Does anyone know if there is any good way to make a partial out of the Foundry button group (say with 3 buttons in the group) and be able to edit the text and the links in two of the buttons in the partial? I’ve tried with little success. My client likes the look of the buttons but having to copy/paste that button group into every page of a 100+ page site is pretty daunting.
If not, does anyone know of a button stack that I can do that with that has a similar look and feel as the Foundry button group?
I think I’m not understanding the question. Use the button group you like as a “template”. Just copy/paste onto your 100+ pages. It would be different if you were not going to change the text and links, but since you are I’m not sure a partial saves you any time over copy/paste in this particular usage.
… maybe there is some real time savings via a partial, but based on your description I’m not seeing it. (Partials are great and I use them all the time.)
You’re probably right, but I was thinking that I could create the button group where some of the buttons are constants (and thinks like colors and shapes of the buttons) and others get edited with changes (like text and links) on each page. But I can’t figure out how to make a partial out of the group where I can edit the ones that I want to edit. Does that make sense?
Yes, what you are writing makes sense. But it doesn’t really fit into the partial schema: the idea being you want the same exact “stuff” on each page.
You definitely could create a partial, copy/paste to all the various pages, then “unpartial” the ones that needed changing. But if the vast majority of your pages will need changes to button text or actual links, then creating the partial doesn’t offer any real advantage over copy/paste.
Partials are great for basic structural components. Let’s say you want to use a tab or accordion stack on every page. With the same headings/tab names. You could do that but make the “content” inside each tab/accordion editable. This can be a very nice way to go. But it works because the changes are done in the main edit window.
… with a button group both the names and the links are not done in the main edit menu, but stacks right sidebar area. And these settings for any stack can’t be changed once you partial them. (Except by unpacking the partial.)
You might be able to find a button group stack that allows you to change the button text and the link inside the main window. Maybe. None comes to mind, but I may be wrong. But if you like the look and feel of the Foundry Button Group then I’d stick with that. You still seem to be describing a situation where you’d save very little time (if any) using a partial versus copy/paste.
The customizable bits of partials have to be in the “content” – the text, html, markdown, image, and container stacks. The sidebar properties of a partial aren’t customizable. If all the bits you need to customize are content bits – then a partial is a nifty way to build a user-created template of sorts. But if the bits you need to customize are in the properties – then there’s currently no way to do it.
However, I do think this would make a very nice feature – to be able to “unpin” properties inside of a partial. And I’ve tinkered with the idea, but have not yet been able to conquer it. I’m afraid that this feature didn’t make the cut in Stacks 4 (which is – every so slowly – wrapping up for beta testing as we speak).
I did try – actually for quite a while – I spent about a month attempting to build this. But I ran into a few major roadblocks that I couldn’t find nice solutions to – after spending about month on it I decided that I couldn’t afford any further delay and that it would have to wait for another day (and an epiphany).
Since I’m off on this tangent apologizing for this feature that I couldn’t quite make happen, let me just detail the challenges. Someone might have a comment that stirs the ideas and helps me get there… not for S4… but someday.
Feel free to ignore my rambling – it’s not really an answer to the question. But I figure it might interest a few people – and for me, it’s just fun to finally talk about some of the tough decisions that went in to building Stacks 4 (or in this case – did NOT go in to building Stacks 4).
UI challenges
To specify which sidebar properties should be “unpinned” there needs to be pins (or similar checkbox type things) added to each control in the sidebar. This very very quickly gets very very cluttery and with areas where there’s a lot packed into a small space it can be very confusing which pin goes with which control. A larger space than the sidebar would help – but that’s not available in RW. Or perhaps a totally separate UI for specifying this – but that could be equally confusing in totally different ways.
Performance challenges
When you select a stack, I very quickly build the sidebar control pane based on the settings inside the stack setup by the developer. There isn’t actually enough time to do that though. So I created a sort of “compiler” that pre-builds the info-pane for each stack on the current page. This happens in the background while you’re changing pages – so it largely goes unnoticed – and is a good use for all those extra processor cores in your Mac.
Unpinning however would throw a wrench(spanner) into the works. The user would be able to specify some controls “bubble up” to the instances of the partial. So that part would have to really happen on the fly.
Currently the hiding/showing of some controls inside of the sidebar as you change settings is not quite fast enough on the slowest supported hardware. We do our best to cache and pre-build as much as possible, but it barely squeaks by as acceptable in some of the very complex stacks with 100+ controls (yes, there are quite a few of these now). Adding a further computation AFTER that slow bit would likely be crippling. So some type of pre-compiling of this pinned/unpinned stuff would need to happen.
This pre-compiling bit is exactly the sort of feature I really hate: super hard, super complex, super developer time consuming – and for something that, if done right, you wouldn’t even know exists. I could spend six months and most folks would yawn and say, “is that it?” It’s just more fun to build stuff that users will get excited about.
All that said, I do think this is the future – some eventual future – of where Stacks is heading. With this feature (and a couple other equally daunting bits in addition) a user could very nearly build up their own custom stacks by combining and customizing partials. Add the ability to save/share partials and wow – things could get pretty fun.
I’d love to get there someday – but I just don’t seem to be typing fast enough. LOL.
Someone want to start a GoFundMe or Kickstarter so I can hire a few more engineers to help me build these cool things.
And I’ve tinkered with the idea, but have not yet been able to conquer it. I’m afraid that this feature didn’t make the cut in Stacks 4 
(which is – every so slowly – wrapping up for beta testing as we speak).
and say, “is that it?” It’s just more fun to build stuff that users will get excited about.