Web Block suggestions and ideas
I’ve started this thread for folks who are using them, or partially using them, taking them apart, or trying to make their own.
I’ve been messing with them on billwood.ca, my “experimental” mish mash of various approaches. Here are my suggestions and hopefully others may chime in.
- a clear understanding of variant and page sizing. Acorn has documented that one must at the onset set page sizes if not using the 1280/470 split.
- when adding a module, an effect has been added. One cannot tell what the effect actually is until a preview of the block. Please document.
- much attention has been paid to the block section in the catalogue, but nothing has been updated or changed that much in the free form areas.
- for intermediate users, please tell us in the manual how to make our own blocks. I realize Acorn has also mentioned in his block thread. An initial purchaser of Pro+ may have questions and refer to the manual.
- suggestion for the block team to add more navigation variety.
IMO we can either like blocks or not, but Xara has invested resources. As a designer, the first thing I wanted to do was to take the block apart. Some will. New customers will not. The second thing I did was to try a hybrid of my designs and blocks; that didn’t end well.
So, considering the effort that Xara has spent, let’s try to make blocks better by suggestions.
Bill Wood
Charity Web Design
XARA Pro+. WD17, Designer 17. Premium packages.
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