Why do margins of stacks within stacks change, especially in 'target'?

RapidWeaver Stacks
#1

Why do stacks that I put into stacks always change their margin properties?
I always get to this problem, and I have no idea why this happens.

I’d like to put stacks into stacks and then maybe change the margins – let’s say by 20 px – of the outer stack, so that all stacks within the outer stacks will become 20 px more narrow on the left and on the right as well.

But sometimes the (positive) margins of the inner stacks get overridden, so that the whole stack gets even wider (i. e. with negative margins) than before, even if the outer stack has all margins set to zero.

Can anyone explain this or has a solution for this problem?

#2

Do you have a sample page(URL)? Maybe some screenshots of the settings as well?

I’m not aware of stacks adding anything, unless you set margins.

Top and bottom margins will sometimes combine (collapsed) by browsers. This normal and in fact is part of the specifications.

#3

See www.test4web1234.de
The project page has a footer which is too narrow. Compare it with the footer in the about page. The only difference in programming is that I clicked on Disable on Page Load on the project page, whereas the same footer is placed in the about page. This happens all the time with headers and footers.

#4

If I’m looking at the right pages, I don’t see it, They both are the same (1566.160 X 100):

2021-01-03_12-02-54

2021-01-03_12-02-12

I’m seeing a bit more different that just that looking at the code. For one thing the about page the footer looks to be centered?

#5

Hello Doug,

I uploaded a new version of my test page:

On the about page you can see the problem in a comparison, when you open the website e. g. in iPad Pro screen size (10.5" / 834x1112 px), as depicted below: I put the same footer once on the bottom of the picture / text and once below into target. As you can see, the same footer (which is a partial btw) has a correct width (like the header above) in the upper version whereas it is a couple of px wider in the lower version (embedded in target). When you open the website on a screen wider than the maximum width, the lower version of the footer (embedded in target) aligns again with the upper version. Also the Mobile version seems to work correctly. The problem appears in the screen sizes in between.

Bildschirmfoto_LD_WEB_2021-01-04_2021-01-04 um 12.28.48
Bildschirmfoto_LD_WEB_2021-01-04_2021-01-04 um 12.28.482448×1968 347 KB

You can see the settings of target here:

Bildschirmfoto 2021-01-04 um 12.24.53
Bildschirmfoto 2021-01-04 um 12.24.534874×2970 1.19 MB

#6

Maybe I found the solution. I’ll check again tomorrow (CET).

But the width of stacks changes when you put them into target. I don’t understand why. Because of this, I had to adapt the width / margins of the respective stack to achieve the same width as before.

#7

I’m no expert on target, there is no longer any documentation on it. Not sure what the differnet width options do, Sorry can’t really help you out here. Let tag @joeworkman perhaps he can explain.

#8

Where do you find documentations of Stacks and other Rapidweaver features?

#9

Documentation is totally the responsibility of the developers of the addons.

Unfortunately to many developers don’t want to provide adequate documentation.

I’ve worked in the technology field since before there was Apple Computers, and can tell you that very few programmers like to do that part of the job. They avoid it, put it off and hope that they can bet away with not doing any documentation at all.

Unfortunately, I believe the lack of RW documentation, both the base product and third party developers has hurt the growth of a user base. There are exceptions to that. Adam’s (@Elixir) has done an excellent job with the Foundry documentation. This would be an excellent standard for other developers.

Videos are okay for getting an overview of what can be done but the aren’t a real replacement for good documentation. It’s time consuming for someone trying to learn to use something as complicated as RapidWeaver and all it’s addons to try and refer to hours of videos and pick out that piece of information that they’re looking for.

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#10

Yeah, I understand. I am mechanical engineer and industrial designer. I often wonder, how software developers leave the debugging of their software to the end user. And sometimes it is really hard to figure out what certain buttons and clickable fields mean. So I often fall back to trial and error with Rapidweaver, though I am quite content with the results I could achieve until now. Though sometimes it is quite difficult to find out what some of the stacks mean before you can actually use them. Therefore I am happy when I find some free trials before buying. But it’s not ideal. So I am fighting my way through :wink:

#11

@gabor I’m assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that many developers end up thinking that their products are very obvious and intuitive (apps in general, not RW only). In the case of RW it is MUCH more difficult as there is RapidWeaver, then Stacks, then individual stack-lets: all needing their own documentation. Could it be better overall: absolutely yes. Especially for beginners.

As far as I know @Elixir’s Foundry documentation is probably the best for any software product I’ve ever seen! (Perhaps the documentation for the writing app Scrivener is just as good: another gold standard.) He effortlessly combines written text with videos so you can go either way: and the two “modes” really complement one another. It’s one of the key reasons I chose Foundry as my framework of choice.

Overall, however, I think creators of frameworks (rather than themes or individual stacks) have done a pretty good job of documentation. The Source framework by @habitualshaker is also another case showing good documentation.

… I suppose this is a long-winded way of saying: the best documentation these days can be found with framework developers. (I’m way oversimplifying as there are some individual stack developers that also do quite a nice job.)

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#12

Would you suggest that I build my next website project based on Foundry? Is it possible to transfer stacks from my foundation website to a (new) Foundry website?

#13

I think that’s up to you. I didn’t realize you were using Foundation.

The simple answer is compare Foundry documenation with Founation. Is Foundry’s documentation a LOT better for you? If yes, then switch. If a little better or the same (in your eyes) then remain as you’re doing. I’m not super familiar with the Foundation documentation so I can’t fairly comment on it. And of course there’s Foundaton 1 vs. Foundation 6: they are very different beasts.

… I don’t think it’s simple to move from Foundation to Foundry. It’s a restart. However, the content should be very simple to transfer. But the design elements would need to be built from scratch.

#14

I switched from target to chroma with the footer in the English version of my test page www.test4web1234.de
Home and about in the German version now have chroma for the footer, all the rest still has target. I am still working on it.

#15

I have to be honest, from a design perspective, the footer looks very odd that its not full width. I say make it go full width and call it a day. :slight_smile:

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#16

I’ll think of it. BTW using Chroma for the footer seems to work only in the English version of my website but not in the German version. Do you have any idea, why?

#17

Chroma is not working because you have removed the HTML part of the stack from the page but left the javascript. This will then fail because it cannot find what it expects on the page.
I presume you have done this server side via a php solution - probably Agent? If so just check the compatibility mode in the Agent settings so that it does not remove code. (Or you could just use it to swap the content rather than the whole Chroma container which would be a better solution all round)

#18

Dear Andrew, thank you for your reply. Unfortunately, I cannot understand the issues you have explained. I have not knowingly removed the HTML part and I have not manipulated anything server side, as far as I know. I am not familiar with HTML and I do not know Agent yet. How can I swap the content and leave the Chroma container? Do you mean I should only use one Chroma container with one Chroma Marker for both RWML language versions? Sorry, but I have only scratched the surface of website design and don’t know too much about HTML.

#19

Hi @gabor Ah - it is the RWML stack then, thanks for clarifying.

This stack will only change the HTML on a page, it cannot change the javascript. This is what is making the changes server side.

It is therefore important to only change the content using such tools and not to leave orphaned javascript.

Yes, this is the optimum solution for many reasons. If there is a problem with this then let me know and I can make some changes to Chroma to make it work for you.

#20

I have to use one Chroma container each for each of the two language versions, because the content of the Chroma container is in English in the first and in German in the second version. Maybe I didn’t get it right when you wrote (as answer to my question: ‘Do you mean I should only use one Chroma container with one Chroma Marker for both RWML language versions?’) ‘this is the optimum solution’.

So, I don’t know what to do now, sorry.