Wandering aimlessly around the BWD site I saw that Font Styles is now deprecated and it made me wonder if any of the other stacks at the bottom of the BWD library have been superceded or replaced by ones at the top.
Thanks
Rob
FontStyles was superseded by its Stacks 3 re-write version: FontPro (which of course ended up with Joe).
SlideUp can be done with Pin and Chroma but some people like the simplicity of the original.
ScrollUp: Chroma is a lot better than ScrollUp and more efficient but I got a load of people me wanting to leave ScrollUp visible in their library so it is not deprecated.
ScrollMate - now replaced with ScrollMate 2 as per the product page information.
Pin - again Chroma is better and more efficient JS
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Cheers Andrew. The Duck turns these things out at such a ferocious speed itâs sometimes hard to keep up!
Iâm a bit confused as to when I would use Sections Pro2 and when I would use BluePrint. Is there a lot of overlap between the two?
Rob
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Not wanting to answer for the man really in the know, but for me itâs a case of what the content type is, and what I want to do with it.
If itâs background video then itâs SP. If I want to fix content to top/bottom/middle then again SP, with SP Fix. If the content needs to me animated then again itâs SP and SP Box. If I just need a simple container to add margin/padding at different BPâs, and/or simple backgrounds, and perhaps have easy control over the position of the these backgrounds, then itâs Blueprint. If I want to shift content up, then BP.
For me, BP is the go-to container for pretty much all content. If BP doesnât do what I need, then I use SP.
Worth mentioning that lots of the SP child stacks work with BP, even though they are not directly available in the BP child option.
Suspect Tav will be along soon to tell me how wrong I am.
:-)
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No, Thats pretty my h what I would say.
I use SP for everything by default as itâs code output on the published page is tiny.
I use BP is I need 3 way inherited padding / margins / width.
BluePrint only came about as I was fed up of the all or nothing responsive padding options. I did t want to fill in settings for multiple screen sizes if I was o let using 2.
The other feature, namely pull up / pull out came about to make it simple for users. Sections Pro will also do this and is actually more powerful when working with angles but people didnât use it as there wasnât a button that said pull up.
Sections also has the advantage of using master styles which further reduce code output on the published page. Again, most people donât care about this though - if the client gets a page full of repetitive unused code and tons of useless comments they donât care.
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Cheers to both for the clear explanations. I shall store in Alternote for future reference.
Rob
I got to get Me one of those Big White Duck secret decoder rings. đ
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By decoder ring, do you mean just to get your head around using Tavâs stuff, or is there an in-joke Iâve missed?
If the former, none of it is really that complex once you break it down. I avoided it all for ages, as everytime I looked my brain hurt, but then I started to use his stuff for simple tasks and just closed up the setting options for the stuff I didnât understand, and with far fewer settings visual everything looked easier.
I then purchased a rake of @Webdeersign projects which use BWD stuff heavily and started to deconstruct. Then it all made sense.
Tav does tend to use a different language for stuff than most devs, who tend to stick more to the RW way of doing things (not a better way, just the RW way). But once you start to understand Tavs logic (god help you) and his phrasing itâs all really easy.
As with anything with power, there is a learning curve with a lot of the BWD stuff, but itâs nowhere near as big as you initially think once you dive in.
What I can tell you is that your sites will take a huge leap forward in terms of functionality and design once you get comfortable with BWD stacks.
The downside though is that RW sometimes canât cope with too well in preview with BWD stacks, as they push it to the max, but itâs a small price IMO.
EDIT: Should add: In most cases the default settings of the more complex settings are fine to use, so often you only need to change a couple of things to get the desired effect.
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Like Steve, I like to deconstruct/analyze Garyâs projects for stuff that is new to me, or complicated, like (some) BWDâs stacks. It makes learning much quicker and even pleasurable. @Webdeersignâs 50% sale gives everyone a chance to try the same method I use for learning. On top of that, you will get truly great web designs.
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And then there are @Marten FREE online tutorials each week to help us all understand the BWD stacks - just sayin
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Donât tell everyone, Paul, or theyâll get popular.
Can I have some examples and how they should be alternatively worded? - it would help in making things more accessible in future.
Padding: The space around that bit.
Margin: Ingore, just use padding.
Pull up: Move this bit up a bit.
OK, just messing. Looking at your stacks now itâs actually hard for me to spot anything, as Iâm a-tuned to your way now. But I do recall being confused by the wording used at times when I first got going with BWD stacks: Iâd ask what it means, someone would explain, and Iâd think âahh, thatâs what others call xxxâ.
I know, feck all help, sorry. I am working with a lot of your stuff at the mo so will post back as I recall things.
No joke,
I use Tavâs stacks all of the time. They are unbelievable.
The issue I have sometimes is deciding which one to use ie blueprint -vs- sections pro etc.
And I am way behind his curve, I havenât had a chance to learn Scribe yet and have barley touched Limelight.
By the time I get there, he will have a whole new & better way to accomplish the task at hand ;-)
I think I struggle with the nomenclature of some BWD stacks.
For example, ButtonPLUS2 I can cope with, but I wouldnât be immediately sure what Chroma is for and the same applies to Blueprint. Iâm not offering ideas for replacement names at the moment, but my inclination would be more towards something like âLayoutPlusâ for Blueprint, for example.
But Iâve got to dash so may come back and edit this in a bit!
Rob
In my defence, I thought that I gave more description than most other developers.
I write a blog post stating the primary functions of the stack in as simple terms as possible (e.g. Chroma post).
I put a summary and précis on the product page (e.g. Chroma Product page),
I make some of the most extensive demo sites which not only state the functions but also show them in action (e.g. Chroma demo site).
I then make a series of videos detailing not only how they work but how to se them in real world situations, common problems and advanced techniques (e.g. Chroma Playlist).
My contention is that most comments like the above posts are because people have preconceptions about my stacks being difficult / complex / etc etc.
I should make it clear that I am in no way bothered by this, I just want to address problems if there are things that can be changed to improve accessibility for all; please do jump in here with any tangibles that I can change.
The only suggestion I have received so far (on many occasions) is that I should make cut down versions of the stacks that do a lot less and charge money for them. Seems very counter intuitive but it might just work in this bizarre world of RW.
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There is almost nothing to learn with Scribe. In fact, you can use it really effectively without learning a thing, just type into the stack as you would a post on here, and bingo, you end up with a fully formatted piece of text that is 100% correct in terms of code. No more multiple paragraph stacks.
If you then want to add headers, stick a # before the text. One # for an h1 tag, two for h2 and so on.
Want bullets? Stick "* " (note the space) before the bullets. Want some text in bold? wrap it with **. And so on. Itâs so easy to get your head around.
Since Scribe launched Iâve almost never used a header or para stack, I use Scribe for everything.
If you have a page with loads of text content replacing all the text and header stacks with Scribe stacks speeds the page in preview up massively.
Of all the really fancy stuff Tav has done, for me Scribe is his best stack, purely for its versatility, ease of use and incredible power: You can literally make an entire page of formatted content using only the one stack.
Love it.
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