Although these 2 sites are not yet completed, your comments are greatly appreciated.
First site is for a jewel designer. Currently awaiting pictures with better resolutions. The site can be viewed here. Link removed to complete the site. Edit December 17, '19
Second site is for a cat club. Also awaiting some clients pictures to finish the site. The site is in French but I am currently creating the translation pages for German and English. Only the Welcome page in German is so far available in addition to all the French pages.The site can be viewedhere. Link removed to complete the site. Edit December 17, '19
Very clean and beautiful website. It took too long to load though. Translation did not work on the opening page.
What part of your site is using CMS? Is that area for your client to edit?
Hi @PeteSharp, I have bin testing Volt-CMS as wel and I also have one site live since a few days. I have to say Volt-CMS of @Jannis looks very promising for the near future. The setup is very easy, updating a blocs site is like we know it, a very nice thing is that if you preview your blocs site, Volt-CMS is showing the CMS content live, so its nice when you develop.
We where testing the last days and @Jannis made some updates which was very easy to install. I have bin using other cms, but that was not so easy to setup like Volt-CMS. Until now there is only a gallery and a content bloc. The core of Volt-CMS is working fine so I am sure there will be more to come. ( hoping he will make a blog functionality as well )
I am happy with Volt-CMS, and my client, as a remote user, as well.
You can see the site here
The Photo gallery is with Volt-CMS and on the front page the guest reviews is one content bloc of Volt-CMS
I believe your comments pertain to the second site the Cat Club. Like mentioned in my initial posts the translations are not lived yet. Only got one page fully transalated for German. It is quite a large site. You however can view the French version with the “Bienvenue” button.
I’ll check again for the loading time. Was it one page in particular ?
With respect to CMS content it’s being used almost on every page, for images, paragraphs, some of the photo galleries and even the tables. The blue settings icon left on the landing page will be for the client to access the edit area which you can already see the login page when clicking on it.
I must say I am quite impressed with Volt CMS. This was exactly what I was looking for. A CMS that would not modify the design/structure but allow clients to make changes to texts, images, tables, etc…
Like @sandy mentioned, Jannis @Jannis has already made several changes to accommodate our requests and the automatic update process is working like a charm.
Additionally, I see it very simple for a client to use but as well as for the designer.
I have been able to also directly paste in tables under a code section of the content bric with Blocs keeping all the styling. As I see it the content Bric can be used for many different things. I see Volt as being already very flexible. Perhaps also because I tend to always find workarounds when there seems to be an obstacle.
You can define all the classes you want in advance in Blocs and make them available within the CMS edit screens and, as far as I have been able to use it, you can also type in Bootstrap original classes and they work too. Difficult to explain all this in writing, but I can tell you I am really happy so far especially with only approximately one week of use.
I have added Volt to 2 sites feeling confident to have my clients use it and will be using it for 3-4 additional sites in the coming weeks.
Volt also has many languages available from start although I did spot some funny wording in French which I will in turn ask Jannis to correct.
I believe Volt is a great addition to Blocs and do hope many other designers will join the adventure.
@KBConcepts, the purpose of the CMS is to be client friendly, so they can to some degree manage their own content. Blocs doesn’t give the client any ability to edit their content remotely and the key feature here is without breaking the design.
Put it simple: Blocs is a website builder while a CMS is a content management system.
Designers use Blocs to design a website but, generally speaking, it is your client that provides the content of the site, the texts, the images, the logo, etc. (true sometimes they rely on us for this as well).
Once you have created your client website, what happens if he wants to change a picture, modify some text, etc. ?
Well, he will have to go back to you for modifications and you will have to re-upload the site to the server.
With a CMS, you do not need to re-upload the site and foremost the client can make the modifications without your involvement and directly from any browser and any location where he has access to the internet. At the same time, he cannot modify the design structure of the website. As a designer you are responsible of the design but not ultimately of the content.
Just imagine a client of yours could modify the structure of a website you created and marketed as a professional reference and he screws it up…
Blocs is not a CMS.
If the site is my own site and I want to make a modification to the content I will always have to re-upload the site once I made the modification. With a CMS, I do not need to use Blocs and-re-upload unless I want to make a modification to the design structure.
Views expressed are only my opinions, but you did ask!
The menu text items and the hamburger are not aligned. You need to add some padding to the top of the hamburger to drop it down a bit. I’d also increase the gap between the hamburger and the last text item.
The hamburger appears to only open a form. Not sure why you are using a hamburger in this instance.
Once the menu items can become hard to read depending on the background image. The menu background changing to a blurred background on scroll is pretty cool but gets in the way of usability, so I’d drop it and just go with a solid colour.
As the content below the fixed image on the home page scrolls up it’s background is the same as that of the fixed image, so in my opinion doesn’t look right. I’d make that content area background a colour (not white). See image.
Same for the image below the above mentioned content area.
Some of the content areas have a small “down” icon which when clicked scroll you up.
The header area on the Les Bijoux feels like it should be full height, or smaller than it is. At it’s present height it doesn’t feel right to me.
On the same page you have scroll down arrows on some content areas, not others. This needs to be more consistent.
On the same page there are too many fixed images. It feels overkill. Lose about 60% of them.
On the actualites page the scrolling text is far too fast. IMO this sort of thing is dated and doesn’t have any place on a modern site. I’d remove it.
The scrolling in effect of the text at the top of the same page serves no purpose. It seems to be there just for the sake of being there. I’d remove it.
This page also have a different design and layout to the others, which isn’t consistent.
The exposition page has yet another design layout. I’d pick over design layout for the entire site and stick with it. As it is, it feels like the site has been changed and adapted over time with no thought to consistent design.
The press page has a different “down” arrow to all the others. Again, lacks consistency.
The scroll effects on this page are overkill.
Please don’t take these comments the wrong way. When people ask for comments I’m happy to give them, but they are only my opinion and not meant to be harsh, I just believe in being honest with people.
I understand these are all about the first site not the second one.
This is not a hamburger at all. It is just a temporary link to connect to Volt-CMS so I can modify the content online and remotely. Once the site is completed, it is obviously removed.
That’s true, but then you can scroll a little bit further up or down. I think it would be a shame to remove the blur. Therefore, I have increased the blur and shadow for better readability.
LOL actually the scroll is set to next bloc and in my mind next was downwards.
The bloc which contains the icon is bloc-4. But it appears that because I had moved the original next bloc upwards, i.e., bloc-5, it considers it as the next bloc (which actually makes sense I believe). Good to know that for Blocs “scroll to target next bloc” can also mean going upwards. Thanks for spotting this one.
[quote=“SteveB, post:17, topic:8969”]
The header area on the Les Bijoux feels like it should be full height, or smaller than it is. At it’s present height it doesn’t feel right to me. [/quote]
Strange. Just checked and exactly the same height as all the others.
I disagree. They are included only when needed.
This is a bric from @Norm and among the latest 3 Brics released on the Blocs Store. I do believe it serves its purpose here. However, I have slowed it down a bit further but cannot slow it more from the original speed options available.
These are not fixed images but galleries to showcase the products.
Obviously, I totally disagree as I do not feel there is an inconsistency in design throughout the site. Furthermore, does not make sense to have like you suggest the same layout through all pages as each page serves a different purpose.
I do have the impression that for some pages you only scrolled through without taking into consideration the context of the page or it purpose as there are no comments on the modals nor the galleries/lightbox.
That said it may be difficult to understand a site’s elements purpose when in a different language.
When I ask for people to comment on the sites I design, I know exactly what I might get in return and I totally assume. People provide comments and I take in or not their suggestions, my choice.
Thank you once again for yours.
Why should I ?
I know your comments only reflect your opinion and it is not because you may be honest that you are right or hold the ultimate truth.
All the sites I build are tailor-made no cheap templates. Time consuming but more rewarding.
I would appreciate your comments on my other site, if you have time.
@MDS Thank you for taking the time to explain this. It’s it the best explanation I’ve heard. The way you explained how Blocs works is how I thought it was done. I’m still in learning mode. Looks like I’ll have to delve into CMS. Sounds like it same lots of time.
Slow speed ahead though for me I’ve heard of too many issues with CMS & Blocs.
@MDS I didn’t comment my thoughts on the sites because I realise your still refining them. The first site is looking a lot tighter since you first posted. I’m still having the odd loading issue, it’s hanging for a time on the preloader (personally I would ditch the preloader). No one else is mentioning the load hanging so it could be a server geographic thing? I’m in New Zealand.
There is some odd spacing issues on a smaller breakpoint (I’m using an iPad) especially on the Les Bijoux page. Mainly just some blocs having massive (excessive for the smaller breakpoint eg entire screen of white space) padding and others being tighter. It’s coming together nicely though.
to showcase the products.