REQ: "Follow Footer" example(s)

Hi all,

I need some help - can any one give me an example of the “Follow Footer” options?

Thanks in advance

@wolfferine, what do you mean? An in the wild example? or how we go about creating it in Sparkle?

@FlaminFig Hi,

Both :grin:

Hi.

Commercial websites:
Most of the time you will find in the footer a short summary of the most important menu items, some social media links, the provider identification, a copyright notice and the logo.
Just look at a few sites: cnn.com for example has a very large footer.

Private website:
I don’t think a footer is that important there. You can create one and show some humor, for example, “Thanks for sticking through to the end of the page.”

It is not mandatory to have footer.
But in both cases, it’s up to you what you put in there.

Mr. F.

Ok first the mechanics.
All the elements are grouped in a widebox - the footer section…

And then how it is achieved…

And here it is in the wild…

Like @Mr_Fozzie suggested it depends on the type of website what sort of information goes into the footer area of a website. Just on an SEO note, you will see in my footer example I have a blurb about Armitage Auctions… Search engines loves this!

@Mr_Fozzie Thanks,

Meanwhile i managed to understand what the “Follow Footer” means,
i first thought that it was something in regards of the webpage
(similar to “Style → Fix to browser bottom”)

But after carefully reading the documentation ("Arrange" :link:),i now do understand it’s
regarding the position of an element relative to the canvas! :sunglasses:

It’s is about the canvas (and browser ?) position!

To illustrate it (for anyone who also wants to understand the “Follow Footer” option)
i added 2 screenshots, hope it will help :smile:


Hi.

Two more things:
(1) As a footer marks the end of a page, i would recommend to place the desired information in a wide box (as mentioned earlier by @FlaminFig). Adjust the 6 dots with a double click or use [Control]+[Command]+[F].
(2) Make it “Show on all pages”.

Mr. F.

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Hi all,

I have been playing around with the “Follow Footer” option, and i am not sure
if i do understand (or grasp) the benefit/function of this option.

One of the things a thought was:

"the same result can be accomplished by just
dragging the group to the bottom of the canvas?"

Or is this different?

Hi Wolf.

What is “the same result”? Context please.

Do you mean moving the bottom line with the 6 dots to the footer group? Maybe yes.
You should first move the footer group to the end of page line. Then double click on the 6 dots to move the footer (and the end of page line) close to the “last” content of the page.

When you hit [Control]+[Command]+[F] first, then the footer travels under the “last” content, but maintains the the same distance to the end of page line.

Is it that what you asked?

Mr. F.

@wolfferine, Follow Footer is an action you will see in Preview as the footer will always be hugging the bottom of the web page.

In the Sparkle canvas your footer section with Follow Footer will always be stuck to the bottom of the canvas page no matter how long or short you make it. Without it ticked you will always be manually dragging the footer down the page.

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Hi @wolfferine, we’re considering changing the UI to make this more clear.

Checking the “follow footer” option will in fact not change the canvas position of an element, so it’s not like moving it.

The purpose of the “follow footer” option is to make the element move relatively to the page bottom element instead of the page top, but the movement in question is exclusively in the canvas.

In of itself this is pretty abstract, why would you care whether un element moves relatively to the top or bottom of the page?

The problem that this is trying to solve is the following:

  • the way “show in all pages” works is an element is identical, including in its vertical position, in all pages
  • a web page footer shown in all pages would also show at the same vertical position
  • this is in conflict with the need to have pages of different heights, each with the common page footer

Incidentally “page footer” and “follow footer” are referring to two different footers, and this is definitely a source of confusion, the former referring to the in-page content that’s generally vertically bottom-most in the page, the latter referring to the page bottom control with 6 grippy dots at the bottom of the Sparkle canvas.

So once you have the page footer set to “follow footer” (arguably should be called “follow page bottom”), the page bottom can safely be set to show in all pages, and it will position itself relatively to the end of the page on all pages, at a different vertical distance from the top.

The miscommunication on how this works (which we take full blame for) is most likely also the source of the misbehavior, considered a bug by many, where unchecking the “follow footer” checkbox before un-setting the “show in all pages” checkbox will cause shorter pages to get longer (and on all devices). Strictly speaking this is “correct” behavior, in that the once-footer element is now being placed at the same vertical position in all pages and devices, so shorter pages are being pushed down to a height that matches the position on the current page. In practice this is obscure, unexpected and very hard to grasp (and I have stepped into this behavior myself a million times with the different project files that comprise the Sparkle websites before fully understanding it).

So the UI change we’re considering is moving the “follow footer” option to the “show on all pages” block, which would clarify the context of use, and would hopefully prevent accidentally making pages longer. We would have to remove the “follow footer” option for an element that’s visible in only one page, but I can’t really think of a use case for that.

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Hello @duncan

Thanks for the frank and honest words!

Now some things become clearer to me with the interaction of “footer” and “follow footer”. The term “footer” was often used for two different things:

a) the element to be displayed last on the page.
b) the end of the page itself

No wonder this led to confusion.

If you change the UI, you could move the footer topic to the “style” tab after all, where the “header” is. There’s plenty of room there. But I leave that to the developers and programmers.

One more note: two adjacent layout blocks can also move the page end and the footer down, which affects all pages. The footer element is even pushed down past the end of the page on other pages. Only a click on the 6 points puts the page end back below the footer.

I don’t know how exactly to describe this. Should I make a video of it?

Mr. F.

That sounds like a bug. If you have a case that consistently happens please email us the project and video.

Will do.
It’s coming shortly with WeTransfer.
If you have questions, please email me.

Mr. F.

Arghhh!! Duncan, you have just explained what represented for me the most mysterious behavior of Sparkle !!! I think my life will change :star_struck:

@duncan Thank you for your explanation, it was very welcomed. I still want to do some tries to be sure i do grasp the the intend of the “Follow Footer” option :slight_smile:

For all this behaviour, I don’t used the show on all pages for the footer, I copy paste the footer copyright etc on all pages. But every year, I have to change the footer on all pages of all my sites, Time consuming, but give me a chance to add the new things I have learned to do with Sparkle in the year…

A trick/hack @Frenchie is to insert a Smartfield Date/Time in your footer and you’ll never have to update it again, Sparkle will…

Other then that it is a great thing to learn all of Sparkle’s new features!!! :slight_smile:

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This UI change would be very helpful!

I always find it amusing when I see the ‘big’ websites with last year’s copy-write notice :roll_eyes:. Recently was on one of our Quebec-based sites, which you would recognise @Frenchie, with 2021 noted as the current year–we are a quarter through 2022 (already! :eyes:). Was tempted to email the webmaster but, naw, I keep busy enough fixing my own errors :joy: .

Agree @FlaminFig: Now don’t even need to add code… Open Smartfield, add Date/Time, note it as “Continuous”, and go play trying to figuring out how the new Layout Block feature works… :sweat_smile:

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