Prior to creating this post, I spoke to a fellow Blocs user privately to see if my idea was worthy. Based on their reply, I believe it is, hence this post.
While I transition my non-responsive websites to Blocs, I still use another web design app to maintain those sites. That app has been around since 1998 and I’ve used it since 1999. My corporate sites built in it have been online since the summer of 2001 and most of the complex folder structure has been around for almost that long too. As such, many links are registered not only in Google but linked in various online articles, news sources, and many of our product dealers throughout Japan. So as I re-build my sites in Blocs, I’d like to maintain the existing folder structure instead of using dozens and dozens of redirects. As most of you know, building a folder structure is not a feature of Blocs yet, which is why I would like to officially propose it in this post.
Here’s a screenshot from the left sidebar of that other web design app I use, showing how I have my folder structure right now (the site is in Japanese, hence the page names you see):
Note that in addition to nested folders, I also am allowed to color page names in the sidebar, which is really nice when you have a very large site of many web pages and you want to quickly spot certain pages for editing. Size info of individual pages is also given at a glance, which is nice. Also note in the screenshot I have a “jp” folder that holds my Japanese files, and in another website document I have an “en” folder that contains English versions of all those same web pages. Other languages could be added by adding another set of folders. But because there are many web pages, you can see the need to keep the languages distinct in separate folders. This is also important when using something like Google Custom Search to index sites, and I index our English and Japanese sites separately.
There is a preference setting in that other web design app that allows me to choose how I want Assets handled:
- Placed along side their corresponding HTML files separately in each folder.
- Placed all in a single Assets folder at the root of the site.
- Placed in separate Assets folders within each folder of the site.
I currently have #1 chosen in my preferences.
Why is folder structure important? Well, if you think about the time I would need to spend in Blocs right now recreating that folder structure in light of the fact Blocs won’t create that folder structure for me, it is time consuming and bothersome at best. I’d need to figure out how to reconnect Assets and fix links – all a huge mess to do manually.
Naturally, those of you with sites amounting to only 5 pages or those of you starting from scratch in Blocs and not repurposing existing web sites made in other web design apps may not care so much about this folder structure feature. But at some point when you have large websites in Blocs, you may begin to care. That is the sentiment I received from one fellow Blocs user in particular when I privately messaged him.
And so there you have it. Folder structure (once the left sidebar bugs have been fixed) would be a very welcome addition to an already great web design app. Go Blocs!
–James