version 2.5, we now enhance the styles of the Ratings, Reviews & Feedback plugin by WisdmLabs. For a detailed overview, please see our article on ldx.design.

Group Registration plugin by WisdmLabs

As of version 2.6, we now enhance the styles of the Group Registration plugin by WisdmLabs. General design improvements will be made to all frontend elements output by the [wdm_group_users] shortcode.

Browser Support

A few techniques we use to improve the LearnDash design are only supported in the latest versions of major browsers. For the most part, as long as you’re not using Internet Explorer, most (if not all) of our plugin’s design upgrades will work.

We support the latest versions of the following browsers:

• Google Chrome
• Mozilla Firefox
• Apple Safari
• Microsoft Edge
• Chrome for Android
• Firefox for Android
• iOS Safari (not tested, but should work)

We do not support any version of Internet Explorer, however, we do offer a few code snippets & suggestions to fix a few issues in IE11. See the IE11 section below in FAQ.

Roadmap

As LearnDash adds new features, it is our goal to keep this plugin updated.

Features planned for future release:

• New features for the Quiz Reporting Extension by WisdmLabs
• Compatibility with more Uncanny LearnDash Toolkit modules

We’d love to hear from you!

Does something look weird with your theme? Is there something we missed? Wouldn’t it be cool if…

We tested it on a handful of popular themes, but we couldn’t possibly cover them all. If you have any feedback, please let us know in the support forum.

Credits

• Paint brush icon made by Freepik, courtesy of flaticon.com. Licensed under CC3.0 BY.
• Gradient by colorful gradients

From within WordPress

1. Visit “Plugins > Add New”
2. Search for “Design Upgrade for LearnDash”
3. Click the “Install” button
4. Click the “Activate” button
5. There are no settings to configure. An improved design will automatically be applied to all LearnDash elements on your site.

Screenshots

FAQ

Where are the settings?

The free version doesn’t have any. It simply applies a fresh coat of paint behind the scenes.

Check out our pro version that includes 100+ settings you can customize.

Will this affect the rest of my site?

No. We’ve carefully crafted it to only apply to LearnDash elements. The rest of your site (header, footer, pages, blog posts, etc.) will continue to use the styles determined by whichever WordPress theme you are using.

Can I use this plugin with the LearnDash Visual Customizer?

Technically, yes, but you will encounter some weird design issues. We recommend you check out our similar pro plugin to customize LearnDash styles.

Is this compatible with the Elementor for LearnDash Integration?

The general design & UX improvements that Design Upgrade makes will still take effect. However, any customizations you make to LearnDash elements in Elementor will override our plugin’s styles.

But yes, you can use the two together without any issues.

Can I use this plugin with the Divi LearnDash Kit?

I have done some testing with the Divi LearnDash Kit, but I haven’t tested every element. It should work in most cases, but you’ll want to test all your pages. If you find something that isn’t compatible, please let us know in the support forum so we can fix it.

Can I make design changes in addition to what the plugin makes?

Absolutely. Feel free to add your own CSS if you want to further customize the look & feel of your LearnDash site. Just place your CSS in a child theme or the Additional CSS area of the WordPress Customizer. Or check out our pro plugin.

Will this slow down my site?

No. We do add one CSS file to the header, but as long as you’re using a reliable WordPress host with decent performance, you shouldn’t notice a difference.

IE11 Support & Bug Fixes

The two main CSS features we use that cause issues in IE11 are CSS custom properties (variables) and flexbox. You can use the following CSS to fix some of these issues if you’re using IE11.

To fix some layout issues with the course grid:

.ld-course-list-items div.ld_course_grid .thumbnail.course {
    display: block !important;
}

.ld-course-list-items div.ld_course_grid .thumbnail.course .caption {
    display: block;
}

To fix colors not appearing, you’ll need to use the dev tools to look for all CSS properties that start with var(--. These represent CSS custom properties, and they don’t work in IE11.

For example, replace var(--ldx-color-link) with #000000, or whatever hexadecimal color value you’d like to use for your link color.

My course/lesson/topic/quiz still looks weird. Can you help?

Most likely, yes. We’ll certainly try.

We designed this plugin to be flexible so that it takes on many of the characteristics of your WordPress theme. But every theme is built differently, so styles will differ from site to site. Shoot us a message in the support forum with a link to your site and we’ll try to help out.

Reviews

Not worth the paid version

ianbryan June 14, 2023 1 reply

This plugin worked great, but broke down when interoperating with other vital plugins and customizations in our LearnDash install. I didn’t request a refund because the refund policy requires you to “prove” that the plugin won’t interoperate. Instead I uninstalled it within hours of buying it and cancelled my subscription. Then when I was charged a year later, I got the refund I requested, MINUS the processing fee. In summary, great plugin for relatively simple LD installs. Company policies not so great. Good luck.

Worth Buying the Paid version

trainingcity January 14, 2023 1 reply

This plugin is easy to deploy and well worth the cost for the paid version. Styling LearnDash is not really difficult, but this plugin will solve 99% of your challenges with getting the courses, lessons, and topics pages formatted to “look nice” in a matter of minutes, vs countless hours if you stick to just out of the box Wordpress or even a tool like Elementor. Note that the plugin will “play nice” with Elementor. It seemlessly does its job formatting the various Learndash elements such as course lists which can then be inserted into course pages that are formatted in any way, including the application of an Elementor Template. I am finding the the actual lessons and topics pages are more or less best left alone and run in “focus” mode. With this tool, you have the perfect way to format the content for lessons and topics which then display in focus mode. The plugin “just works”, the available tutorial video provided by the company will walk you through the configuration and setup, and in no time flat, your Learndash elements will have the look and feel you need for a professional & customized site. Highly recommended for anyone building a Learndash based course.

Great Plugin and Exceptional Customer Service

arika January 11, 2022 1 reply

I debated for a bit before buying the pro version of this plugin but it really is a life saver and makes LearnDash look 1000 times better. I spent 20+ hours being really frustrated trying to make this one thing work that is super important to my brand. I reached out to customer support and had and answer that worked within a few hours. Thank you so much!!!!

Great Plugin and Support

rhartland May 1, 2021 1 reply

The plugin offers some amazing additional options to improve your Learndash site, but where they really go above and beyond is the support. I have the free and pro version which goes even further. Dave was able to diagnose my problem, wrote some css for me, and showed me where to place it. Solved my problem perfectly! Would highly recommend this plugin (and the pro version) if you have a Learndash site!

Fantastic plugin!

clayray April 21, 2021 1 reply

Provides great advanced styling and layout functionality that SHOULD have been included with LearnDash.

I’m thrilled!

jeanniesullivan March 17, 2021 1 reply

After hours of trying to update my site on my own, I found Dave and his awesome plugin! I downloaded the Pro version right away, and Dave also offered me some much-needed personal support in getting the customizations just right. The best $29 I’ve spent all year was on this plugin!

Contributors & Developers

Changelog

2.12 – August 9, 2022

• Added: Improved styles for new LearnDash registration process/page
• Tweak: Increased size of prev/next buttons at the bottom of lesson/topic pages to prevent wrapping onto two lines

2.11.1 – July 6, 2022

• Fix: Course Grid: “Legacy” active template only: No longer hiding course short description.

2.11 – April 13, 2022

• Updated: CSS changes to accomodate the course grid CSS changes LearnDash made in 2.0.5 of the Course Grid plugin (mostly with ribbons)
• Updated: Course Page: Content & Materials tabs: Added CSS to override default theme styles that were adding button styles to the tabs

2.10.3 – Jan 22, 2022

• Fixed: Small CSS issue with Focus Mode background color in Pro version when using the Kadence theme

2.10.2 – Oct 6, 2021

• Fixed: MathJax: Removed extra spacing when using LaTeX in quiz answers for single & multiple choice questions

2.10.1 – Oct 6, 2021

• Fixed: Achievements Add-On: Image size now works again with Achievements version 1.1.0 (available in Pro)

2.10 – Aug 5, 2021

• New: Achievements Add-On: Small update to CSS to allow for customizations in Pro version

2.9 – June 4, 2021

• Update: Compatibility with WisdmLabs Group Registration (version 4.2)
• Update: Compatibility with WisdmLabs Ratings, Reviews & Feedback (version 2.1)
• Fixed: Mobile: Focus Mode: Clickable area of “Mark Complete” button in header
• Tweak: Course Content List: Adjusted background color of drip content message

2.8.3 – April 11, 2021

• Fixed: Login Modal: Text color for “Lost Your Password?” link

2.8.2 – February 20, 2021

• Tweak: Uncanny Toolkit: Enhanced Course Grid: “View Course Outline” buttons improved with better styling & default LearnDash colors

2.8.1 – February 10, 2021

• Added: Improved styles for LearnDash pagination
• Fixed: Focus Mode Header: Mobile navigation buttons spacing issue
• Fixed: Focus Mode Header: Mobile navigation font size issue
• Fixed: Quizzes: Not honoring custom LearnDash colors for “review” and “answered” in the review box
• Fixed: Quizzes: Removed extra blue outline on current questions in the review box
• Tweak: Quizzes: Adjusted colors for answered, review, correct & incorrect labels in the review box (to match new LearnDash default colors)
• Tweak: Small change to allow all HTML tags to display properly in the course grid short description (compatibility with Course Grid add-on v1.7)

2.8 – January 26, 2021

• New: Improved styles for print
• Fixed: RTL: A few small spacing & alignment issues
• Fixed: Group Courses List: a small spacing issue
• Tweak: Increased indentation for topics & quizzes in focus mode navigation & course content lists

2.7.1 – October 11, 2020

• Tweak: Focus Mode: Slightly reduced font size in sidebar navigation
• Tweak: Progress Bar: “% Complete” was off-center on mobile devices
• Tweak: Lesson/Topic Timer now inherits text color
• Tweaks: CSS updates for compatibility with LearnDash 3.2.3.3 (see below)
• Tweak: Focus Mode: Header content action buttons spacing/layout
• Tweak: Focus Mode: Sidebar Navigation: Removed rotation on collapse arrow because LearnDash is now including it

2.7 – July 20, 2020

• New: Slight improvements to the [ld_group_list] grid output
• New: Slight improvements to the Group Courses List output
• Tweak: A few small adjustments to help with Pro features for Groups

2.6.5 – May 15, 2020

• New: eLumine theme: A few design upgrades for the course grid
• New: eLumine theme: Adjusted styles for progress bar in course grid
• Fixed: Width adjustment on buttons within LearnDash alert messages
• Tweak: More specific CSS selectors for buttons in course grid
• Changed: Focus Mode Sidebar: Adjusted sizing of calendar/unlock icons for drip/sample lessons so the icon fits better inside of the circle

2.6.4 – April 29, 2020

• Added: Framework for new Tin Canny Reporting styles in the Pro version

2.6.3 – April 4, 2020

• Fixed: Quizzes: Proper correct/incorrect highlighting for cloze (fill in the blank) questions

2.6.2 – March 26, 2020

• Fixed: Width adjustment on buttons within LearnDash alert messages
• Tweak: Course Grid: Adjusted CSS to account for issues on some sites using the SG Optimizer plugin to combine CSS files

2.6.1 – March 7, 2020

• Compatibility: Updated styles to fix a few small issues with LearnDash 3.1.4 (very minor)

2.6 – February 21, 2020

• Integration: Upgraded styles for WisdmLabs Group Registration plugin
• Changed: Course Navigation: Removed background color on inner lesson <div> tag
• Changed: Focus Mode: Progress Bar: Increased space between bar & “% Complete”
• Fixed: RTL: Focus Mode sidebar close icon positioning
• Fixed: RTL: Focus Mode “Mark Complete” checkmark icon overlap
• Removed: Transition styles on tooltips because they were conflicting with default LearnDash behavior
• Tweak: Updated CSS animation names to avoid theme/plugin conflicts

2.5.1 – January 14, 2020

• Fixed: Course Grid Video Previews: Border radius now works properly for top corners
• Changed: Course Grid Video Previews: Black background color added behind video embeds
• Changed: Font sizes & weights of several elements within the [ld_profile] summary section
• Added: Framework for a few more profile styles in the Pro version

2.5 – January 8, 2020

• Integration: Upgraded styles for WisdmLabs Reviews, Ratings & Feedback Plugin (learn more)

2.4.3 – December 30, 2019

• Added: Max-width for the login & registration forms so they don’t stretch all the way across larger screens
• Removed: Styling on Focus Mode logo images that was causing some taller logos to expand beyond the header area
• Tweak: Login/Register Buttons: Slightly reduced the opacity of the shadows on hover

2.4.2 – December 17, 2019

• Added: CSS compatibility for upcoming Widget Areas for LearnDash plugin

2.4.1 – November 25, 2019

• Added: Class name (.ldx-grid-course-complete) is applied to completed courses in the course grid
• Tweak: Quiz Results: Added spacing between paragraphs & lists in the quiz response message displayed on the results page
• Compatibility: Hello Elementor: Improved styles for better compatibility with the Hello Elementor theme
• Fixed: Single & Multiple Choice Questions: When an answer is answered incorrectly, the correct answer is highlighted in green (bug introduced in LD 3.1 with a class name change)
• Fixed: Tooltip alignment

2.4 – November 20, 2019

• Added: Improved styles for Focus Mode comments
• Fixed: Quizzes: Matrix sorting questions spacing issues
• Tweak: Quizzes: Matrix sorting questions use a slightly different style when viewing correct/incorrect answers after a quiz

2.3 – September 23, 2019

• Added: Uncanny LearnDash Toolkit Pro: The Simple Course Timer idle timeout modal now uses consistent button styles
• Added: Uncanny LearnDash Toolkit Pro: The “Reset Progress” button now uses consistent button styles
• Added: Uncanny LearnDash Toolkit Pro: Many [uo_dashboard] elements now inherit LearnDash default styles, buttons & colors
• Added: Uncanny LearnDash Toolkit Pro: The [uo_courses] enhanced course grid now matches the style of the LearnDash Course Grid add-on.
• Updated: A handful of small improvements for quizzes

2.2.1 – August 25, 2019

• Added: Improved styles for the Course Status area at the top of course pages (for non-enrolled users)
• Added: Focus Mode: Brand logo no longer gets squished on medium-sized devices

2.2 – August 23, 2019

• Added: Button styles for Login/Logout button when using the [learndash_login] shortcode
• Added: Login/Registration Modal: Close Icon: Increased size & added hover effect
• Added: Login/Registration Modal: More consistent <input> styles
• Added: Login/Registration Modal: Improved button styles
• Added: Framework for adding custom login/registration styles into Pro
• Fixed: Icon spacing for “Download Certificate” button

2.1.3 – July 5, 2019

• Added: Compatibility for RTL languages
• Added: Framework for adding custom alert styles into Pro
• Fixed: Alert icon position on smaller screens

2.1.2 – Jun 26, 2019

• Added: Framework for adding custom ribbon colors back into Pro

2.1.1 – Jun 24, 2019

• Added: Alerts: Vertically center all icons
• Added: Focus Mode: Small improvements to spacing of username in header
• Added: Improved styles when “Mark Complete” button is disabled
• Fix: Add space for “Download Certificate” button icon, and other small tweaks to buttons within alerts
• Tweak: More specific button style to avoid some theme conflicts with link colors

2.1 – Jun 22, 2019

• Added: Many more CSS custom properties, preparing for Pro version release
• Added: Course Grid styles are back: equal height columns & other small improvements
• Added: Stop images from overflowing outside the answer label area when used in single & multiple choice quiz questions (props Anthony)

2.0.1 – Jun 10, 2019

• Added: Styles for Uncanny LearnDash Toolkit Resume button
• Fixed: Updated all font sizes for broader theme compatibility (specifically with OceanWP)
• Tweak: Removed more empty <p> tags that are output with some LearnDash widgets
• Tweak: A few other minor adjustments for broader theme compatibility

2.0 – Jun 7, 2019

• NEW: Now compatible with the “LearnDash 3.0” Active Template
• NOTE: We’re still compatible with LearnDash 2.x, as well as the “Legacy” template, but there are no changes for those versions. All future development will be focused around the new design.

1.4.8 – Mar 23, 2019

• Changed: Course Grid: Buttons are now displayed at the very bottom of each grid item.

View full changelog →