Blocs 4.3 Beta Build 9

Blocs Beta
#1

Hey everyone, here is Blocs 4.3 beta build 9. This release contains more improvements and fixes.

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 and have a great weekend! :beers: :raised_hands:

Download Blocs 4.3 Beta Build 9

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.

5 Likes
#2

@Blocs_User
I just want to say thanks for the Terminal command you gave me in the b8 comments section. I opened b9 today in English, without having to delete any of the other languages inside the app package. Great!

2 Likes
#3

You’re quite welcome @JDW I’m glad it fixed the issue you were having. Hopefully your “hosted assets” issue will get resolved in some way as well. ;—)

2 Likes
#4

As do it! There’s actually nothing I hope for more these days. Seriously, that’s the only bug that prevents me from upgrading from version 4.1.1. And the fact that Hosted Background Images display fine in Preview under 4.1.1 on MacOS High Sierra indicates that when using 4.2 and higher, the same should also be true, especially if I’ve not migrated to BS5. So this is indeed a bug that really needs to be fix. I suspect it may have some untold consequences in Blocs even when Blocs is used on Mojave or higher versions of MacOS, even though most people cannot see those negative effects very clearly.

#5

@Norm

Below are browser Preview screenshots that show the differences between Blocs 4.1.1 and newer versions of Blocs (all versions newer than 4.1.1 have the same problem). Differences highlighted in YELLOW.

GOOD:

image
image1245Ă—1586 586 KB

BAD:

image
image1245Ă—1586 470 KB

Note on the right, in the Resource Scope Chain, you can see the part I highlighted in Yellow called “Initiated.” I only see that when the page is generated by Blocs 4.1.1. It’s missing when newer versions of Blocs are used to generate the Preview. The background image is also missing from the left side too.

Steps used to create the above:

  1. Create a new document in 4.3b9.
  2. Create a new Column.
  3. With that Bloc selected, click Image in the right sidebar to add a background image.
  4. Click + in the Asset Manager and choose Add Hosted Asset.
  5. Copy/paste this example URL and then click the Add button: https://kiramek.com/img/Cars_At_Dusk2f_2560X586_Q35.jpg
  6. Click on the graphic to apply it. You should then see it appear on the Canvas. The very fact it appears on the Canvas proves the link to the Hosted asset is working fine!
  7. Now add a paragraph so that you have at least some content in that Bloc to display when you Preview.
  8. Preview (in Blocs or browser) and note that the background image doesn’t appear! That is the bug.

Thank you.

#6

The ?545 numbers you see are supposed to be different. That’s how cache burst works and forces the asset to be reloaded.

Re the other ongoing saga….

Really??

image
image828Ă—381 49.3 KB

1 Like
#7

I highlighted all differences in the page code regardless of relevance so it’s easy to see what ALL the differences are. That was deliberate on my part.

Regardless of what OS is supported, there are times when bugs that show visibly in one OS but not in others have unintended consequences in all OS’s. I cannot say if that is the case for this bug, but it certainly bugs me enough to hope it gets fixed REGARDLESS of the fact High Sierra is NOT SUPPORTED. No doubt it’s only a single line of code that has an error in it, such that High Sierra is annoyed by the error whereas other OS’s are not. But an error is an error, so fixing it is actually a good thing. Remember too that 4.1.1 doesn’t have this issue at all.

If it doesn’t get fixed, the world won’t end. I’ll just be sticking with 4.1.1 until such a time (not in the near future) that I upgrade my OS. And of course, I will still beta test on the side too. Newer versions of Blocs just won’t be my daily driver.

#8

@JDW I noticed a few issues with the two screen shots, the favicon rel tag includes the cache bust and the body tag has an empty class tag.

These have now been patched in 4.3 beta build 10 :grinning:

I’ve no idea if this will address the issue, as I don’t have access to HS, but they are fixed anyway.

Something to check, is the bg-Cars-At-Dusk class present in the style.css file?

1 Like
#9