Version 23.7 Blocks

[Chris M]

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50 odd posts ago, I wrote about my first attempt at making a small site that incorporated both Flexible Blocks and Freestyle Blocks. I used the blank, transparent Blocks from Elements and no predesigned templates. I had horrendous issues, which were mainly cured with the 23.8 update and my journey up the learning curve.

I remade the same site from scratch so as not to bring over any mistakes. This time, things went ahead a lot smoother. There were a couple of 'huh' moments, but they were me not doing things correctly. The Xara Blocks system (in this simple site) worked as advertised.

Observations:
1) I started with the mobile variant. The reasoning being, it should be easier to make things bigger to suit a large Block, rather than shrink them to fit in a small Block. This led me, on several occasions, to want to move objects from one Block to another. This was easy and worked well. However, I wanted to arrange Feestyle in the main, whereas I had used Flexible in the mobile. Not too hard to remove all the objects and then delete the Block so I could replace it with a Freestyle Block. A bit of messing about, but not a real pain.
2) I whinged about not being able to have repeating objects. I would still find it useful to be able to repeat whole blocks, but copy/paste was a breeze.

Things I feel need improving sooner rather than later:
1) moving multiple objects within a Block
2) marquee selecting within a Block
3) snapping to objects

Things I'd like to see on a to-do list:
1) ALT and SHIFT when dropping is great. However, move the object, and it forgets you've ALTed of SHIFTed it. It would be nice if they retained their altered state whilst in the Block
2) The Block stack hierarchy on the page should be reflected in the P&L Gallery. If you move a Block up or down the stack, it doesn't change in the P&L Gallery

The 23.8 update appears to have smoothed things out tremendously.
Good job Team Xara, return to base for debriefing and new orders.

[Acorn]

@Chris, thank you for all the additional effort required for you to fight through all the dross to get it working for you.
Not really plug 'n' play.

• MY WBs moved up and down in the P&L gallery and then didn't.
• I had also managed to move WBs independent of their paring to different positions in Main & Variant and then they didn't. Something I would want as a vital feature.
• Also if you Group two WBs you get a WB wrapper of a Group of the objects. The grouping and ungrouping of two freestyle WBs results in missing objects.
• The grouping and ungrouping of a flexible and freestyle is even worse.
• The grouping and ungrouping of a WB and non-WB objects converts all to a group of objects and disappears the ones on the Variant.

Not really safe for any serious design work.

I would also like some Help detail to explain why the WB P&L Gallery entries do not have a Hide or Lock option.

Acorn

[Chris M]

It hasn't entered my head to group Blocks together, I can get images to disappear quite easily, and they don't always reappear by double-clicking the Scale Within Frame control. It may be coincidence, but I think if you add an image using the ALT drop, then remove it from the Block, there's a 50/50 chance one of the images will pop on the invisibility cloak. I'll have a go at grouping, so I can follow along.

I want to be fair though. The improvements are noticeable and welcome. I had problems with Stretch Full Width, random objects marking themselves invisible in the P&L Gallery, objects altering their layer position in a group. All these appear to work correctly now.

Talking of layers. I'm going to try adding layers to a page next.

[bwood]

Chris M mentioned … “ Before Blocks were released, we were told on this very forum, that something new and exciting was about to be released, that we would love it. It would change the way we build websites forever. A site could be built in minutes. Well, here we are, fudging, creating workarounds, spending hours on one simple thing because it doesn't work.”

Great hard work on this Chris. Opinion .. The creative mind is out weighing what blocks actually can do, which is what I’m finding. The creative mind is far ahead of Blocks 2. The creative mind is already on Blocks 3 or 4. Blocks 2 as Gary mentioned is plug and play. The YouTube instructions are elementary Blocks 2. I want my flexible and creative blocks to echo what my creative mind wants. It’s not possible “yet”.

Heartily agree with Chris that blocks should not be shared on variants. Far easier for blocks to be independent on separate variants.

Thanks again Chris, Gary and Acorn.

[Acorn]

Heartily agree with Chris that blocks should not be shared on variants. Far easier for blocks to be independent on separate variants.

Bill, not a solution, more a bodge.

Take @Chris's suggestion of hiding WB elements by totally hiding things at the FlexGroup level (or all content in a Freeform layout), on the Variant page.
Then set the Variant Properties' Width to 12800px so the cut is at 7040px, way wider than most screens can show [Yes, you could set the browser zoom to 20%].
The Variant content does not get published.

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The saner approach is to work with WBs on both until Main is complete.
You then clone your design file so you have XYZ-Main.xar and XYZ-Variant.xar.
Mangle XYZ-Variant around after changing Main's Width down to your required 'variant' width.
Finally, copy page-by-page from the Main design of XYZ-Main into a non-WB design and do the same from the design of XYZ-Variant.

I'm hoping Xara gets the clue that WBs are problematic.

Acorn

[Acorn]

If you copy a FlexGroup from a Modular Website to a Freeform (Conventional) website, you retain the FlexGroup functionality but lose the toolbar.
I am sure Xara can re-implement this.

Do not just drop a Web Block onto a conventional website design; Xara zaps out all the new functionality.

Without the toolbar, you cannot adjust the Flex Layout (toolbar values).
Instead you have to pick what you want in advance.

Next you select the FlexGroup and apply a Push to it and all other objects on the page.
The page bottom extends or decreases automatically.
Objects can be added, removed and rearranged.
Push can be switched off while passing a FlexGroup over another and then re-applied (Shift+Ctrl+H). Not as slick as a Web Block.

All without the need for a Variant.
Yes, you can include a Variant but you can now re-arrange the FlexGroups as you choose, adding or removing FlexGroups and enwrapped objects at will.

Sadly, pasting into a non-Plus application loses the FlexGroup capability so not block work for Magix software. Not checked for the Perpetual version.

@Xara - With the inclusion of the Flex Layout, 95% of current functionality in a traditional design is achieved.

Acorn

[Chris M]

The creative mind is out weighing what blocks actually can do, which is what I’m finding. The creative mind is far ahead of Blocks 2. The creative mind is already on Blocks 3 or 4. Blocks 2 as Gary mentioned is plug and play. The YouTube instructions are elementary Blocks 2. I want my flexible and creative blocks to echo what my creative mind wants.

I couldn't agree more. I've been struggling to find a way to express exactly that.

This whole exercise was to see how close reality came to the marketing. I was slightly surprised. With more practice and knowing the limitations, it wouldn't take too much on Xara's behalf to have this producing simple sites quickly and easily. I do think, in our minds, we need to separate Xara's traditional site building and the Blocks system. They aren't designed to be mixed and matched. Like SuperSites. Never the twain shall meet...unless you employ iframes. I've used iframes for both SuperSites and Blocks with good results.

Going back to Bill's creative mind. At the moment, we have Xara's offering of those giant Lego blocks (Duplo or something). You can build a square tower as high and as wide as you like.
I'm looking for the full Lego version where not everything is up, down, left or right.
Acorn prefers Play-Doh that can have sticks and pipe cleaners stuck into it.

What I would like to avoid is a tower of Duplo with a fancy section of Lego stuck onto it with Play-Doh and sticky tape.
I'd like the Block system to actually work, with limitations, of course. In other words, at least try and make the marketing a little believable.

Employing Bill's creativity: I picture each block as being a tiny site all on its own. Complete with layers, backgrounds, web animations et al. These tiny sites sit on each other shoulders and can be moved up and down, carrying their layers etc with them. Want something sticky to travel the full height of the stacked tiny sites? Pop it on the outside. Want a universal background? Pop it on the outside.

I would like to know the reasoning behind the forced mobile site. The other problems all seem to be fixable niggles, but the forced variant???

[Chris M]

Okay, we're now on version 28.3 and another problem has been fixed. I can no longer make images disappear, but others still remain.
Disappearing images - fixed
Marquee select - not fixed
Moving multiple objects - not fixed
Snapping to object inside a block - not fixed
A few more updates and Blocks may be ready for release.

General usability has some workflow problems that I think deserve a look at.
The forced variant is awful, but if it's here to stay can we have it a little more consistent please? A few examples:
Skewing/Rotating does not transfer to the variant.
Adding Reveal Animations, Stretch Full Width and Sticky do not transfer.
The Fill Tool doesn't transfer...well, it does, just not properly. Try it.
Linear Transparency behaves in the same way as the Fill Tool.
Repeat On All Pages doesn't work at all.

There are probably a lot more, and all can be fixed by Stop Sharing With Variants, doing the edits, then sharing again. ORRRR, not force the variant in the first place!!!

Looking forward to Xara actually testing before releasing the next update.

[Acorn]

Chris, I personally would not want my variant being randomly changed by alterations in Main.
I too would prefer the variant not to be linked until I chose.

SFW and Stky are probably identified in Main by an ID, which will not therefore register in the variant.
Xara has awkward issues to address with Names across variants still.

When Xara went forward with SmartShapes, the traditional and solid Snap to Objects went West.
Same for Web Blocks. You have to knife and fork inside to achieve the simplest of tasks.

RoAP necessarily cannot work as the WBs are Shared and RoAP & Share do not mix.
Be interested to see what a Live Shared object could do.

Acorn