Add Column to Section is a WordPress ability from Ultimate Addons for Elementor — usable via Easy MCP AI, which connects Claude, ChatGPT, and any AI assistant to your site.
Install Free Plugin →Add Column to Section
WriteAdds a new column to an existing section or container in an Elementor post, redistributing column widths automatically.
Requires the Ultimate Addons for Elementor (Header Footer & Elementor) plugin on WordPress 6.9+ (the WP Abilities API). No ability registers unless the plugin's 'Enable AI Tools' master switch (uae_mcp_settings.enable_abilities) is turned on in settings. Most abilities require the 'manage_options' capability; a smaller set of read/discovery abilities (template and page listing, the Elementor builder read/list/schema abilities, active-template lookup, display-rule locations, and design tokens) instead require only 'edit_posts' or 'read'. Abilities that act on a specific page, post, or template additionally check the current user's per-object 'edit_post' (or 'delete_post') capability on that item. Separately, every non-readonly (Write or Destructive) ability is gated behind a site-wide 'Allow Modifications' setting at registration time: if it is off, none of those abilities are even registered with the WP Abilities API, regardless of capability checks — this covers all template/page CRUD, widget/extension toggles, display-rule updates, theme/settings changes, and the Elementor builder writes alike, not just the builder ones. Eight of those abilities (the seven Elementor page-builder writes — build, insert-widget, update-widget, remove-element, move-element, add-section, add-column — plus pages-create) additionally re-check this same setting explicitly inside execute() as a redundant safeguard.
What it does
Given post_id and section_id (the target section/container element ID) and an optional auto_resize flag (default true, which evenly redistributes all column widths after the new column is added), the handler adds a column to the post's element tree, then saves the result. Its instructions describe this as an incremental change for an existing section, recommending builder-build instead when constructing multi-column layouts from scratch.
See it in action
You ask your AI assistant
"Add another column to section sec_10 in post 42 and auto-resize the existing columns to fit."
Inputs
| Name | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| post_id | integer | Yes | Any Elementor-enabled post ID (page, post, or HFE template). |
| section_id | string | Yes | Section or container element ID to add a column to. |
| auto_resize | boolean | No | If true (default), automatically redistributes all column sizes evenly. |
Returns
Returns success, the new column_id, and a message suggesting the column_id for follow-up widget insertion via builder-insert-widget.
Permission
permission_callback requires current_user_can('edit_posts'); execute() also calls check_modifications_allowed() (403 unless 'Allow Modifications' is enabled) and validate_elementor_post() (Elementor-post validation plus current_user_can('edit_post', ID)).
More Ultimate Addons for Elementor abilities
Activate Widget
Enables a specific HFE widget by its slug.
Add Section/Container
Adds a new structural layout element (a section with columns on legacy sites, or a flex container on container-mode sites) to an Elementor post.
Build Complete Layout
Builds a complete Elementor layout — sections, columns, and widgets — from a single JSON structure, replacing all existing content on the target post.
Bulk Toggle All Widgets
Activates or deactivates every HFE widget at once.
Clear Elementor Cache
Clears the Elementor CSS cache globally to regenerate all stylesheets.
Create Page
Creates a new Elementor-ready page or post with optional page template.