When working with Bricks Builder, especially as a beginner or someone who prefers visual cues, it can be hard to understand how the layout is structured. Where does a section begin and end? How are containers, blocks, and divs nested inside each other? These questions are common when you’re building complex page structures with custom grids, dynamic layouts, or deeply nested content.
Bricks Builder’s visual editor is powerful, but it doesn’t always give a clear, immediate overview of your frontend HTML structure. This article shows you how to use a lightweight CSS debug method to outline key layout elements like section, .brxe-container, .brxe-block, and .brxe-div. You’ll see how to highlight the visual hierarchy of your Bricks Builder page — which is especially useful when working with responsive grids, reusable templates, and custom theme styles.
Use Case: Debugging Grid and Container Layouts
Whether you’re building a landing page, a blog archive, or a WooCommerce product grid, it’s essential to know how your page is structured. Misaligned elements, collapsed padding, or nested grid containers can be hard to spot until something breaks. These debug styles make invisible layout issues visible — so you can fix them before they cause rendering problems.
Option 1: Basic Outlines for Key Elements
This first method applies dashed borders to core Bricks elements. You can copy and paste the following CSS into:
- Bricks → Theme Styles → Custom CSS, or
- Appearance → Customizer → Additional CSS
section {
border: 0.5px dashed red !important;
}
.brxe-container {
border: 0.5px dashed blue !important;
}
.brxe-block {
border: 0.5px dashed green !important;
}
.brxe-div {
border: 0.5px dashed orange !important;
}Each color corresponds to a layout level: red for sections, blue for containers, green for blocks, and orange for divs. You’ll instantly see where each structure begins and ends – which is especially helpful when debugging complex nested grids in Bricks Builder.
Option 2: Toggle Debug Mode with a Class
If you want to enable or disable the outlines easily, wrap the styles in a custom class like .debug-outline and apply it to the <body> element. This way, you can turn visual debugging on only when needed — useful for development or testing environments.
.debug-outline section {
border: 2px dashed red !important;
}
.debug-outline .brxe-container {
border: 2px dashed blue !important;
}
.debug-outline .brxe-block {
border: 2px dashed green !important;
}
.debug-outline .brxe-div {
border: 2px dashed orange !important;
}To activate it, simply add class="debug-outline" to the <body> tag in your template:
<body class="debug-outline">Bonus: Add Labels to Identify Layout Elements
You can also display small labels to indicate which type of layout element you’re looking at. This is especially handy in Bricks Builder when debugging reusable components or global sections.
section::before {
content: "section";
font-size: 10px;
color: red;
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: 0;
background: white;
z-index: 9999;
padding: 2px 4px;
border: 1px solid red;
}
.brxe-container::before {
content: "container";
font-size: 10px;
color: blue;
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: 0;
background: white;
z-index: 9999;
padding: 2px 4px;
border: 1px solid blue;
}
.brxe-block::before {
content: "block";
font-size: 10px;
color: green;
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: 0;
background: white;
z-index: 9999;
padding: 2px 4px;
border: 1px solid green;
}
.brxe-div::before {
content: "div";
font-size: 10px;
color: orange;
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: 0;
background: white;
z-index: 9999;
padding: 2px 4px;
border: 1px solid orange;
}
section,
.brxe-container,
.brxe-block,
.brxe-div {
position: relative;
}Benefits of Visual CSS Debugging in Bricks Builder
- Quickly identify and debug layout issues in section/container/block nesting
- Improve grid structure understanding during responsive design work
- Check reusable templates and theme styles visually without inspecting the DOM
- Make invisible boundaries (like divs or empty containers) clearly visible
These techniques are lightweight, non-destructive, and easy to activate or remove. They’re especially useful when working with custom Bricks templates, building flexible grid layouts, or troubleshooting layout inconsistencies.
If needed, you can also extend this debug approach to visualize padding and margin using box-shadow or outline overlays.
This method has helped many Bricks users get a better grasp of their page structure – especially when templates become complex and deeply nested. Give it a try on your next project.
