djay
commented
5 days ago Not sure this is the right place for it but this is an idea that tries to solve a few different things.
- navigating around blocks esp parents
- adding a block without selection being enabled. and as a secondary way
- quanta removing tabs on the sidebar
- just generally how to make containers less confusing.
The idea follows on from quanta design for tables, where cell settings are part of table settings but I've generalised it.
- All the settings of the current selected block and each of it's outer containers is shown on the sidebar at the same time.
- Top level block at the top to selected at the bottom
- Within each block section there can be collapsable sections
- if a container is selected then the last section is blocks navigator that lets you add, remove, reorder or open a sub block. It can be collapsed like any other section.
- or maybe removal can be moved into the subblock settings?
- this does allow for multiple named slots within one container
- Opening a sub block replaces this section with a block panel for this opened block. So it's at the bottom.
- this is the same level as the block title at the top of the sidebar so there is no indentation. The more levels the sidebar just gets longer.
- selecting the subblock on the frontend does the same but will scroll the sidebar down to this section
- closing the subblock selects the parent
- and shows the container subblock selection again
- if you scroll down, possibly the block heading could stick at the top of the screen to make it easier to jump to the parent?
- Some blocks might not have any settings other than subblocks.
- we can possibly not show the parent when the child is selected/open because it will be empty. closing the child when open the parent anyway.
- Table is kind of a special case because we generally want to add columns instead of cells to each row.
- There should be a way to add custom actions to a block that know about subblock selection and can act on it.
- so the table block can then have special add row before, add row after, add column before, add column after etc buttons.
- this can appear on both the quanta toolbar and in the table settings.
- This subblock navigator would appear on the page settings also since the page is itself a container
- but in this case opening the subblock doesn't leave the page settings at the top. instead opens that block as the top level.
- it would just get too much page the page settings always at the top of the sidebar I think
- There should be a way to add custom actions to a block that know about subblock selection and can act on it.
Here are some mockups
TODO:
- where does remove block go?
- should there be a quanta toolbar menu replicated in the sidebar
- currently the add in the sidebar means you have to go back to the parent, add at the top and then move it. You can "add after" current block like you can with the frontend add button. Is that a problem?
- in a table, if you did add a cell to a row, this should automatically create a column instead? should this kind of customisation be baked in or can setup rules like this yourself?
- the close button for the top level block and for a subblock have different meanings. For the top it means close the sidebar and leave the selection unchanged. for the subblock it means select the parent.
- maybe use a different symbol? like a back icon?
- if you edit the title of an accordian, does it change selection to the accordian and lose selection of the inner block?
- ie can you change parents with selection switching to just the parent
Problem
Need a way to get to the settings of blocks, esp the parent in cases where it's either hard to click on teh parent or frontend block selection is not implemented.
We need something that works well on mobile and is not confusing for the user to work out what they are looking at, and how to get to the settings they want.
TODO: merge with #146
Example blocks