No problem. The next time I am in the file i will make a stripped back copy for you and PM you it via the messaging system here.
Wonderful! Thanks!
I’m loving your website - very bold and interesting. Great project!
Funny you say this - I ditched them originally for Foundation, but the interminable tutorial videos for the smallest question finally did for me. Since I discovered @Jannis stacks, then @habitualshaker Source, I have moved virtually all my work to it. If I can finally master Containers and Grid Plus + Poster templates, I will be happy for life. So easy, so powerful.
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Nick, it was much the same for me. I was an enthusiastic Foundation user, but F6 lost me. It’s a great product (and I continue to follow it with interest), but I find it easier to write some CSS than work out which swatches to apply. Also Andrew’s SectionsPro was the basic building block of all my sites, but Stuart’s implementation of CSS Grid really makes containers unnecessary now. A Grid item is already a container. Unlike the containers of the past, though, it has the advantage of precision positioning at every breakpoint (and Flexbox positioning internally). Grid has really been a game-changer.
I could never master Sections Pro, despite its power and you have certainly mastered Grids. I seem to have a mental block with them right now and I’m not quite getting it. More time and practice required.
With respect, I’ve never understood the RW user fixation with containers. They are simply not a thing in the real world. It seems to be a generic word that people have latched onto and turned it into an entity.
Drag and drop tends to encourage people to drop things inside other things and use extra items just to move other things around in edit mode. None of this really adds anything other than redundant divs to the HTML.
Sections was all about layers and animations / video. It was never supposed to be a responsive layout tool. We had Flexbox columns for that at the time (and legacy float columns)
CSS Grid is a layout tool, bringing 2 dimensional control (i.e. height as well as width). Flexbox is a layout tool more suited to horizontal or vertical layouts (such as menus etc). Floated columns were, of course the old way before modern Flex and Grid CSS came along.
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Nick, if you want to get a good understanding of CSS grid, I can’t recommend Rachel Andrew’s work highly enough. She was one of the drivers behind the current standards, and she is a great explainer (she’s also editor-in-chief of Smashing magazine). She has links to various resources, including some good introductory pieces on her website https://rachelandrew.co.uk. She also has a site dedicated to help people learn about CSS Grid: https://gridbyexample.com.
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That is incredibly helpful James, thank you you kindly - my reading for this evening on a very wet and windy night.
I hope everyone else is OK? There has been plenty of nasty weather around the last few days
And of course there’s over 40 pages dedicated to learning about it in the recently released Chapter 5 of the Workbook :)
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@habitualshaker Exactly - and that really highlights the value of your teaching materials. RW users don’t need to learn web programming complexities, they can learn with a results focussed resource.
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Stuart’s materials are fantastic. But so are Rachel Andrew’s.
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I don’t disagree at all. Most RW users however do not want to learn to code, they simply want to know how to get the result they are looking for with a drag and drop “lego” type approach.
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Truly you are right Tav. I wish I could devote the time to learn coding, but there are too many other components to life. I have friends starting to retire and I have just started another part-time career. So many things to do, so little time!
I take your point, Andrew. But even Lego involves programming these days (in fact, has been programmable since 1986, and according to Wikipedia there are now 69 programming languages for Lego Mindstorms, including versions of Python, Lisp, Swift, Javascript and Objective C!) Joe has been doing some great sessions on coding recently, and if RW/Stacks is Lego, F6 is its Mindstorms. And even if we’re not going to be coding things ourselves, we do need to understand more about the tools we’re using, because they’re becoming more complex. It’s equivalent to what is happening elsewhere: nobody’s going to be satisfied with a MacPaint for image editing any more, but if you’re going to use Affinity Photo, you’re going to have to get to grips with professional level tools and terminology. RW might have set out as an alternative to FrontPage and iWeb, but its days as an ‘hobbyist’ platform are numbered — that constituency have mostly migrated to Wix and Squarespace and their equivalents. RW/Stacks/Frameworks is now an application for building professional-level, business critical sites.
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And of course that’s on top of the 18 pages of basic information covering the Source Grid stacks.
It is quite amazing really that RW has got so far without this level of proper documented support that Stuart has created for Source. There is no excuse really, for anyone not getting to grips with Source.
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One other thing. No two actually.
Since the Source Workbook was published, it hasn’t left my desktop and I have found myself referring to it more that I anticipated. As it’s always just 1 click away, I frequently use it.
I have found that the book’s visual layout lends itself to providing something similar to a set of flash card quick overviews, that have reminded me of stuff that although I knew about, that I wasn’t taking advantage of. The nature of stacks is that most users figure out how to use them, and then never refer to the documentation to see what else can be done.
The other significant thing about the book is that the multiple Projects are a great “source” of inspiration that are just a couple of clicks away. I have found that this can really speed up and inspire a design.
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These are great comments Gary. Thanks a lot. You obviously already use Source at a high level so is great that you are still finding some nuggets in the Workbook!!
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I cannot praise Stuart’s workbook enough. It is very clear, easy to understand, and the examples to work through are superb. I have been working through the book in bite-sized chunks and have learned an awful lot. Grids used to be a bit hit and miss before but now I feel very comfortable with them. It’s a great book - buy it !
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You and me both. Your work is at a far higher level, but I totally agree. The workbook is a real reference.
At risk of upsetting certain developers (who do not frequent this site), the real breakthrough in RW for me has been from @Jannis and @habitualshaker Not just for the the quality of your software tools, but for the quality of your teaching / support materials. As Gary said:
and this is a critical difference. Design great tools - then show users how to use them!!
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