Why are there three instances of the stack?
Which one should be used?
Should two be deleted somehow?
Find it funny there is a plugin called stacks and stacks is part of Rweaver and the stack needed is foundation. Definitely confusing for a newbie. Another confusing aspect is getting a straight answer regarding the need of foundation and stacks to function synergistically and both must be purchased individually. It would be great if the foundation bundle came with stacks to make things simple…
Based on this screen cap. Is there anything amazing missing from my arsenal? Here is a screen cap. of my plugins as well:
You are looking at the add-ons section of RapidWeaver. My suggestions, is with Stacks 3, create a new group in the Stacks Library, and name it Foundation
Then add all of the Foundation stacks in the library to that folder. Then you have there and ready to go when you need it. Do not worry about the three listed in the addons area, those are the stacks that check for updates in the Stacks plugin.
Hi,
I’m sorry I’m having a real tough time with this. I remember downloading dreamweaver back circa 1999 and wipping up a number of pages without an issue. . What am I missing here?
Are you suggesting to make a folder for each stack bunch like forms, dynamic layout, content, buttons, third party etc This is my current understanding:
-Foundation works within stacks.
-After opening a stacks style page you can access the foundation application via the menus (the three instances I saw do show up for update purposes only within stacks toward the bottom. )
-There are three portions above the portion that is added when foundation is installed.
Those sections are:
Basic, Layout, Content. These also show up within (built in)
below those three sections are the new foundation sections named:
foundation,
foundation third party,
foundation buttons and navigation,
foundation content,
foundation dynamic layout,
foundation forms,
foundation pack updates (three three packs I was trying to figure out)
Then there are three more sections, Are these sections part of stacks? I do not recall how this was before foundation was installed*
The three other sections are:
My mind is racing and i see a ton of other items that i’m unsure of.
Are any of these portions of rapid weaver of any use when working within STACKS>Foundation>
I guess I should ask, can these page types be used within a frame within stacks or would they be separate pages/ page types to possibly use with a site for example.
Example:
say I need an FAQ section and I have accordion there to do that. Is there a better stack available so I can get rid of accordion or do I plan to ad an accordion page to my project and then link it to my foundation page and style it similarly to match.
I can understand this must seem confusing to new users. Let me try to point out some things:
RapidWeaver comes with a bunch of page types to give you certain functionalities (e.g. downloads, photo albums, contact forms)
Stacks is a plugin which does not supply a certain functionality but a blank canvas that allows you to arrange the content elements on your page more or less freely
Stacks comes with a bunch of stack elements to cover basic content types (there is a stack for text, one for images, some for columns etc.)
Stacks however was designed to enable 3rd party developers to contribute by developing additional stacks (= elements for a stacks page), which has been a huge success.
Most of these add-on stack elements will extend the functionality in a similar way new page types do for RW: there are stacks for contact forms, photo albums, slideshows, downloads, music player and tons more.
Still Stacks only dealt with the content part of the webpage and the other elements (header, footer, sidebar etc.) were taken care of by the RapidWeaver theme. Until Foundation was developed.
The basic idea behind Foundation is to have a RW theme that is as stripped-down as possible just to function within RW and to do all the rest of the design on a Stacks page. In other words: to use Stacks not just for the content part, but for the entire page.
That’s why the Foundation stacks are so many (again the same principle: each stack extends the functionality of the basic tool) and why they cover areas like “header” and “navigation”.
Additionally, there is at least one way how you can bring content from other pages inside a RW project onto a stacks page: another plugin called PlusKit (by www.loghound.com). PlusKit gives you not an additional page type but the option to import content from one page into another page by simply adding a very short element of code. Say you have a text page and below that you want to show a contact form. Then create a contact form page and a PlusKit page, hide both in the navigation and below your text add
@import((nameofyourcontactpage))
Then RW will place the contact form below your text.
I hope this makes the architecture a little clearer.
A personal remark from my side: I appreciate Stacks and Foundation as ways to make it easier for users to create a page. However the code generated often is bloated (especially if you’re nesting stacks in each other.
@kurtfgx Hi, the Foundation 3rd Party stacks are the BigWhiteDuck stacks that you obviously downloaded.
Firstly - make sure that you run the stacks updater to get the latest stacks 3 versions (t should run once a day anyway but you can also manually check for updates by clicking the button with 2 arrows in a circle at the bottom of your stacks library pane). The new versions have updated icons from the ones you downloaded.
Secondly, if you add these to your Foundation Group then they will appear with your other foundation stacks (but in their own tag category) - just make sure you click the little cog and select Arrange Stacks -> By Tag
Thank you so much for the breakdown. That was my rough understanding but the clear and concise explanation confirms things. Thank you for taking a minute to explain. Much more clear on things now.
also* Thanks for the heads up for loghound too . I understand what you mean by making a page then referencing it like a hotlink within a box/table. Seems simple enough!
So to reiterate. ad ons like these:
Accordion
blocks
blog
collage2
contact form
file sharing
html code
iframe
markdown (what is this?)
offsite page
photo album
sitemap
styled text
Are for the most part ignored when using Stacks/Foundation unless there is a need for code similar to one of the elements that does not exist within foundation. Then the element must be imported to a box via loghound.
Correct?
Which raises a good newbie question.: Which of these plugins (or have all of them) been recreated within foundation as of yet?
Most of your reiteration is correct.
If you want to work with Stacks and Foundation, the other page types are necessary only when there are no stacks (=stack elements) to do the same thing. For most plugin purposes you should be able to find a stack that does this more or less equally well. Note that you can use almost all existing stacks within site built with the Foundation framework.
Markdown is a coding language that is supposed to make it easier and faster to assign html code to text. I say “supposed” because I don’t see it as much of an improvement over standard html tags. But it does basically the same thing.
And the tool to import other pages into a Stacks page is not “loghound”, it is “PlusKit”. Loghound is the name of the developer.
Not sure what was happening there. I got in. I guess I can hold off on anything additional for the moment because this is as far as I have made it.
I have my site named,
site styles stack added
subdomain for font created fonts.vitalisvapor.com
font styles stack added,
custom font selected and linked for every possible option
seo helper stack added.
I was able to download and install the pluskit and add a pluskit control page to the project I guess I am missing what it’s capabilities are. Not sure what to do with this thing here.
