Blocs 6 Plus - Interactions Manager - Features

General Discussion
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The recent Blocs email said the following:

"The biggest game changing feature we introduced with Blocs 6 Plus was the Interaction Manager.

This incredibly powerful new feature enables you to create custom interactions that enhance your website’s functionality without requiring additional code.

Since its introduction two weeks ago we have expanded the Interaction Manager to include new functionality …"

So far Scroll Y and Audio have been added.

My questions then are are as follows:

  1. Does or will the Developer API have access to the Interactions Manager for adding features?

  2. If not then is there a forum hashtag to use since it all seems to be coming from the core app with no outside access. #norm-interactions-manager-required-feature-request

Or what can be expected regarding those two questions given the following two statements.

Where do I submit my feature list or what is the API gateway to the Interactions Manager ?https://help.blocsapp.com/pleaseaddthefollowingaddtiontoblocsinteractionsmanager

:thinking: :wink:

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Nice conversation starter, I think the Interaction Manager is going to be a big talking point for Blocs as it expands and there is no doubt in my mind it will enable a multitude of new features for Blocs websites. In some respects, what we have right now, has already opened up the doors.

For example, being able to create a function that sets a cookie and can check for it’s existence. I’m not aware of another Mac Website Builder that lets you do that without using code.

No, we have no plans to do this. Custom Brics and Custom Interactions will remain separate.

Custom Brics
Custom Brics will continue to serve the customers who want to use a pre-designed solution made by a 3rd party, which has various pros and cons.

Custom Interactions
Custom Interactions will serve the customers who want to create this functionality themselves, again this approach has pros and cons.

It’s down to the user to decide which option serves them best for a particular scenario.

Custom Interactions in 2025
Right now the Interaction Manager is new and I’m sure there are some Blocs users who will scratch their heads thinking, “ok, what am I going to use this for?” :thinking:.

Our solution is to inspire those users with examples of what is possible, which is what we started with the Blocs Academy videos that launched with Blocs 6 a few weeks ago. With the exception of the mega menu tutorial, I’m not aware of another Website Builder on the Mac that enables users to build some of the functionality show in the example videos without using code or third party add-ons.

We will continue to add more examples next year showing off more use cases.

It’s still very early days for Custom Interactions so there is a lot of room for growth. But it’s important to remember the aim is to try and keep the Interaction Manager as easy to use as possible, this tool is intended for those who do not code. So if you know how to code JS, you will always find it limiting, regardless of how good we make it.

I mentioned prior to the launch that I would create a dedicated section of the forum for Custom Interactions, which I’ll do very soon.

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Ok, so it will all be coming solely from you within the core app. Understood. I’m curious to see it then get to the point of ‘web apps’ as you mentioned.

In the meantime <video> should be an easy addition the same as <audio> since the control spec is virtually one and the same.

You may also consider doing something for elevating the inbuilt Bootstrap Tabs given all the recent discussions and user needs. Guess in that regard, many former 3rd party Brics that are no longer available or supported could be considered.

It seems you will be having loads of fun building out features within the Interactions Manager for uses so they can have a no code approach.

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I also used the word may. But yeah, it’s more of a possibility with something like the Interaction Manager.

All of the new audio interaction stuff also works on video (self hosted).

Yeah I need to look into that.

Well, the Interaction Manager will not solve every problem. But it will solve some, hopefully a few years from now the idea of using Blocs without it will be a no go for some users. But, lots of fun building that out in the meantime :sweat_smile:

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You will probably likewise need to have expanded and ongoing correlated focused tutorials / bytes surrounding this new expansive feature of the Interactions Manager. All kinds of fun for you with this one.

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Yes, fortunately we have a fantastic member of the team who creates all of our videos, so he will be busy next year too :smiley:

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Boy, do us who do not know Code need many of these. :smiley:
This feature in Blocs 6 Plus has so many hidden gems.

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Hi

I’ve been using the interactions manager to achieve custom hide/show based on this TAP Revisited - #28 by chicuelo

There are a few things that I have found frustrating and they are all kinda related UI/UX issues.

Focus.

Clicking into the tiny little input areas and then moving your cursor so you can see the tiny little box immediately removes focus from the tiny little box.

Tiny Little Box

If you have more than a few characters to put into the input areas it is really annoying to scroll back and forward. So I thought I’d stretch out the size of the Interactions Manager window. That just left me with a big Interaction Manager window and tiny little input boxes.

Find / Replace

If you are doing highly repetitive work and have named IDs in a consistent manner it’s a real pain to find each and every ID and rename it, when Find ID name Replace ID name would make it a two second job.

Tab Control

Movement between fields is entirely mouse based which is a pain especially in light of the above.

Manager Window refresh

There seems to be a refresh bug in the interaction manager. If you duplicate an interaction then move it down the manager the name gets confused. If you open and rename the copied interaction sometimes the manager panel doesn’t refresh.

Auto sort of the Manager Window

Sort the interactions by name, or some categorisation of the manager window as it gets out of control quite quickly.

Otherwise it’s been great to do stuff that would otherwise require javascript.

There’s a few things that I’d find really useful like if a selector field had a value (useful for those Choose A B C or Other to then unhide and set required an open text field to explain other)

If / Else rather than just If.

Really useful, thanks

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Great feedback thank you.

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Hey @ZoomZoom,

We will be releasing an update for Blocs later today (6.1.4). It features a few improvements regarding some points you mentioned.

Focus
We have improved field focus, you should find it a lot more reliable in 6.1.4.

Tiny Little Box
We have added tool tips to fields which is a small step forward in making those small text fields easier to work with. More improvements coming in this area soon.

Tab Control
In 6.1.4 you can now tab forwards and backwards around Custom Interaction Fields.

Manager Window refresh
We have also fixed this issue.

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