I have been struggling a good part of the afternoon with a footer on a small web site. I think the question also relates to the original placement of a Menu element. So how does Sparkle intend this to work ??
Lets just say that the site has a HOME page (index.html), an About Us pg, and three sections with three pages each. A footer or a menu has the option of being on ‘this page only’ or ‘show on all pages’.
Here is the heart of the question. The idea of ‘show on all pages’ is that the footer or menu be placed and edited on one page, set to show on all pages, and it appears site wide. Is the best practice to create, edit and group the footer on the HOME page only, and then ‘show on all pages’. If you want to edit it later, can you do that from any page, or do you always go back to the HOME page. I tried the later approach, and had the footer placed in two sections (6 pages) - only to have it completely disappear. Luckily there was ONE copy left on an inner page and I was able to save it. When I say disappeared, it even disappeared from the HOME page. So I am very perplexed. It really should not work that way. On a menu item, would you also create and edit (and re-edit) on only the HOME page.
So, nice and easy for us slow learners, what are the steps of creating a footer with text links, and then having it on every page of the site ? The documentation is not very clear on these points. It makes the most sense to do the work on the HOME page, but can it be created anywhere? Can you edit from any page? Why do you think the footer completely disappeared from most of the site right in the middle of checking the placement on each page.
I should add, on one page I found the footer had slide beneath a layout block and was completely out of sight. I only learned of this when I went to lengthen the page and the footer dropped down with that action. I looked for it the same way on other pages, but no luck.
Setting up intentions for the project to wireframing to designing.
If you were to start with your home page first then I would go about it in this manner…
Create footer Widebox
Place your footer content like copyright, footer navigation, etc…
Now capture everything including the footer Widebox and right click Group.
I would also tick Move With Page Bottom
I would then add your other pages that will make up your website. Go back to your home page and click on the footer group and now tick Show On All Pages.
Once this is done you can go to anyone of the pages that make up your website and edit the footer which in turn will update to footer on evert page.
As for the footer hiding on you well this can be put down to many reasons…
That’s a lot of questions at once. It’s impossible to deal with them in a single answer. But a lot comes from other posts and trial and error.
You mention “layout blocks” hhmmm. Those can be a cause of unexplained behavior of other elements.
You won’t like reading this here, but I’m not a fan of them as they have caused me more trouble than good. That may change with Sparkle V5 - which is coming eventually. Until then, I’ll leave layout blocks out.
It’s easier to insert them into a page than to remove existing blocks.
I’m sorry but my French is not good enough to understand your issues and help you, but I agree with what @Mr_Fozzie is saying. Every time I tried to integrate layout blocks, I ended up removing them because they made my work more complicated, unfortunately.
If you want to try without these blocks, you just have to select all the layers that are in a block and drag them just above the name of the block. Then delete the block.
I apologize for the long original post, and many questions. The intention is that forum contributors understand the issue I am seeing.
Each page is laid out very simply:
The top wide box is grouped with a hamburger menu (not within a layout block). This is set to appear on all pages.
There are a series of layout blocks, one or two images and a couple short text boxes per block.
The footer is a wide box grouped with text hyperlinks as kind of a site map (not within a layout block). It is set to appear on all pages.
Duncan was excited about the layout block, and I think of it as a div, which makes total sense. At this point I don’t think the layout blocks are a problem (though you can not drag and select several elements within a layout block). You can move them around easily, and insert/remove one quickly. I like it.
My problem really has been hamburger menus and the footer. Last night I worked into the wee hours and finally got both of them to cooperate at the same time. Each of them mysteriously disappeared from nearly every page in the site, when I was not even working with them (like just editing text).
I have not done this, but I think converting an existing site to layout blocks would probably be a mess.
Allan, good suggestion (and method). I will keep that in mind. Duncan was excited about using layout blocks to organize the page, and I can see why. I don’t think they are the root of my menu problems, but good to know how to ditch them.
At some point you put so much time into something it is hard to abandon that effort and do it differently. I do have to admit, after 20+ years of mucking around with this stuff, my patience is a bit short. I really like many things about Sparkle, and it does some clever tricks, but I am a fundamentals guy, wanting the basics to work 100% of the time.
My biggest organization problem with the layout blocks, which Duncan is aware of, it that the Layers order is opposite of the page order of the blocks. That is counterintuitive, and not consistent to layers in Photoshop or Illustrator. The Layers palette is very useful in selecting elements, just a bit goofy. It is also counterintuitive that the MENU must be both grouped, but also above everything else in the Layers. It wants to be outside the group. It would be nice if it could be ‘locked’ into the uppermost layer by itself. Maybe there is a way to do that, I just haven’t figured it out. Thanks again for your thoughts. C
I don’t think the problem comes from the blocks either, I’ve never had this issue.
Indeed, the problem with the order of layout blocks is counter-intuitive, and if I understand correctly, the problem may be fixed with Sparkle 5. Personally, I find it unfortunate that the order of layers in these blocks changes the order of what is displayed on the site. For example, on my site https://web-creation.net/, I couldn’t use layout blocks because of the shadows of the white boxes that always need to be on top of the blue boxes to give this impression of relief.
For the site https://photographies-by-samuel.web-creation.net/, layout blocks bothered me because I wanted to place a photo (the photographer’s photo) between two of these blocks. I had to move the photo using the keyboard arrows because if I moved it with the mouse, the photo would be “sucked into” a block. And once sucked into that block, the space between the banner and the text would enlarge because it is not possible to overlap two layout blocks. It’s a bit technical and difficult to explain, I’m not sure if ChatGPT will be able to translate it correctly
But for sites like yours, blocks are very useful, and I think you’re right to use them. For my part, I will give these blocks another chance when the next version of Sparkle is released. Considering the development time it took, I think it’s a shame not to use them!
As for locking the menu in the top layer of layers, you can place the menu in a popup window that opens automatically (after the delay: 0 seconds), enable “always on top”, and you won’t have to worry about it anymore.
Hmmm - that is a new suggestion. I will look at that tomorrow. Thanks !
As far as blocks go, one nice thing is to grab a whole block and reorder the page, just drop and drag. I will look at your example sites tomorrow. Done for the day (and was in Sparkle late last night).
Yes, as I was saying, blocks can be very practical depending on the situation That’s why I tried to use them several times. I’m really looking forward to trying this version 5 and see how it goes!
That’s why I tried to use them several times. I’m really looking forward to trying this version 5 and see how it goes!