At my wits end with RW/Stacks rant

TSM

So, I finally got a website built and published and I have been using different browsers and computers to look at it to see how it renders and find that it looks like complete crap in IE8 (which unfortunately a LOT of people who view my site are still using.) I have been trying to adjust and tweak the site so that it at least renders into something usable and comprehendable when (and here is where the problems start compounding) I find that RW/Stacks has lost my images AGAIN!! This is twice in the last couple of weeks. I can't keep using something that is as unpredictable as this. I have the update that was put out( I did not even start losing images until after the update) and I still have issues. This time it even lost my Distributor map that took me what seemed like an eternity to put together.
/rant
Ok, so now that I have that out there, I really want RW to work but I am pressed for time and have a hard time justifying redoing a lot of the work I have already done. Thank god I have made incremental backups as I have gone along, it has made piecing my site back together a LOT easier.
Is there anybody that can give me any advice on this? or help me out in any way? I would REALLY appreciate it.

Thanks in advance

thinkfilm

I feel your pain -- but I haven't personally experienced the lost images and such issues you are having. Have you sent a support request to YourHead? Isaiah is the gold standard for responding to issues with his plug-ins -- that is something to which I can attest. http://www.yourhead.com/ You might even get his attention on Twitter.

Pagoda

Hi,

I was having some bugs in IE and stacks too. (I'm using freestack theme).

It doesn't work for everyone, but this fixed the IE issues for me.

Go to Preferences, select the 'publishing' tab (you'll see 3 tabs: general, publishing, notifications).
Make sure the following are selected:
Enable smart publishing.
Consolidate common files
Conslidate CSS files
Compress CSS files.

That worked for me. However, it might not be related to your problem / theme / content conflicts, but worth having a try.

Cheers

TSM

Well after piecing the site back together this morning I went into the settings and made sure all those were selected and then republished. Did not seem to help in my situation. I appreciate the help but to no avail. Im actually seriously rethinking the responsive thing and the whole website in general. I hate to do it after spending as much time as I have creating the site but I am almost leaning towards the freestack theme and redoing the whole thing from scratch.
or
Is there a website designer around here that anybody can recommend to make a nice clean professional looking site without costing an arm and a leg? Somebody to do the design in RW and then we can take it over in house?

Ed Brenner

Do you have a link to the site that we can see?

TSM

Sure thing www.transitionalsystems.com

Ed Brenner

Thanks.

You're using Mobi from Elixir, nice theme. Have you checked with him about the IE8 issue(s)? It is a 'responsive' type theme that uses an 'open' DocType for HTML5 (which is still in draft) and older browsers, including IE8 can struggle with it.

mitchellm

Are there a lot of people who will be accessing your website via phones? If not, I'd really rethink responsive. Remember: the website will still work on a smart phone if not responsive, it just won't have features that maximize reading size. (And more smart phones like the new iPhone have a special widget that allows people to focus on just text on a webpage and see that in a larger easy to read format).

This thread seems to be a carry on of another re: images. That's a very tricky issue. Can't help you there. (I warehouse all my images to avoid these kinds of issues, but that's of little help to you at the moment.)

As an aside, you seem to have a number of "things" going on at your site. Each time you add a "gimmick" that has special effects (e.g. your +/- links yellow tab) you add potential problems and conflicts with other stacks. If you're a beginner I would highly suggest making the website as simple as possible while maintaining your central message. That means eliminating things that seem "cool" but may be unintentionally contributing to your problems.

From a design & communication perspective it seems like your site could also benefit from simplification. Sometimes it's hard for a user to know what to focus on in a page. Too much going on.

Finally, even the top menus seem to work funky in Safari. That shouldn't happen so something is amiss. I don't think it's a problem with the theme itself, so some aspect of the design is confusing things. For example, when I hover over Home both Home and Products are in green. This shouldn't happen.

Rusty Wood

I had the same problem today with the Mobi theme.. lost images here & there .. It just happens randomly, I am all up to date..

Complete nightmare I know... all I can say is when you get it right, make sure you back up new copies... I now have V1-V2 -V3 etc..... so you have something to bounce back off... if this happens.

Rusty

TSM

Well, the verdict is in. The site is being switched over to the freestack theme. I like the Mobi theme, I just don't think it's the right tool for this job.

@Ed Brenner No, I think I'll just make the switch for now. If I decide to use that theme for a future project I will just deal with whatever pops up at that time.

@mitchellm There are a fair amount that access it via a mobile device. Mostly to download a set of installation instructions or the like(not sure where the printed copy that comes with the product is making off to but none the less).
The Images issue is still concerning me about this project. I make daily backups so that I can go back and fill in the blanks. I had to go back a few days on this last one because it only lost images out of a couple of pages and I didn't notice because I had not worked on those pages in a few days. Sure glad I don't overwrite.
Af far as the number of "things" going on in the website. The whole site is being redone. I would not go as far as from the ground up, but most of that stuff will not be making it's way into the new version.

@Rusty Wood I hear you. I have all the updates and it's happening. It didn't even start for me until after the updates but I'm a little late the the party. I just started with RW so I'm still learning what's what.
And AMEN to incremental backups. It's saved me twice now. I learned a long time ago to start backing up. Especially those things that are hard or impossible to duplicate.

mitchellm

TSM: glad you are on a path with FreeStacks that seems like it will work better for you. Hope it goes a LOT more smoothly! I realize it can be quite frustrating.

Understand your need for mobile/responsive.

Incremental backups rock! I make a new one each time I work on a project. Have not had the image disappearing problem, but have managed to make my own bonehead mistakes. Those incremental BUs have saved me a few times.

As far as images, I just don't use RW typical behavior of having images stored in my project file. I do this not because of losing images, but for a variety of other organizational reasons. I've had zippo problems with images once I learned how to warehouse my images (and thus NOT store in a RW project file). As a result I only use stacks, plugins, etc. that work with warehoused images. Most of the developers do have options for warehoused images so this has proven not to be a limitation for me.

Best of luck. I think I'd go crazy if I was one of the people experiencing these disappearing image scenarios. Or I'd just drown myself in drink.

TSM

Thanks for the luck. I am liking the way the FreeStacks is working. I am still getting into the inner workings of it and trying to make the most out of it but so far I am very happy that we have made the switch.
I may have to take a look at the warehoused images. It sounds like it may solve at least on of my issues lol
Thanks again!

Allison Nelson

Regarding the missing images thing, just ran across a post by Defligra in another area of this forum, that mentions that he had a problem with this, and it was resolved by using a Text Stack instead of an Image Stack. Text stacks will accept images as well as text.

I had seen this mentioned on this forum ages ago, but had forgotten about it. I am gonna go back and replace my image stacks with text stacks and move my pics into the text stacks. I will likely move to image warehousing in the long run, but the current method is just so easy and fast.

I have had the missing images problem as well, but my issues with RW, now revolves more around repeat crashes without warning. Have submitted requests for help, a couple of times, but now for last couple of weeks there has been dead silence from YourHead support. Perhaps because of the new RW Beta? Bet that just increased the workload for all the developers!

Nik

Hi Allison

Have you given the new beta a spin for your issues? We're still tracking the issues you've reported (and thanks, again, for reporting them - it's much appreciated. I'm sorry you're experiencing such issues).

Cheers!

—Nik