Stacks vs Old Scrapbook features

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Hi everybody,

I work with stacks of the new version 5.5 but I think there are some features missing compared to the old scrapbook.

The features missing are :

1/ Define if stack block (added in a page) is an alias (entire stack) or if blocks in the stack are new instance on the page. ( without using clipboard because we need to go stacks > copy to clipboard a block > go back to page > paste from clipboard ( then sometimes > delete from clipboard) )

2/ Define to display entire stack or just one block in this stack.

3/ Possiblity to rename stacks & blocks in these stacks.

Another question :
There is a way to clear clipboard whitout click on trash for each items ?

Thanks in advance

Best.

moosh
 
andreyman3d2k replied on at Permalink Reply
Bump to top! +10000000000
clintre replied on at Permalink Reply
clintre
I would agree that there are just some things missing from Stacks in regards to Scrapbooks.

I get the reason, I understand the logic of the Stack vs. Scrapbook. I just thing the simple little things I could do with a Scrapbook block that I can't with a Stack block. (mentioned by OP)
kbsd replied on at Permalink Reply
kbsd
Yeah!
You're right.

I can also propose :

> Add ability to make sets of Stacks for organization.
andrew replied on at Permalink Reply
andrew
1. Go to the stack, click on the block, add it to the clipboard, paste it throughout your site. You mention that this isn't desirable but I'm not sure there's a way out there that makes more sense than this.

2. Yeah stacks really aren't set up to do this at the moment.

3. 5.5.1 reintroduced the ability to name a block (using the custom template menu on the block itself.)
andreyman3d2k replied on at Permalink Reply
1. The way scrapbooks had it was pretty clear and much more efficient/user friendly - Simple choice upon placement: Copy or alias (or whatever the terms were). Now, as OP said, it's needlessly laborious.

2. This is HUGE! That's what made scrapbooks great - kept all reusable block is a scrapbook, picked whichever I needed. Now I have to make a new Stack for every block - so it's basically all 1-block "stacks". Not much of a stack now, is it?

Pasting an entire scrapbook was easily possible with the FREE scrapbook display block from the marketplace.

IDEALLY when placing a scrapbook, a scree should come up showing the blocks with checkboxes next to each to select which to place. But anyway, stacks seems to have taken a HUGE step back in this regard.

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The BIGGEST BEEF though is that you would introduce this watered down version of scrapbook, claim to have kept scrapbook for legacy but REMOVED THE OPTION TO ADD FROM SCRAPBOOK! That's like saying - "We're replacing cars with tricycles, but you can still keep your car!" I sign up for the tricycle, only to find out that, oh, you're taking the keys.
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Andrey
andrew replied on at Permalink Reply
andrew
1. Disagree completely. When using the previous solution users had to understand the difference between a global scrapbook and a personal scrapbook, and choose which item a block was supposed to go into EVERY TIME they wanted to add a block to a personal scrapbook. Then, if they chose global scrapbook, they had to understand the difference between adding a "new copy" to the scrapbook or "aliasing the original" to scrapbook. And if they hadn't made any changes to the default install, the only other item in the dropdown list was just named "Global" ! Whatever changes have been made to scrapbooks during the transition into Clipboard and Stacks, making them more confusing is not one of them.

2. What if we made "Add Stack," when you clicked on it, open a new window with all the blocks in the stack, along with a button at the top that said "Add Entire Stack." Adding an individual block from the stack would basically be akin to going to the stack in the dashboard, adding it to your clipboard, pasting it from the clipboard into your site. Add Entire stack would work the way it does today. That gets back the ability to add individual blocks from a stack, but doesn't backtrack on the reduced complexity (since the user is already in the mode of "Adding from a stack.")
andreyman3d2k replied on at Permalink Reply
1. I've been working with C5 for years and I don't think I've know the difference between the personal/global. I just go to make a new scrapbook, and put blocks into it. Then I go to a page, paste from scrapbook. Is that one of them updates the blocks when a change is made to the scrapbook and the other doesn't?

Anyway, it seems like the issue you are having is with semantics, not functionality. I agree, the names could have been better-chosen, and some simple tooltips would have helped - but the functionality was there. It seems that to clear up confusion you just eliminated features.

2. The clipboard seems needlessly laborious...

I am on a page an I want to drop 3 blocks from the stacks. Most intuitive way from user POV is:
A. Click area -> Add from Stack -> Choose Stack
B. Stack contents is displayed, with checkbox next to each item (all pre-checked, if you like)
C. I uncheck the ones I don't need (or I use the super-handy 'uncheck all' at the top and check the 3 I need) - click Add.

Done.

If you want to add linking vs. embedding option to the above workflow, just add a per-checked checkbox to the pop-up that says "update these blocks when the stack is updated".

I can't imagine anything being simpler than that - and it seems to cover all possibilities?

Andrey
andrew replied on at Permalink Reply
andrew
Regarding #2, I agree. We wanted the stack functionality as it is to be done in time for 5.5.0 so we could show off global reordering of blocks, etc... but picking one block from a stack from the add stack UI totally makes sense and wouldn't be difficult to do. I have this on a list for the next update. Thanks for the feedback.
andreyman3d2k replied on at Permalink Reply
Thank you. I think this functionality would significantly improve stacks (as well as the ability to rename them and duplicate them - that would be great too).

In general, I would suggest having an additional tab in the "Add stack" screen for ADVANCED options, where you could have additional features, and add more over time(ex: checkbox to display blocks in random order - which would be great for a variable sidebar on a page).

MOST IMPORTANTLY however, I would just like to reiterate my frustration with the deceptive way in which you deprecated Scrapbook. To claim that you are keeping a feature for legacy, just to have the user find out that, yes, TECHNICALLY you did not lie, but the feature has been rendered useless -- that's not a good user experience, and completely unnecessary. Would have been much more sincere to just keep the 'add from scrapbook' functionality in place (with 'legacy' in parentheses) for at least a few version until there were no more issues with stacks.

Now I am stuck, Sisyphus-like, creating 'stacks' containing one block, KNOWING that I will be undoing all this work once the ability to add individual blocks from a stack comes in.

Thanks for taking the time to read and reply. Good to see senior members of C5 actively addressing issues in the community.

Andrey
wanderlust replied on at Permalink Reply
wanderlust
I have quite a few sites that I won't update because the scrapbook is missing. I am working on a new site now and trying to find the content that I saved to a clipboard is quite unintuitive. The folder doesn't exist and it is not possible to update a graphic that is used globally anymore.

When will you add scrapbook or the functionality of it back in? When is the new update coming out?
frz replied on at Permalink Reply
frz
stacks do what scrapbooks did before.
learn to love stacks, they'll love you back more.
unicomc5 replied on at Permalink Reply
Franz et al---you are stopping many of us from upgrading to this excellent 5.5 release, until this issue is solved. There's a big hole for all of us who have used scrapbooks, with no migration path. You're making all of our scrapbook blocks disappear, and we can't easily move them over to stacks without recreating them. I love the idea and concept of stacks, and if you're starting from scratch, it works well, but for those of us with existing sites, it's an impediment to migrating!

Lots of comments out here about this, I hope you'll listen and give us a migration path.

1. Maybe continue to give us Scrapbook access, Add from Scrapbook in the dialogues in addition to add from Stacks.
2. Give me some way to put a block on a page into a stack. This whole new clipboard concept doesn't seem to work, because I can't go to a stack and add from clipboard.

Help! We want to use 5.5 on all our sites!
zeker replied on at Permalink Reply
zeker
Hi Andrew. Regarding #2. Do you have any idea on when this update is to arrive? I'm sort of waiting for this to update the 2 500+ pags-sites I work on for a client. It will be an awful lot of work to put every block in a seperate stack, to work the same as it does now.
And we really want to update to 5.5 because 5.5 is wonderful.
Stating the obvious: stacks are great! It's just going from scrapbooks to stacks that is sort of a pain in the ***.
moosh replied on at Permalink Reply
moosh
Hi,

Scrapbooks have very usefull but a little complex in terms of organisation, that's right.

Stacks added the ability to insert entire set of blocks in a page and simplify the semantic, but simplifying the semantic this has reduce the features.

So I think we need to combine the both.

1/ No global/personnal scrapbook but only one semantic word : Stacks.

2/ We need to add stacks and put them into "Sets" for organisation, as FileSets.

3/ We need to have the ability ti rename a stack in "Stacks" section, without going in sitemap > check page system" > ...

4/ In front-end, when adding blockType "Stack", we need to have the ability to define if the stack instance is the original instance or if it's a copy. Why ? Because if we want a copy, we need to go in "Stacks" section in dashboard > click on stack > click block > copy to clipboard > come back to website > go edit mode > paste from clipboard. Too many clicks & path too long!

5/ Clipboard can still remain in the core for blocks which are not in a stack (for a faster copy/paste of a block between 2 pages)

6/ Clipboard must have ability to be cleared with only one click.

Voila!

I just would come back on point 4/ for a more accurate explanation.
Actually, I'm on a WebApp using C5 Power for my company.
This application will generate bids from predefined content.
So, I create a stack for each content.
In front-end, I create a new bid, add from stack, for example "Website development" with his price and description.
OK, but when I want to modify the description for a particular client, I can't without copy/paste from clipboard and for that, I need to do every time the same path to copy/paste...

Thanks
bendodge replied on at Permalink Reply
bendodge
Thank you so much for mentioning 3! I was stumped trying to rename a Stack.

Sitemap > Options > Show System Pages > Stacks > Properties is obtuse, but it's better than remaking it from scratch.
colin4255 replied on at Permalink Reply
colin4255
I absolutely hate stacks. Scrapbooks are much, much simpler to follow and I could organise them way better too. They make logical sense.

I find things take longer now. I cannot figure out how to make a stack, let alone use one, nor any detailed instructions about them. What we need is a way to seamlessly convert all our scrapbooks into stacks by pressing buttons. I will be beggared if I am going to re-create every scrapbook entry from scratch just so I can have it as a stack.

To me, this is a bug mistake - HUGE. You are behaving like Microsoft do. Give us all something we like, can understand, which makes sense especially to the more dimwitted of us. Let is all get used to using it, then, in an upgrade, change everything.

I have a number of sites with C5 - I have converted only one so far to the latest version and it is the only site I am going to convert for now. The others are much easier to edit left as they are.

Sorry, but 5.6.0.2 is not really a forward step.