How do I delete a partial? And two more questions

If I want to just delete a partial and start over, how do I get rid of it? The best I have managed is to “remove from library” but it’s still there in the project, it just isn’t in the library. Can’t you delete them? Must be a way.

Also, what if I liked something I had already built, can I select that group of stacks and make a partial of it?

And what is the “unpack” thing about which I got with a right-click? Seems to kind of clear something but then the partial is still where it always was.

thanks –

‘Unpack’ seems to take the selected partial and revert it back into the component parts, essentially changing it from a Partial stack to a regular stack, making changes to the stack(s) after unpack does not affect the Partial that is stored in the library or elsewhere in the project.

Deleting the Partial from the library won’t remove it from your project, so you would just have to go to each page where it is used and remove it.

Hopefully someone will confirm all the above is correct but that is what it appears to do.

how to delete a partial from the page

the same way you delete any other stack on the page. a partial is no different. just select it and type delete
http://cafe.yourhead.com/?qa=122/how-do-i-delete-a-partial-stack-from-a-stacks-page

how to delete a partial from the library

if a partial is still in use within your document somewhere Stacks won’t let it get deleted, but it will let you hide it in the library. select the item in the library and Ctrl-Click (right-click) the item and choose Remove from Library.
http://cafe.yourhead.com/?qa=123/how-do-i-delete-a-partial-from-the-stacks-library

what does “Unpack” do

it un-groups the contents of a partial. if you accidentally create a partial, you can unpack it to reverse the operation.
http://cafe.yourhead.com/?qa=124/what-does-the-unpack-button-do

can i select a group of stacks and make a partial

you can create a partial from any stack. that stack and all its children will be put into the partial. if you put all of your stacks into a one-column stack you can create a partial out of the whole bunch of them at once.

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Thanks. I will give that a shot.

I have partials in my project that were created in error, and have never been used.

Nevertheless, I am unable to delete them, and am only offered the option to remove them from the library. Which I do.

And then…lo and behold… if I close the app, and then reopen it, the bad partials, which I have already removed, are there again.

Why?

a partial can only come back if it is saved. and the only way to save a partial is to use it.

this means that if it comes back after a relaunch, that it must be in use somewhere in the document.

if you cannot locate it i’d recommend a divide and conquer approach:

make a copy of you document.
then on the copy, delete half the pages. and relaunch.
if the partial comes back again then you know it was s used in the remaining pages.
if the partial is gone then you know it was in the deleted group.
repeat until you’ve located the page.
it’s a quick test and with 8 repetitions you can locate the culprit page in 250. with more modest sized files you’ll be done even quicker. 15 min. tops. :grinning:

if you get all the way down to one page, and the partial still comes back. and that seems to be an error, send me the file and i’ll have a look in the debugger and tell you exactly what’s going on.

isaiah

Thanks for your response, Isaiah. But since I have about a gazillion pages, in my particular case, that is an unworkable solution.

Of interest, however…because it was just easier not to be flip-flopping between library folders, I made SEO-RX into a partial. I run the stack, and then religiously remove it after doing the analysis. I made the wrong partial first, with the wrong specs, and then made a second one, with the right specs. I have tried to remove the first one. But the bottom line, unless I screwed up, is that I delete the stack from the actual page every time before I go onto the next page.

In theory, it should not ever show up on relaunch, because at that point, there is no SEO RX on any page at all. I am 99% sure of that.

I can assure you that there is no way to make it show up again without it being used on at least one page.

But since I have about a gazillion pages, in my particular case, that is an unworkable solution.

I assumed so. and this is why I recommended a binary search by divide and conquer. it makes quick work of large number of items.

even if you have 1000 pages. you can cut in half and in half again just ten times to get down to a single page. 11 tests will take just a few minutes will search through 2048 pages. probably taking less time than it took to respond to these posts. :stuck_out_tongue:

and, if you have more pages than that… you’ve got bigger problems than I can help with. :wink:

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and I think hunting down the page (or pages) that are causing the partial would be a great way to prove me wrong to.

if you can show me a single page that’s causing the partial to hang around – and it obviously doesn’t use the partial – then we’ve found a bug and I can fix it.

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I have a site with only 9 pages and yet there is an un-used Partial in my Library which keeps re-appearing when I re-open the project file. Should I send you the Project file? I am on Stack v 3.2.1 and RW7.1 Beta.

Thanks,

Mark

Stacks continues to improve, but old forum posts never die. :stuck_out_tongue:
The info in this thread is out of date.

I’m not sure if you (or anyone else reading this thread) is aware of this feature. We blogged about it recently here: http://blog.yourhead.com/stacks-3-2-0/ (note the details under “Partially Amazing”)

So, in answer to your question:

  • if you tried to delete the partial and it came back: YES send me the file.
  • if you have not tried to delete the partial: NO try that first, see more below.

RW 7.1 allows Stacks to store partials even when they’re not being used. Which is a nice addition. So if you’re using RW 7.1 you have to explicitly remove the partial to get it to go away.

Just Control-Click on the partial and choose Remove from Library from the pop-up.

Of course, if you are still using it inside the document somewhere it will just be hidden until the next time you open the document.

The reason for the change is… well… basically this thread. The old way was hands-free – keeping only the partials you actively used – nevertheless confusing – and worst of all, a potential way for people to inadvertently lose their hard work. But prior to RW 7.1 there wasn’t much to be done about it. Now with RW 7.1 we have some new tools in our tool-belt. Woo hoo!

I suspect I will continue to refine the user-experience going forward. The entire concept of re-usable components that are saved with a specific document is not something that too have done – so there isn’t a lot of tried and true designer idioms or user muscle-memory to fall back upon. We’re blazing new trails!!!

Thanks for the prompt response. I have deleted all occurrences of the Partial within the project, but the Partial remains when I re-open. Could you PM me the email address to which I should send the project?