Can Sparkle do this ...?

[chuckbo]

I’m looking at a bunch of web building apps to replace the ones I’m using that are going to stop working when I upgrade. Sparkle is high on my list, and I’m about to start watching videos and play with the download. Here are some questions I’m looking for answers.

• I have lots of pages that are all the same format except for the text. I saw that Sparkle doesn’t support templates. I’m thinking that I can create an outline that I can duplicate and fill in the specific content for each new page. But is there a way to make updates that cascade to all of the pages?

• How easy is it to create vertical menus that have fly-out menus when you hover over a top-level menu item? And then be able to place that menu into a header that stays at the top of a screen as you scroll down?

[duncan]

Hi @chuckbo,

yes both are possible.

For the first one I’d suggest making a site section:

then inside the section you set up a page with the standard format, and set all elements in the page to be visible in pages of the section (from the arrange inspector):

This is Sparkle’s version of templates, except when an element is visible in multiple pages you can edit it live in any page, and changes are propagated to the other pages.

By doing this in a section you can have a set of pages with common characteristics, while the others have their own.

By then duplicating or adding a page to the section it would acquire the elements that are set to be visible in the section.

The page header for example would probably be set to “show on all pages”.

You can also group elements and set the whole group to be visible in multiple pages, this is a useful shortcut.

About menus, I’m not really sure if you want the top level to be vertical or horizontal. You can do either, the setting is right at the top of the menu settings:

Submenus can be either auto-generated by Sparkle based on your website hierarchy, or manually manages via the controls below the menu item list (add item/remove item/add submenu/show+hide item):

Once you have a submenu you have full control of its layout and flyout direction:

These are all possible via built-in functionality, but they might be something you discover after using Sparkle for a bit, so I suggest giving it a fair try.

[chuckbo]

Do any of your videos show how to cascade changes to a set of pages like you’re describing?

I’m interested in vertical menus that displays a vertical menu to the right of the menu item I’m hovering over. I’m not too good at describing it, but maybe you can see what I mean on my old site, clhwares.com.

[duncan]

Well this video shows the “common header” part, but you can also make a dummy project with two pages and set the “show in all pages” option to see how it works.

Yes the vertical menu with vertical submenu is entirely possible. For example:

The key setting to get that layout is this in the submenu items: