Okay, I’m pretty much done with Master Pages when using the inline design style. I ended up trashing about 4 hours of work tonight, plus I experienced all kinds of buggy activity, like pages blanking out, unable to click in HTML boxes, slow performance, and a whole lot of other weird things. I got rid of the Master Pages and all of the weird stuff went away.
Plus, I think the Use Master Content and Use Master Settings boxes are transposed as far as my interpretation of what they should do. It’s too bad I can’t get this to work, because I really like the convenience of being able to modify one element, like CSS menus, headers, and footers, and having those items change throughout the site.
If anyone is successfully using master pages with inline designs please let me know what I’m doing wrong.
For the most part, I can at least get predictable behaviour from MP’s…
which, like with the random “create a style” issue, at least dials things
down from madness to just simple frustration.
I would like to make them more reliable for the same things, menus, footers
any repeating element. Changing footers on a 40+ page site one-at-a-time
is the definition of tedium.
I still lay some hope for a resurrection of Tim Plumb’s “Simple Include
Pro” which had the unique capability of creating a merge on output - much
more useful than traditional includes! The last 5.5 project I did had
hundreds of pages and changes to navigation menus and footer elements were
so damned easy. :'-)
–
Ernie Simpson
On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 3:24 AM, RavenManiac email@hidden wrote:
Okay, I’m pretty much done with Master Pages when using the inline design
style. I ended up trashing about 4 hours of work tonight, plus I
experienced all kinds of buggy activity, like pages blanking out, unable to
click in HTML boxes, slow performance, and a whole lot of other weird
things. I got rid of the Master Pages and all of the weird stuff went away.
Plus, I think the Use Master Content and Use Master Settings boxes are
transposed as far as my interpretation of what they should do. It’s too bad
I can’t get this to work, because I really like the convenience of being
able to modify one element, like CSS menus, headers, and footers, and
having those items change throughout the site.
If anyone is successfully using master pages with inline designs please
let me know what I’m doing wrong.
One thing Softpress should absolutely do in a future release of FWP is if a user makes a change to a webpage that’s based on a Master Page, FWP should turn off Use Master Settings and/or Use Master Content for not only that specific inline item, but all the inline wrappers or containers above it. That’s frequently where I get screwed using Masters. Turning on a checkbox is a lot less painful than having a Master Page overwrite hours worth of work.
Also, Joe or Simon if you’re checking this thread out please define what each of the following does so I’m clear on what their intended purpose is:
I’ve decided to tough it out and try to make Master Pages work. I’m sure the problem is me, not FWP. I’m setting up some tests so I can learn how Master Pages interact with inline design.
I look forward to whatever wisdom you can offer on this.
–
Ernie Simpson
On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 11:21 AM, RavenManiac email@hiddenwrote:
I’ve decided to tough it out and try to make Master Pages work. I’m sure
the problem is me, not FWP. I’m setting up some tests so I can learn how
Master Pages interact with inline design.
Sorry to hear you’re having some trouble with the Master pages. I’m not Joe or Simon, but I think I can help
It’s hard to say what might have gone wrong without knowing exactly how you were working, but from what you describe it sounds like maybe you checked one of the Master options (presumably Use Master Content) after having made changes to some inline items, which could remove new items/text that you’d created on the regular page. If you run into trouble again, if you can send a sample file and specific steps on how to recreate the problem in to Support, we can offer some more specific information.
Regarding Use Master Settings and Use Master Content, here’s how they work in a nutshell:
Use Master Settings affects the position and appearance of an item (such as the size and background color; pretty much the options from the Inspector).
Use Master Content is for what’s in the item; the words, or the other inline items. Essentially what was added to the item after double-clicking in it.
It shouldn’t be necessary to uncheck Use Master Content for the wrapper above the specific inline inline, since that wouldn’t affect items nested in the items nested in that. For example, let’s say I have three items: Wrapper, Header and Menu. Menu is an inline child of Header, and Header is an inline child of Wrapper. Only Wrapper and Header are Master items; Menu was created on the instance page (which is bad form, but let’s run with it for the example).
When I created Menu, the “Use Master Content” option was unchecked automatically on Header, but not on Wrapper. If I manually uncheck and recheck “Use Master Content” for Wrapper, it has no effect on the Menu item. That’s because only the Header item itself is considered to be the Master content of the Wrapper item. Since that item is still there, Wrapper is considered to have all of it’s Master content, regardless of what’s inside of Header.
But, if I re-check “Use Master Content” on the Header item, then the Menu item would be removed, since that doesn’t exist on the Master page and as such, is not part of the Master content. Does that make a bit more sense?
Katie Wagner
Technical Support Operative
Softpress Systems Ltd
On Apr 30, 2013, at 1:27 AM, RavenManiac email@hidden wrote:
One thing Softpress should absolutely do in a future release of FWP is if a user makes a change to a webpage that’s based on a Master Page, FWP should turn off Use Master Settings and/or Use Master Content for not only that specific inline item, but all the inline wrappers or containers above it. That’s frequently where I get screwed using Masters. Turning on a checkbox is a lot less painful than having a Master Page overwrite hours worth of work.
Also, Joe or Simon if you’re checking this thread out please define what each of the following does so I’m clear on what their intended purpose is:
