Hi Paul –
Early on in v4 there was much confusion between “parent/child” boxes and “inline” boxes. What you are describing is what we began referring to as an “inline” box in Freeway – actually inserting an html box inside another as if it were “in the line” of text. While what we started calling a “child” box is actually drawn upon another box, within the boundaries of that parent.
I know this is so much semantics, being that “inline” and “child” divs appear exactly the same in the output code… and at that point they are both actually child/parent divs. However, since they are achieved by such different methods in Freeway we began using different terms to describe their construction. It was a communally adopted convenience meant to avoid confusion. At least, that is how I remember it.
The Child/Parent Method in Freeway
When you begin drawing a layered box above another layered box, the borders of the parent (the box underneath) “glow” to show you that you are creating a child of that box. If your child exceeds the dimensions of the parent underneath, then Freeway will stop “glowing” the parent box to indicate a different relationship between the two boxes.
You can also toggle the Site menu to Page view and drag the layered html boxes in the list until they become indented under a another box. The indented boxes in the list are children of the box they are indented under. Note that Ilnine boxes are displayed the same way in this menu, but are not “draggable”.
Inline HTML Boxes in Freeway
Draw a layered box and enter it as if you are going to enter text (you should see a flashing cursor). From the Insert menu, choose HTML Item. This will insert a box in the line where the cursor is. The Inspector menu for such an item is different, as Freeway automatically draws the position of such items with the relative attribute.
Inline divs were first used to create “flexible” page structures. They can be difficult for many users as unpredictable changes in width (padding, margin, borders) can “break” their placement and cause complex structures to “collapse” in such a way as to frustrate the user.
Child divs can be seen in the output code as contained by the Parent’s opening and closing div tags. Child divs can inherit some styling that is aimed at the parent… For example, the tag style “div#parent p { color:red }” will color plain (unstyled) text in the parent div red… but plain text in that div’s children will also be colored red.
I hope this helps.
On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 4:27 AM, Paul Bradforth wrote:
In what way does the HTML box not seem to want to be a child? I have
to say here that I’m very confused myself about what a ‘child’ box
is. Whenever I put a box inside a box, I always use the ‘Insert’
menu. I know you can actually draw a box inside a box, but it seems
to be different depending on whether or not the cursor was flashing
in the parent box before you started drawing, so I’ve always used the
‘Insert’ menu, and I’ve always been able to insert either HTML or
graphic items without problems. What problems are you having?
–
Ernie Simpson – Freeway 5 Pro User – http://www.thebigerns.com/freeway/
