Blocs 4.3 Beta Build 6

Hey everyone, here is Blocs 4.3 beta build 6. This release contains a range of tweaks and improvements.


Blocs Store Integration :shopping_cart:
You can now find store products and install them directly within Blocs. Products show up with normal search terms or use the search term blocs.store to show the 50 most recent products for the category (Brics in Bric Bar, Blocs in Bloc Bar and Page Templates in New Page window). Most 3rd party developers still need to prepare their products for inclusion in in-app search, so some products don’t show yet.

This feature can be disabled in main preferences :innocent:.

Localisation :netherlands: :it: :portugal:
Hallo, Ciao, Olá! Our none native English speaking users will be happy to hear Blocs now speaks Italian, Dutch and Portuguese. You may notice a bad translation, some text cropping or another little interface oddity. Please let me know if you spot something and it’ll be fixed up in no time!

Quick Gallery and Carousel Creation :rocket:
You can now select and drag multiple images from either the Asset manager or the MacOS Finder to quickly create galleries or Carousels.

Drag Text To Canvas :spiral_notepad:
You can now drag text from word processors directly onto the Blocs design canvas to add new text Brics or replace the content of a Bric that is already placed on the page.

Quick Preview :arrow_forward:
Right click the preview button to quickly preview your site in any installed browser.

Visual Impairment Filters :eye:
Blocs now has support for visual impairment filters which you can enable to test your sites for visual impairment accessibility issues.

Show navigation drop downs on hover :computer_mouse:
You can now enable navigation drop downs to auto open when the mouse cursor is over them. (Only works on classic navigation drop downs on mouse/trackpad controlled computers).

Support for Brics within Custom Brics :onion:
The developer API now supports a new html tag (<bric_container></bric_container>) that lets any custom Bric have other Brics placed within it. Just add the above code to a custom Bric and it will gain a new input area that you can add Brics into.

Have fun testing!


Download Blocs 4.3 Beta Build 6

Don’t forget to hard reload your browser, if the beta doesn’t show!


Known Issues
There are various known issues with Blocs 4.3 that I plan to address during the text phase, so please be aware I already know about these issues.

Blocs Store Integration
Currently installed custom Blocs may show duplicates when you search the store for Blocs.

Visual Impairment Filters
This feature uses SVG filters to apply the visual impairment filters, unfortunately SVG filters don’t play well with the Safari webkit engine (which the Blocs canvas uses) so you will see lag when you apply a filter and scroll. Disabling the filter back to none will return scroll speed.

I’m hoping Apple fix this soon, so please bare with it.

Support for Brics within Custom Brics
I definitely have a few more grey hairs after implementing this, it’s been a real challenge. It’s still a bit rough in areas and you will very likely see selection issues if you nest Tables within Tables or Custom Brics within custom Brics within Custom Brics.

I’ve tested it a lot in house but I’m still able to break things, so developers please don’t roll out any products that depend on it until it’s rock solid.

6 Likes

Adding new fonts no longer requires a restart of Blocs.

YaY :tada: :balloon: :champagne: :cocktail:

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Hi, @Norm. Any change Bootstrap icons will be baked :man_cook: into Blocs at some point? I know it’s fairly easy adding them but cooked :woman_cook: into Blocs would be awesome!

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image

A very important and helpful addition – thank you, Norm!

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Can’t find it.

Exactly what I say when trying to Preview my Hosted Background Images in Blocs 4.3 under High Sierra! :frowning:

But the good news for you is that the solution is as simple as enabling BS5. Then you will see this:

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Oh, I see.
It’s only with BS5.
Thanx James.

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Hi @Norm, is it the right time for 4.1.1 users to upgrade or do you recommend that we wait a little. Especially those of us who are currently working on projects using 4.1.1

We don’t have any reports of major issues with the current release (4.2.2) other than some minor cosmetic issues which are already patched in 4.3.

There is no obligation to migrate to Bootstrap 5 with newer versions of Blocs.

I would just suggest keeping a back up and taking care to test your site after export, which I would recommend regardless.

I hope that helps.

3 Likes

I myself am still using 4.1.1 as my daily driver because of 2 showstopper bugs that affect me under High Sierra. (Hosted Background images don’t appear in Preview, and I need to delete Portuguese in order to see the English UI.) But for the rest of you who aren’t on High Sierra, so long as you don’t switch to BS4, you’re experience in 4.3 should be largely the same as 4.1.1.

When it comes to migrating to BS5 though, I am a bit concerned about doing that right now. That’s coming from my own experience with past Betas. Had I migrated to BS5 and not had a backup, when a new beta came out that fixed some BS5 migration-related bugs, those migration fixes wouldn’t fix my BS5 document because it had already been migrated. And in that case, I would be in a big world of hurt!

In other words, if you migrate to BS5 and then some migration-related bug is found, a fix of that migration bug would only help people who are still using BS4 and who will later migrate. Once you have migrated, all bugs that occurred at the time of migration are burned into your BS5 document with no hope of being fixed. Again, I’m talking about “migration” bugs here, not general bugs that don’t happen during migration.

1 Like

I agree too.

If I am doing something basic then I will possibly try BS5, but for bigger projects and migration
of my other projects its still a little away from my comfort zone at the moment with a few things not right yet etc.

It’s great its here and I totally get why this is now here - but I need time for bric developers to migrate over too and for Norm to get some of the features back, but once its all ready - it will be great.

1 Like