Multithemes LUX won't, however, allow you to switch your brain off entirely. Once you've decided on a colour scheme (25 different elements beg your attention), you then need to choose from one of fifteen headline fonts and five fonts for your content. You then have the option to include a background image for each page (tiled, or as a cover image) and then there's an option for an (actually ten different) HTML5 animation overlay, which can be used as an overlay for the background image, or for one of the optional colour backgrounds.
Remember Extra Content? ExtraContent came about when a handful of 3rd party developers got together to address the need for more content spaces in RapidWeaver.
While the content area and sidebar are ample space for the vast majority of RapidWeaver users, there are some who want more flexibility to add content in ways keeping with todays modern web designs.
LUX comes with an Extra Content stack and three options for its positioning 1) Below the Header, 2) Below the page content 3) Within the Menu dropdown.
Which brings me to the navigation menu. The menu is just that: Top right is the word "Menu" with a Plus button. Clicking either opens a navigation overlay which is either just over 50% of the page width or, optionally (Nav Wide), approximately 95% of the viewport width. Extra Content 3 is positioned below the navigation bar that appears, so it's feasible to add a map of your location to the menu, along with company details.
LUX is a theme with a straightforward, very clean design that is enhanced by an unusual, but very useful navigation and some interesting animations for each page load. The animations are only displayed once on each page so they are subtle rather than overbearing. LUX has been tested and found compatible with all modern browsers. The theme can be customised with dozens of options, allowing you to create, your very own individual site.
Criticism: I only found one point: I can choose from 15 different Google fonts for my headlines, but only have five standard web fonts for the content – the standard web fonts don't always harmonise with the header fonts.
Trivia:
*CD = Corporate Design: The standardised design elements that are associated with a company's visual appearance.
Not to be confused with:
CI = Corporate Identity or corporate image: the manner which a corporation, firm or business presents themselves to the public internally and externally.
Popper is a new stack from STH [Shaking The Habitual] that will allow you to overlay / underlay / frame / decorate your content almost any way you please. The stack itself has just two settings Framer/Divider and Height, if Divider has been set. If Popper is set to Framer, you'll see a stacks container for the content that is to be framed, you'll also see a stacks child for the first part of your frame. Closer inspection reveals that the initial child is 200px wide and 160px high, and because your content doesn't yet have any padding, the child stack is actually top-left behind your content, so you'll need to decide exactly where to position your Popper child stacks.
You have options to set dotted (round or square) or chequered patterns. You can set the pattern height and width, the distance for the pattern repetition, the colour (of course) and the zIndex (extremely useful if you wish to layer the child stacks and create your own, more complicated patterns).
Have a text that you need to highlight? Add a frame to two corners. Have an image with a mundane background? Make it pop by overlaying a pattern. The STH Popper demo page has dozens of examples.
The simple example below was created using a single Popper stack with four child stacks around the text stack, then a Popper stack with two child stacks used as a divider.
Get creative with Popper!
Enter Portal from Joe Workman. Portal is a set of two stacks and a theme. The theme is important and MUST be used for your Portal In stack pages. It ensures that your content is correctly saved as .php elements and can be imported with the Portal Out stack.
The Portal Out stack then outputs your Portal content on every page that it's required. As a simple mnemonic, just remember that with the IN stack, you're putting content into the Portal, with the OUT stack, you're requesting data out of the Portal.
Instead of publishing your complete website (as is often necessary when using Partials), you only need to publish your altered Portal IN pages to ensure that all of your content is automatically updated. And the added advantage is that any images contained within a Portal page are cached so that they don't need to be reloaded. This is a game changer!
Using Portal is conceivably simple: build a Portal IN page that contains the content that needs to be repeated (using the Portal theme). Add a Portal OUT stack to a page that needs duplicate content and define the page that you wish to import. Publish.
Remember that you are using .php and that whilst RW can now render .php pages, you need to preview your Portal page before you can preview the imported pages.
Portal works with any theme, but there's a bonus for Foundation users. the IN stack has a setting for Foundation so that, if you use Foundation specific stacks on your portal page, you will not see the message that you haven't used the Foundation theme (remember, you MUST use the Portal theme for everything to work).
Partials – Great, but old hat! My future websites will use Portal instead!
Layouts is a single stack that lets you build grids with unlimited numbers of columns, but it comes with built in stacks for Columns, Rows, Headings and Text. Layouts is flexible enough to build complete pages with relatively little effort. Gutters and row spacers are added automatically so that your layout is evenly spaced, but every setting remains fully editable. All of the elements can easily be reshuffled when need be.
Layouts creates 2 dimensional grids similar to Flexbox. This means that a grid element can not expand into the row below it as is possible with CSS Grids, but hey! CSS Grids are too possibly complicated for the majority of Weavers anyway!
A grid element – with a single mouse click – can be transformed into a Column, Row, Heading, or Text. You can, of course, add any of your favourite stacks to a Layout Column or Row; the height of each Layout element can be set up to 100% of the screen height and it goes without saying that your Layouts will reflow to fit any viewport width – there are advanced settings which allow you to define breakpoints for each device.
You'll find that Layouts is pretty amazing…
To go through each of the settings would take up more space than is available here, so if you decide that Layouts is for you, be sure to study the RW8 demo page that is included with the stack! Layouts works equally well with RW7 and there is a detailed tutorial available here.
There's a long list of new features for Formloom 4. The list isn't as long as the new features introduced with version three, but still worthy of mention.
Here's what Mike lists as being new:
So let's be honest. I never used Formloom before. I tested the beta version of V4 and was impressed. Then, after seeing Yabdab's demo page, I decided that yes, Formloom beats the trousers (pants for those on the wrong side of the pond) off FormSnap and have purchased the plugin.
Why? Because the feature list is way longer (read: 'better') and I was impressed with the new page break feature for longer forms.
Formloom is a plugin. A Formloom Helper Stack is included with the plugin which allows you to add your completed form to any stacks page. The UI, even though the forms themselves can get very complicated, is easy to understand.
More complicated forms can be divided into 'subpages' and navigation dots are automatically added so that the user can see how many pages there are. Moving backwards or forwards within a form, or accidentally refreshing the page does not delete any information that was previously entered.
If you use Formsnap, there is a special crossgrade price available for Formloom. You might find it useful to check the demo out!
Links to the developers ® All trademarks cited on this page are the property of their respective owners.
Subscribe to Ninja News
or ask a question
Yes, I would like to receive your monthly newsletter.
No thanks, I’m good for now. I have a different issue.
[1-1], thanks for subscribing.
By clicking 'Submit', you are giving your consent to having rjh-webdesign collect your name and email.
These details are used exclusively for the newsletter and will not be passed on to third parties!
As soon as I've added you to the mailing list, you'll receive a mail asking you to confirm your subscription.
If you made a further request, I’ll get back to you – typically within 24 hrs.
[1-1], thanks for contacting me. I’ll review your mail, and get back to you – typically within 24 hrs.
Thanks again for contacting us. Your request was successfully submitted.
The Latest & Greatest
Do you have a question regarding RapidWeaver?
Would you like help with your new project?
Would you like us to build your new RapidWeaver website?
265 Moo 2
Mae Na Toeng Nai, Pai
Mae Hong Son
Thailand 58130
We design websites and print-products for small businesses at reasonable prices. We specialise in Responsive Web Design.
This site uses Cookies to determine the best method of display in combination with your browser.
We do not harvest or sell personal information.
© rjh web design 2010—17
Powered by rjh-design
Don’t miss a post!
Sign up for our monthly newsletter.
A monthly digest of all the latest updates from our RapidWeaver blog, keeping you up to date with the hottest new stacks and themes.
By clicking 'Submit', you are agreeing to receive emails from Ninja News
Our newsletter is distributed via MailChimp, who is also responsible for maintaining our mailing list. You can read their privacy policy here.