Essentials – Essential Elements for WordPress

Essential Elements adds the small features most WordPress sites end up needing, without installing a separate plugin for each one.

Every feature is a module you switch on or off from one screen. Disabled modules load nothing at all, and enabled modules only load a few kilobytes of CSS and plain JavaScript, with no jQuery and no external requests.

🚀 Essential Elements Pro | 📄 Documentation | 💻 Support

⬆️ Scroll to Top Button

Add a button that takes visitors back to the top of long pages.

• Bottom left or bottom right position, with adjustable offsets

• Four icon presets, three shapes and a custom size

• Icon, background and hover colors

• Show it after a set scroll distance, and optionally hide it on mobile

• Accessible: a real keyboard-focusable button with a screen-reader label

• Respects the visitor’s “reduce motion” setting

📊 Reading Progress Bar

Show how far a visitor has scrolled through the page.

• Top or bottom of the screen (sits below the admin bar when logged in)

• Thickness, bar color and an optional gradient

• Percentage label you can show or hide

• Show it everywhere, or only on selected post types

⏱️ Reading Time

Display “1,240 words, 7 minutes read time” on your posts.

• Insert automatically before or after the content

• Long (“7 minutes read time”) or short (“7 min read”) format

• Choose which post types show it, and optionally show it in blog, archive and search listings

• [esse_reading_time] shortcode to place it anywhere

• Set the reading speed (words per minute) and an optional label

• Word counting works with every language, including Bengali, Hindi, Arabic, Chinese and Japanese

• Reading Time block to place it anywhere, including inside a Query Loop

🎨 Custom Scroll Bar

Match the browser scroll bar to your brand.

• Track, thumb and hover colors, with ready-made presets

• Scroll bar width and thumb radius

• Live preview while you edit

💎 Essential Elements Pro

Essential Elements Pro adds premium modules to the same dashboard:

• Announcement Bar: a top or bottom notice bar with a call to action button, scheduling, a countdown timer and dismiss memory.

• Click to Chat: floating WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, phone, SMS and email buttons with business hours.

• Content Protection: discourage copying with right-click, text selection and copy shortcut protection, with an optional “Read more at” link on copied text.

Import & export

Move your enabled modules and all their settings to another site with a JSON file, from Essentials → Settings.

Developer friendly

• esse_modules_list filter to register your own modules; entries with a class and a settings class (extending EssentialElements\Admin\ModuleSettings ) are loaded automatically

• esse_module_{id}_sections filter to add settings fields to a module, and esse_module_{id}_output filters to change a module’s markup

• esse_export_settings filter and esse_import_settings action to include your own settings in import and export

• esse_init action that fires once all modules are loaded

• esse_screen_ids filter to load the admin styles on your own pages

License

Essential Elements for WordPress is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2 (GPLv2). You may use, modify, and distribute this software under the terms of the GPLv2 license. html for more details.